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This is my argument The reason why people have a passion is because they believe that they can change something and that it is important. In fact, all emotions are true in such a way. Emotions are simply involuntary responses to our rational observations. A child observes what he is good at and that is how a passion develops. It is very obvious to a child. Everyone as a child had figured it out, but not many people actually followed their passion. Since all passions are rational, then if society is rational, following one’s passion will lead to prosperity. However, this is not the case with our current society. If I want to become a philosopher in North Korea, my prospects are very low or I will not make enough money to survive. This would never happen in a free society because passions are always valuable. However, state intervention prevents the pursuit of an individual’s rational self-interests. It subdues free will. There was a man who did a major in philosophy but who after regretted it because he hadn’t been able to make money from it. It as at this point that people break with their passions. He concluded that passions are not necessarily good and he implicitly accepted nihilism rather than recognising that evil was done unto him. It makes it hard for him to recognise it since sophism is state sponsored in philosophy departments. The majority of people share a similar story. Whether it is coercion from the state, or their parents, or their peers, an adult or child is in some way rejected for following their passions and the adult or child concludes that he cannot trust his emotions. This is the very essence of evil. It is why people did not trust the invisible hand of the free market for tens of thousands of years. Essentially, their self-esteem was so destroyed that they did not trust their own rational faculty. It is the greatest contradiction that ever existed. A virtuous man would find a work-around. He knows that his life is meaningless without passion. He knows that if he were to look back at his life without following his passion, he would regret it and wonder what could have been. There is no alternative for him. Every action we make is motivated by emotion. A person cannot simply think and do. They must think until they feel that they can do. An artificial line has been created between emotions and thoughts. Emotions simply are an expression of our deepest and truest thoughts that we may not even be conscious of. It is analogous to the arbitrary distinction between qualia and meaning. We see red because we associate it with everything else that is red. A person void of passion then, is a robot without free will, following the instructions of others without even being consciously aware of it. So, the virtuous man has no rational choice other than to find alternatives to the best of his ability. This does not mean that the virtuous man will be unsatisfied. The passion arises only from what can be done. If man finds that his passion is unreachable, his passion will naturally change. So, the virtuous man is a force that cannot be stopped by anyone or anything. It is as clear as sunlight what his objective is. A rock cannot turn into a tree, nor can man change his neurological predispositions, particularly once he becomes aware of them. Even if a man is destroyed for following his passions, he will never be the same. He will always be at ease, because he knows what must be done so he will inevitably build himself back up. He is the man who works. But if a man does not immerse into his passions, he will always live a shallow life not knowing what he could have been. “Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it” – Lao Tzu.

Here's my argument: Arguments that appeal to the emotions of other people are valid arguments. Why? Because they CAN be used to convince people, which is the purpose of an argument. The problem is that Emotional Arguments often violate other clear rules of philosophy, but they can be constructed to actually point to the truth. Thank you for reading, let me know if you have any ideas or comments below.

I wanted it to be over. All the lies and manipulation. I really though after elections it will be different. I watched this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhU8wJ3UZww and went on twitter (accountless) to check it myself ... clicked a few Twits and almost all coments are negative. Are we really being emotionally manipulated ? Am I the only one with emotional roller coaster? I know MSM is fake and lies, but I got a sense that certain forces are pushing and paying shills to go to non MSM sites to spread negativity and lies. I spent some time lurking on 4chan the last year ... and according to some people on 4chan. The board is under siege. Before election they claimed it was organization CTR (Correct the record) and now they are rebranded as CREW. Sometimes I feel that FDR forum is the last place with no paid shills lurking and spreading lies. Is it just me ? Can anyone of you guys have similar experiences on other social platforms ?

I'm going through a critical time in my maturity. I am 19 years old. I'm experiencing things I've never done before. I'm finding out how to interact with the world and what is appropriate. I found this show much earlier. I started listening when I was 16 years old. Iv'e listened to at least a 1000 shows by now. I am an anarchocapitalist, I am an atheist, I have no unchosen obligations, and I'm very happy with the people around me. Am I happier now? No, I'm more depressed. How should this be possible? I think I made a grave mistake... I have a bunch of different emotions running through my head. It's these emotions that reflect my desires, that is, the true self. Rather than accepting that I have no free will over these emotions, I tried to rationalise them using logic. I tried to justify my behaviour. Should I kiss her? Is that in line with monogamy? What should my career be? Is that in line with UPB? Can white lies be justified? Do I have a moral responsibility to inform others about philosophy? The list could keep going on... I believe what I have done is conflate morality with the true self. When Stefan speaks, it is kind of assumed that you are a functioning human being who knows what makes you happy. For example, if someone calls in with a very particular topic about something happening recently in their life, it's unlikely that they will delve into self-knowledge, because if that was the problem, then they would most likely bring that up. Topics such as, how many times a week should you have sex or is it okay to drink alcohol don't come up. These are, catagorically speaking, aesthetic questions, and only now do I realise that these aesthetics are completely uncontrollable and subject to the true self. Morality attempts to dissolve what impedes upon the true self, rather than justifying the true self. It is impossible to escape the true self. If you try to rationalise your behaviour, you will inevitably rationalise your emotions, and when you start rationalising your emotions you will fail because emotions aren't subject to being universal. So you will create these theories which will try to attempt to explain your behaviour and feel intuitive. For example, men make bigger risks in gambling when a woman who is on her period is standing next to them rather than a woman who is not on her period. This level of behaviour is far below anything the conscious mind can percieve. The man might justify his behaviour with these complex theories such as it is moral to bet more when a woman is nearby because it makes her feel good and that is an exchange of value, or some other weird theory like that. He won't ever understand why he really is behaving the way he is. (Please pay attention to this example, it summarises my whole points ^) I believe it's my wanting to justify my behaviour that lead me to this show in the first place. I have always been obssesed with philosophy. Albeit, it has not made me happier. I feel I am becoming more detached from my true self as these rationalisations start overwhelming my pure emotions. This insight into myself is huge. Please don't mistake this as a criticism of any sort. From an intellectual standpoint, I am grateful to learn what I have learned. Even if I have used philosophy to bury my true self, I know it is also a part of my true self and a part of my inquisitive nature. That part will stay with me, and I'm sure that it will prevent myself from coming in contact with toxic, manipulative people in the future. So what now? I have a number of big opportunities ahead of me. I believe these opportunities have actually driven me to come to this realisation about myself and write this post. A way of my unconscious mind sort of saying, "Hey, these decisions are important. Are you sure you know what you are doing?". Thanks, unconscious mind. I will go head first into these opportunities, and I will allow my emotions to guide me. I have learned that it is perfectly safe (and necessary) to do so as long as I follow my moral principles on a very strictly, moral level. Forget applying it to the aesthetics. I am very, very lucky meet the people I have met, and have the opportunities that I've been given. It should not be squandered. It is not a coincidence that I am where I am. It is not a coincidence that I have befriended the people I have befriended. It isn't a coincidence that I'm doing the course I am doing. My true self was nudging me the entire time and I have just made it a struggle for myself. This is how I know I am on the right path, and it's okay to let go.

Hi guys and girls, Tl;DR I've been in a relationship for the past 2 months. We use RTR to communicate constantly and this makes our conversations very emotionally intense. Some hurts and red flags have come up (I think on both ends) but she brought up some of hers after we had already started dating and having sex, and due to the nature of the hurts and the fact that she didn't tell me upfront (misled me for one of them) it's been very difficult emotionally for me to recover from that hurt. Specifically, the worst red flag/hurt was around the recency of her breakup with her ex. We started talking (we met online on a dating website) in the first week of December and she had told me that she broke up with her ex in November, but that she had essentially started grieving the end of the relationship back in September and it was just a protracted breakup. Even then I thought 2 months was way too short for a 1.5 year relationship, but I was more or less okay with it. 5 weeks into the relationship, around the end of January, it came out that she had broken up with her ex just one week before we started talking, and that she had been having sex with him until the last day of the relationship. Clearly she could not have been getting over him in any sense of the word. After some talking she admitted and took responsibility for the misleading. We're not sure it was a conscious effort at the time. She understands why I'd naturally assume that if someone is "getting over" a relationship they're not actively having sex with the person. There was also no other reason for her to cite September except to make it seem as though the breakup period was longer. Is this a dealbreaker-level red flag? Should I break up? There are tremendously good things about her and this relationship that probably more than balance things out, but sometimes I feel like the red flag is something I should break up over. For more (and a summary of the good and bad) please read more. There are also many confounding variables, like that I find intimacy and relationships difficult and often terrifying, and I could be looking for reasons to break up because of that, also. Or that I recently deFOO'ed. I would greatly appreciate if people read as much of the story as possible. I know it's long but I'm also afraid that people will comment and judge without full information. Introduction I've recently entered into a new relationship (December of 2015) and there are some red flags and issues that have been coming up which I really want some advice or just a third party perspective on. Normally I would go to my friends (who all live abroad), but partly through my fault for neglecting them because of the time I've spent with my girlfriend, it's been very hard to actually get to any Skype calls. Hopefully I'll have one this weekend with one of my friends though. My friends have not been very successful with relationships and so taking relationship advise from them feels a bit like reading a diet book written by a fat man. Primarily though I feel like I've been avoiding them as a way of avoiding important information about this relationship. A part of me fears that they'd tell me I should break up if they knew everything. Having said which, my girlfriend has been supportive of me contacting them, and when I told her just now that I wanted to post on this forum she was encouraging of that, too! She said that either way I need more information and a third perspective and she too was curious what people would say. I think a part of me is also scared of people telling me that the red flags and hurts aren't that big of a deal, because then all of my triggers around intimacy and closeness with another human being would set off. I'm going to try and be balanced and fair to both the good and bad aspects of the relationship. Backstory We met online through a dating site in the first week of December. After about a week of texting we moved to texting on Skype and then maybe within a week after that we had our first Skype video call. It lasted 8 hours. I've never spoken to someone for so long in my life! I easily get bored of people in general and being an introvert I reach social exhaustion levels very quickly, but this was different, I didn't want the conversation to end. Since then we've been communicating a LOT. The logistical complication is that I live in the UK and she lives in the US. We decided the Christmas holidays were a good opportunity for both of us to meet in person, especially as I was getting furloughed and had a few extra holiday days, so we both flew to NY (a "neutral" location). We decided to save on costs by getting a shared AirBnB and also because we didn't want to say goodbye to each other at night. We had decided that sleeping together (I mean literally sleeping, not sex) was a possibility but if either of us didn't feel comfortable there was a couch as an option. We setup some sexual boundaries: we could basically do anything except actual intercourse but we'd only do what both of us felt comfortable with. Bottom line is that by night 3 we had failed, there was way too much sexual tension and we both have pretty high sex drives, so we had sex. From then until the end of the trip we probably had sex averaging 2-3 times a day. I think on some level we both kind of hoped it would happen. We saw each other again last week. My girlfriend came to the UK this time to visit me and we spent 9 whole days together. Right now our tentative plan is for her to move here in March or more likely April as she wants to quit her job and not live with her parents anymore and I'm bound by a contract that doesn't expire until 14 months from now (breaking it costs a ridiculous sum of money...). The Good I'll start with the great things about this relationship and my girlfriend: We constantly communicate with RTR and have done since day one. Actually since before we were committed to each other. This was largely my doing - I introduced the concept and constantly communicated my feelings and asked her about hers, and she reciprocated and loved the idea. She's ordered the book and is reading it. We split all of our costs half-half. When I came to NY and my flight was more expensive than hers, she paid for the AirBnB in its entirety to help balance that cost out. She wears little to no makeup. She also doesn't wear high heels to make her butt stick out. She's a minimalist, constantly downsizes, doesn't buy useless crap, and saves a very large portion of her paycheck every month. She embodies all the virtues I seek in others and strive for in myself: honesty, curiosity, compassion, kindness, integrity, and courage. She's not perfect of course and sometimes falls short, as do I, but she really strives towards them. She doesn't drink alcohol, smoke, or take drugs. A complete teetotaler, just like me. People like that are rare, even within the FDR community. She loves the idea of peaceful parenting! I'm not sure if she knew the terminology but from the beginning she came into the relationship with the idea that she'd never hit her (our) kids. That we should be respectful of their needs, treat them like people with feelings, etc. She's agnostic/atheist after being brought up very religious in Texas. She de-converted 2 years ago. I hadn't felt safe crying with another human being since I was 10. I haven't just felt safe crying with my girlfriend, I've felt safe weeping with her, and she handled it beautifully. This was trust she built up. If you had asked me 3 months ago when I thought I might feel safe crying in front of another person, I would have said 10 years to never. Following my example (and because of some of the revelations/realizations in the next section), she has actually committed to doing therapy. She's done two sessions and has another one booked for next week. She's listened to some podcasts and videos by Stef, read "On Truth", and generally done a lot of wisdom-gaining and self-knowledge since we've been together. We're incredibly open and honest in our communication, with very few exceptions (see below). She's the first and only person I've ever enjoyed having sex with (not that I have much experience - 2 other women). We're constantly curious about each others' feelings and are empathetic towards each other. When we're feeling disconnected or not empathetic we both tell the truth about it, we don't pretend to feel things we're not feeling and we admit/recognize when we're intellectualizing. We look out for each others' needs and highlight when the other person could be self-sacrificing (e.g. me staying up late to talk to her due to time zone differences and therefore losing sleep). She's very intelligent. I feel like she's my equal and this makes our conversations endlessly engaging and interesting. She's painfully aware of the discrimination boys face growing up in terms of emotional acceptance and abuse, and that men face in courts, in the media, etc. Moreover, she first broached this topic, not me. I would feel safe marrying and having children with her and knowing she'd never abuse the system in case of a divorce for money or custody. She's fit and healthy, and does a good amount of exercise. I do a fair bit too, and we have some good exercise plans together! The Bad There have been a number of hurtful things that she's done. The first to come up were mean or cruel "joke"-like comments, except they weren't funny to me and they were hurtful. I'm a sensitive person and do not at all have a thick skin, nor do I want to, least of all in an intimate relationship. These were not intentional or conscious and when I pointed them out to her, sometimes after some convincing, she realized why they were hurtful and has since made a lot of effort (and success) in stopping or at least greatly reducing the frequency of these comments. I think in time they will stop completely. Verbal abuse can be very triggering for me and still now I feel anxious in conversations because I don't know when an attack might be coming. It's completely random and not on purpose from her end. This is the environment she grew up in and I'm challenging it. But it's getting better. One time I was punished for my empathy. When I expressed a great deal of empathy for the pain she felt during a medical procedure in the past, she lashed out and said "Well maybe you shouldn't be in the same room when I give birth to a child then". This was tremendously hurtful because she was both threatening to deprive me of that opportunity and punishing me for empathizing with her. Later on we realized and it was confirmed in therapy that she was basically pushing me away because she felt uncomfortable with how much I cared about her. She has since apologized many times for this, recognized how hurtful it was, brought it up in her first therapy session, etc. Moreover since then (there was another medical procedure recently that I went with her to) she has felt very comfortable with me being there for her and her pain. She has a very dissociated relationship with her pain in general because of her history of child abuse. But she's actually actively working on it now. The recency of her breakup with her ex. It's in the TL;dr above. She's had just one week to process and grieve over her previous breakup and she misled me about how long that was and presented the relationship as basically over 2 months earlier, when really she was still having sex with her ex of 1.5 years until the last day. This feels like a dealbreaker type of red flag. For more information, this is the only ex she's had that she's had a sexual relationship with. The last few times they had sex she actually cried during and suspects her ex never even noticed. They were not emotionally connected at all and yet she was the one who pushed for the sex more than him. Perhaps the worst thing is that she never thought these two details (the recency of the sex and the crying during sex) were red flags and bad experiences worth mentioning. She never hid them directly, I found out just by asking, but she never came forward because she didn't realize how much of a problem that is. A few weeks ago, her ex texted her and asked if she wanted to meet up (as they had vaguely agreed on before their breakup), and her response was hurtful. She told him she had a new boyfriend and didn't want to meet up right now. The "right now" made me feel even more like a rebound or replacement as if she were trying to line him up for a possible future meeting if we broke up. This was especially hurtful because she knew how hurt I was by the recency of the breakup. Because of this text incident, I felt even more used as a rebound and insecure in our relationship and commitment. Afterwards, she blocked all communication with him, but closure is something she should have given all three people involved upfront, and not after a long discussion with me. I suspect this was an attempt to self-sabotage in the relationship. She's withheld information about another ex which she didn't even really see as an ex because they had dated but never committed to each other and so weren't "official". That relationship lasted half a year and had the disturbing element of him encroaching on her sexually, groping, etc. They saw each other maybe a dozen times alone. Unfortunately, after the first time it happened she kept seeing him, and of course it happened another two times before she finally stopped seeing him. The fact that she had completely blanked on the worst of those encounters until she really thought about it is quite disturbing and scary, as there was physical violence involved. This was a few years ago now but she clearly hasn't processed or fully understood and felt what happened. It's on her to-discuss list with her therapist. 2-3 weeks ago I had a couple of panic attacks, for the first time in my life. I think those were shortly after the birthing room comment. I had never had these before in my life, and it was very scary. I can suspect what was going on for me emotionally but this post is already growing very long. I haven't had any since then and things have been better. Also, during these attacks my girlfriend answered a call to be with me in the middle of the night for her (timezone differences) to be there for me and asked me to call her whenever something like this happened again regardless of the time. Still, this is a worrying thing and shows how difficult it's been for me emotionally. I feel a lot of emotional turmoil in this relationship. Anxiety, fear of impending doom, and feeling overwhelmed are some of the "negative" (I know they're not really negative) emotions that come up a lot, both because of the closeness and triggers and because of the hurts. Especially since the birthing comment and then finding out more about her exes, it's been harder for me to enjoy our time together. I get triggered and think about these hurts pretty frequently and it really interferes with my enjoyment of the relationship. I also frequently feel disconnected and like I can't fully be there for or empathize with her. Some of these negatives are red flags from her past, and others are hurtful things she's done. Those that are red flags from her past that she did not share upfront were also hurtful. For instance, had I known that she had had sex so recently with her ex and that she cried during it, I would have never went with shared accommodation on our first trip together. In a sense I did not give informed consent to sex because I did not know all that I should have known. Can these hurts be recovered from (on my end)? Are they objectively that bad? The one I feel the worst about is the recency of her breakup with her ex and that she waited only a week before dating again after the end of a 1.5 year relationship, and the text she sent him. Should I (like my therapist said) try to focus more on how my girlfriend acts in our relationship rather than on her past? Is this going to get better over time? A lot of these hurts are very recent. A part of me feels like her efforts to change are "too little, too late", but is that true? I have a rule against dating people I'm not comfortable spending the rest of my life with as they are now. This rule is there to protect me from treating people as projects or from unrealistically hoping that they will change, because in my experience the vast majority of people have no desire to change and never do. However, my girlfriend is actually changing and growing and working on herself. She's taken on some serious commitments to therapy and self-work, there are clear improvements as the weeks go by in terms of reduced hurtful comments and improved empathy and curiosity, etc. Confounding Variables There is a bunch of stuff in my life both in my past and that's going on now that is complicating things, and I think it's important to do a brief overview: I have an ACE score of 6. I begun my path to self-knowledge just over 2 years ago but it's been rather iffy in some parts where I spent a lot of my time dissociating, especially after the breakup with my ex over 1.5 years ago. I have self-sabotaging parts of me (sorry for using the Internal Family Systems terminology) that are really uncomfortable with me being in a relationship. My original plan was: I'm 25 now. Wait till I'm 26 and have some more money saved up and can afford regular therapy. Do therapy for a couple of years. Hopefully find someone I want to be in a relationship with by the time I'm 30. I never expected things to turn out like this. Now I've accelerated my plans and I'm doing weekly therapy sessions (sometimes twice a week, sometimes I skip a week) and it's terrifying because of all my traumas. I've forsaken all of my coping mechanisms. I used to spend most of my free time watching movies and TV shows, playing video games, and watching porn. I no longer do any of these. I've lost interest completely. The only thing I've done is watch 2 movies and those were with my girlfriend because it was on our to-watch list. I've stopped talking to my parents around the beginning of January. I had been blocking their calls and mostly ignoring them for months before, until I got down to just emails. And then I've stopped replying to those and they haven't tried to contact me again in over a month. Stressful work. Finally, I thought I'd share a text exchange we just had about this forum post: Me: Do you mind me saying when we had sex? I mean when we first had sex? On the forum Me: I feel like it's important Her: No, baby. Tell all the truth that you think is relevant! Her: I’m really eager what people will say! Me: It's going to be a long post :/ Me: I hope someone bothers to read it Her: I’m sure the people who bother to read longer posts will have more valuable advice

Hey everyone, I think that it would be wise and valuable if we were to share what books have aided us in our pursuit of self-knowledge. I think that it would be nice to have a summary of the book and the relevant parts, and share what you have gained from reading the book. Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw Shame is such a powerful emotion. It is especially powerful when we do not realize that we are experiencing shame. Bradshaw talks about the difference between healthy shame--accepting one's natural limits--and toxic shame--believing that we are fundamentally unworthy of love, me-plus. He takes the theoretical model of a shame cycle--we feel bad, we cope, and then we feel bad because we have coped, so then we cope more to relieve our negative feelings--and applies to real people. The antidote to toxic shame is love, and so much of trauma and dysfunction is the result of not receiving the love that we needed when we needed it. Reading this book and understanding shame has helped me clear up a lot of self-attack and generalized negative self-beliefs. I have been able to recognize that when I cope, it is because I am seeking comfort and love, and that to attack myself is just to further the pattern that was my childhood, a traumatizing and dysfunctional pattern. I really recommend reading this book, because in my experience toxic shame has been such a challenging emotion to identify, and the moment that I have been able to identify it for what it is is the moment that I have been able to start making progress and healing.

I just finished a new three-part article series on silencing the voice of reason. Here's the first part. "In this series of articles, I will talk about people’s avoidance of reality, and about personal and social outrage when encountering a voice of reason. In the first part that is this article, I will explain the origins of a person’s unreasonable reaction to describing reality and the mechanism behind this phenomenon. I will also talk about the social outcomes of openly describing the unpleasant aspects of reality, especially child mistreatment." Read more here: http://blog.selfarcheology.com/2016/02/silencing-voice-of-reason-part-1.html

Recently I've started to become romantically interested in a girl I met at work, we've known each other for a few months now. At first I didn't pay much attention to her other than to recognize she was a reasonably attractive female in my age group, over the past few weeks, I've started to like and respect her more. A week ago I found out things have come to a head between her and her parents, and she's decided to move out of their house - 3 days before going back to college. I was a bit taken aback at first but intrigued. I just happened to have gotten half-moved in to my new apartment but wasn't living there yet, so I told her I might have a place for her to stay if I thought she was doing the right thing. She told me her story, there's been physical and emotional abuse in her family, a lot of what she was telling me resonated with my experience. It took me back to when I was kicked out, and remembering how I had almost no one to turn to, I decided to help her out. Over the course of the next couple of days, I hung out with her, learned more about her. This is when my attitude toward her shifted from light interest to the beginnings of infatuation as my heart became involved. It's been a long time since my last relationship, which didn't end well, and I'm sensitive to starting a new one, but also coming to appreciate the emotional aspects of life and the fact that I haven't felt this way about someone in a long time. I don't want to just let the feeling die, but make a decision to pursue a relationship or not and stick to it. So I need your help: I don't have many people in my life I trust to give me feedback on this kind of thing so I'd like to know what you guys think. I see virtue/value in her as well as things I think are red flags. Things I like about her: she's attractive, thoughtful, hard working, courageous, proactive, wants to be a good parent, likes teaching people, we have similar histories we can connect over. Things I don't like about her: she can be impulsive to the point of recklessness, drinks and consumes cannabis regularly, I think she's made bad relationship choices in the past (still investigating), is potentially narcissistic (she can talk a lot at times, but does ask about my thoughts), and she goes to college 2 hours away (not her fault, but makes things more difficult). Any advice you can give as far as how to decide, ways to think about this is appreciated. My heart says yes but I don't trust it yet. My head says no but I have trouble trusting it too.

Today I have had a long and shocking chat with some Facebook-contacts. In short, these people will save an animal instead of a human baby. They are very clear on this. They think there are too many people on earth, all people are evil, they hate the human race. The chat included many irrational and emotional arguments. My first thought is that, without knowing these people from childhood, they must have had their trust in people / human race destroyed in early childhood... I have not asked, but it is the only reason I can imagine for such hatred against all humanity. They actually hope the human race extinct itself.. sad but true. I want to know more about this, how to best way meet their irrationality with ideas for them to think of, maybe even change?? Listening to Stefans philosophy show for some years, he have had some good thoughts about such people and their arguments. Can someone on this forum help me finding the "best of" , about this topic? I dont know hoe to start searching, really.. best searchterms, etc.

Does anyone know if there is a specific word that describes the feeling you get when you experience or witness an injustice? Maybe it's just me being weird, but I've always felt like typical emotions like anger, frustration or helplessness just don't quite describe that feeling. It's almost like a mixture of all three. I found an interesting tidbit on Wikipedia about this feeling, applied to a culture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_%28cultural%29 Does anyone have any thoughts?

Maybe you’ve seen some of my posts here on the self-knowledge boards. You may already be aware that I offer therapy over skype, but I also offer aid and consulting with journaling. Journaling has been the foundation to my happiness and gaining self-knowledge. As much growth and healing as I’ve experienced during therapy, I’ve gained so much more on my own in my journals. I know and understand that journaling is can be a very difficult and emotionally overwhelming process for some people, and I would like to offer my services and experience to help. To mention my skype therapy practice as well, I am available at a very affordable rate--especially compared to in-person therapists--and I have something that I believe most therapists do not; I’ve done the work myself! I began listening to FDR in 2008, started journaling in 2010, sought therapy in 2011, and have dedicated thousands of hours to diving into and understanding my own psyche. I’ve seen just how much I’ve grown and changed, and I’ve likely faced challenges similar to what you may be experiencing now such as: procrastination, self-attack, social anxiety, sexual shame, uncertainty about the future, distress over a toxic home or work environment, insomnia, isolation, loneliness, vanity, emotional disconnection, and compulsions/addictions regarding caffeine, video games, and sweets. If you’re looking for a therapist or need some help journaling, and you’re feeling curious--or nervous while reading this--then you can either contact me through PM over the boards or email me through a form on my website. I hope that you find what you’re looking for, Drew Woods

I decided to make this topic to expose and try to deal with my traumas and I hope you could participate. Even if no one sees this topic i have at least expressed my thoughts and emotions. I have this issue around people, for some reason, that makes me very anxious whenever I try to talk about me, my thoughts and feelings and when I in fact do in fact express myself I feel very bad and anxious and I become fearfull of the other persons response. This problem makes me very reluctant to engage in social interactions as well as making me sound and act like a robot because I have to evade certain words, expressions and actions which is very stressing. Other horrible implications about this consists of reacting in a negative fashion when people respond to my thoughts (i don't always act on it because i know some people are trying to help for example i tend to get mentaly hostile to some things that Stefan says but the way he speaks disarms my defensive mechanisms) and the inability to differentiate between abusive responses and genuine spontaneous and healthy responses. Maybe it's just the kind of people i'm with....Any thoughts on this ?

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Greatest lecture I've seen clarifying what TRUE depression is. He even mentions childhood issues towards the end.

I just met an awesome dude. It turns out that he recently completed a book/audio package called "Bedtime Adventures for the Authentic Self" so I bought a package. Yay! I figure it wouldn't be a bad idea to share his website here... http://authenticselfkids.com/ “Imagine…Not just one, not just a few but a whole generation of children fortified with a foundation of practical truths and applicable techniques to access their own inner sanctuary and ultimate potential. A generation grounded in principles which allow them to find a way to be in harmony with nature, themselves and others. A generation of enlightened ones otherwise known as “Generation Authentic”. — Bedtime Adventures for the Authentic Self

I have something to share with every soul on this forum. I have reached a breaking point in the past 24 hours. I have let go of the guilt, pain, fear, and shame I have felt everyday of my life for as long as I can remember. I have suffered sexual, physical, verbal, and mental abuse. I have carried it around with me everyday up until today. It has caused me to not feel emotion. I felt emotion for the first time in my life in the past 24 hours. Stefan, a fellow freedomain radio head, and a two year old child have been the tools I've been able to use to overcome this. I will be speaking now about the two year old I babysit and his role in changing my life forever. Hence, the title "The Power of Children". Yesterday, I get a call on the phone asking to babysit. My initial reaction is always YES. I have always loved and admired children but never been able to recognize why. So the evening comes and I arrive at the house to babysit for the evening. I see the little boy ,whom I have babysat since august. I'm feeling terrified but am smiling. The adults did not notice but the little one did. I'm going to name the two year old Bob for the rest of this. I soon as I looked at Bob, he had the strangest look on his face. He could see my fear. His parents set him down to greet me and he runs away from me. I go scurrying after him but he is running too fast to catch him. It was like he was the flash and I was turtle. He then runs up the stairs and is waiting at the top. I'm still trying to get to him. Soon as I get close enough to him, he runs into his parents room and slams the door in my face. I was beyond shocked. A few moments after I tried to open the door but couldn't. Right as this happened he opened the door and ran past me again. This time he was running to his room. And again right as I am about to get to him he slams the door in my face. At this time I opened to door after knocking and asking if he was okay. He looked right up at me again with a comforting look. We went back downstairs. His mother and father left. This has always upset him to a severe extent. Bob has always for at least an hour of cried and banged on the front door after his parents left. This is now the another thing I am able to recognize. He has never been upset for an hour about his parents leaving. It was actually on average about 15 minutes. This is my inner child (again) showing me how I have dismissed the abuse my parents have done to me by changing the amount of time this child showed his true emotion. As Bob is doing what any child does when their parents abandoned them with a stranger. I felt the fear in me. I was able to recognize this fear head on. I felt instant relief. I then asked him to please help me put together his train tracks. He stops expressing his justified emotions, and he turns around and bolts towards me. So we spend time playing, reading, watching chuggington, laughing, and of course the other things one has to do when taking care of children. Then when I felt the most comfortable I've ever felt. I ask him if he was thirsty. He didn't answer. So, I go and get his juice and hand it to him. He takes a big sip and spits it directly into my face. And smiles. After he spit in my face the only thing that was in my mind was "What facial expression can I show to teach this child empathy and not to be disrespectful to others". I did the expression I thought would be appropriate and he runs away to corner. I walk over after a brief pause to tell him how that hurt my feelings and try to convey how disrespectful that is and not to ever do that again. He slightly turns and has the biggest smile on his face. I now further recognize what this actually meant. I was almost completely unaware at the time. He was telling me about my lack of boundaries (I've never had them until today. I've already stuck up for myself more today than I have in my entire life) Bob knew the effect that that action would have on me which caused him to smile. I'm still in a intense state of shock at the amount of intuition and empathy this child is capable of. He's two years old. I'm 21 years old. He's been in his diaper longer than I have been in my emotions. That son of a gun knew exactly what he was doing. He was telling me not only about my lack of boundaries but how much I have disrespected myself. Time passes and we are still playing. I felt overwhelmingly tired and had to just lay on the couch. He was playing right next to me on the ground with his toys. Right as I lay down he climbs up on the couch. He is having difficulty so I help him up. He sits way far away from me and gives me a look. It was slightly mischievous (from what I perceived at the time it was actually him thinking of what to do next). He looks away. Then a couple minutes later he gets up, runs, and tackles me. He jumped on me. I'm panicking because I trying so hard to get him off me and him not be hurt at all. This moment felt like an eternity. Eventually I managed to set him down. I tell him not to do that because it's disrespectful. He turns and smiles at me and pats my leg. What he did right there was him testing my boundaries again. Normally any child I have babysat I have always let them do whatever they wanted to. Grab my hair, pull my clothes, hit me, bite me. Because to me then it would have been evil to not let them express their selves. Later he then tested my boundaries again. He ran up stairs and got his blanket and we both brought it down the stairs. We sit on the couch and he puts the blanket over our heads. He is trying to hold the blanket up to it is like some kind of fort. So I put his hands down and I instead put my hands up holding the blanket up. He's smiling still at me so lovingly. He's pointing to the trains on the blanket and talking. It was mostly baby blabber but it made perfect sense to me and I talked to him. Eventually my arms got tired and I didn't want to hold the blanket anymore. I actually told him that. Now this persistent little boy is so very persistent in testing me. He then over and over tries to put the blanket over my head. Each time I say no, he smiles and giggles. I just had another moment. This is so powerful. Every child I have ever taken care of has tried to incredibly hard to help me. All of the babies I've been around. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAS TRIED TO SAVE ME! The amount of empathy children are capable of is so far beyond anything an adult could ever achieve. This is why I have always wanted to be around children. I've just now come to this realization and it is the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me. I'm shaking and crying. My dogs are all over me. I can barely type. After that happened I swear that 7 year old me was sitting next to me and for once I was there for her. For once somebody was there for her when she really needed it. The next thing I know time is slowing down for some reason and I'm the happiest I have ever been in my life. As I was changing his diaper, feeding him, asking him lots of questions (which he actually can answer with a yes or no [at two years old]), teaching him things, looking at his little face. I felt love. Not in a romantic sense at all. But I felt loved and I loved this little boy. I've always loved children but have never been able to recognize it as love. But they did. Every baby I've been around has known this about me and reached their little hands out to me to pick me up. The rest of the night was the most wonderful thing I could ever describe. His parents come home around midnight and him and I are wide awake. His parents come in and he greets them and comes right back to me or at least around me. I've always been stand offish when parents greet their children. I always back away. He noticed that. So his mom asked him if he would like to give me a hug. I get down to his level expecting him not to and then he does. He hugged me for the second time that night. I tell his parents how perfect he was and thank them for the opportunity to be around their child. His father says "Alright, Time for her to go home". Bob looses his mind and clings to my leg crying. His arms and legs are around my leg. He wouldn't let go. He wasn't upset about me leaving but about me not being able to recognize what just happened. He cried so hard because he didn't know for sure if I was going to realize what just happened and was still trying to help me. I've felt emotion today. All day. I've expressed how I feel without trying to guess how other people feel. I learned how to separate myself from my emotions in order to survive the environment I was in as a child up until august. I hope this all was a good read. Haha no, I know this was a good read. You're welcome. Thank you for reading this. Thank you Stefan for what you've done. Thank you to Nathan who listened to me and held my hand all through this. Thank you Bob. You little son of a gun. I can't wait to spend three days around the clock with you babysitting you. I was reborn today. How about you?

Hey all, I thought I'd go through and transcribe, and add some structure, to Stef's podcasts that gave me those 'aha' moments that indicate the implosion of some part of my previous conceptions and in the void an influx of knowledge and reason. Feel free to leave feedback on the format, I could include time stamps or links to other podcasts if it is useful. Here is 'How to find a good therapist' 00:00 - 17:35/46:57 Movie reference: A Beautiful Mind A therapist is someone who checks the reality of what you are seeing. Stef undertakes a moral exploration of the question ‘What is therapy?' He believes that if we have suffered from the predations of evil people, unfortunately we are lost in society - people will not say “Damn! That was evil, what happened to you, I’m so sorry”. They will clam up, keep a distance, shun and ostracise people who put them on the spot to make a moral judgment about what happened to the other person as a child. “Don’t get involved” seems to be the mantra of society, because we are addicted to betraying the victims of evil (see other podcasts). If I say I suffered at the hands of X as a child, people will feel agitated at me for putting them in a place to cast moral judgment; with this comes an onus of deciding to act against the evil or to do nothing. Contrast this with society where people are more than ready to cast judgment; Drug users, Evil! Homosexuals, Evil! Tax-avoiders, Evil! If you’ve suffered evil, as most people have, particularly if you have suffered as a child: you have the feelings of rage, vengeance, all these primal feelings you have pent up inside you. Its like a big crater of a volcano that never erupts, it wants to spew out but has no outlet. The after effects of evil cannot be assuaged on their own; we are social beings and we need outside input to validate what is going on. We need to turn to people in society and say “Listen, do you see that devil in the room? Do you see that evil?” How many among us will say “Yeah! I see see that! That’s terrible!”?More likely we will hear, “Ah maybe there is evil, maybe there isn’t just get over it. It’s your family, your culture, your religion, your nation get over it you’ll never get around it. Even if there is evil, think of the good in the evil person! You must have loyalty to them because of family/religion/culture.” With Nash’s hallucinations in A Beautiful Mind, people either say, “Yes, I see the people you see," or “No, I don’t see anyone". There is a definitive truthful ANSWER; if people don’t see the evil at least Nash knows he’s hallucinating. In society, in order to avoid awkwardness we don’t get an answer. If there is evil, people will say they don’t see it just to avoid having to act. The person inquiring with society has no root to reality; the rest of society deny him his chance of a definitive answer as to the reality of his experience. We are stuck with the effect of evil because nobody will socially accept the existence of the evil. Politically, however, people are more than willing to accept it; as long as it does not require them to act personally against an evil, people are more than willing to decry evil and give true evil the power over those decried. People have trauma because they have experienced evil, not because they have experienced misfortune. Take, for example a person who’s mother died of cancer when they were the age of 9. People will say “My goodness, that is awful, how terrible!”. If they have a great Dad he will help them through it and they will have the memory of their mother to grieve with and it should not lead to permanent psychological damage because the reality is accepted by everyone around the person. What if people said "I don’t know if she had cancer, is there such thing as cancer? I don’t think we can keep being friends if you keep talking about things like this.”? People are opposed to fundamental emotions: ardent love, passion, integrity, virtue. That’s why we need a community that reveres these most fundamental human traits. If you had a culture that denied the death of your mother, you’d go insane. "Be friends with cancer, it’ll make you tougher!” people would say. You would not be able to heal, inside you’d be living in a void; your experience would be so fundamentally undermined, so you could not feel anywhere near accepted in society. Your feelings of loss and anger and grief would be rejected or attacked. This will give you a permanent psychological problem until you see a therapist who says “Oh, my gosh that is so terrible. Tell me about that,” which means you still have to deal with the denial of reality by your society outside the therapist’s office. Anything serious or real threatens the collective psychosis. …

Part one: are popular methods like various exposure and cognitive techniques, "just do it," "use your willpower," "ignore your fear," etc. sufficient when dealing with difficult problems?Part two: a more in-depth look at the incredible value of deep self-work and the enormous complexity of human problems.

Hello. I'm watching Stefan's video How to meet a nice girl. Lots of good advice in it. I especially like the point how we have to know ourselves in order to tell what kind of girl do we look for. However, I think the problem is, that knowing ourselves internally is not the same thing as knowing ourselves externally. All social interaction (except the net) happens externally. We can have nice emotions on the inside, but we need a way to express them outside. We can be happy inside but really unhappy at outside relations and events. The trick to be attractive is to be happy, but also to know how to show it, so others are attracted. We introspective types may know how we tick. But we can be so submerged in ourselves that it goes far beyond mere self-centeredness, it's self-submersion so that other people become unreal and the self is lost out of sight. The internal self is an ocean for the fish of our daily consciousness and the external self is totally unrealized. How do we look from the outside, is not something we are used to seeing. Only if someone did make a film about ourselves. But that would be like when someone records our voice and we think, "How comes I still have any friends?" Well, I suppose that must be so with the whole external persona. Of course, emotions are the key. Emotions, emotions, emotions. No relationship happens without emotions. Intellect's way of engagement is lie one-off lightning discharge, it's not a steady cohesive social field, metaphorically speaking. It doesn't bond. Trouble is, we intellectual people tend to have emotions as the intellect - a strike of lightning and nothing in between. That needs fixing too and I'm workign on it. But another problem is the external display of emotion. How can we become aware of our persona EXTERNALLY, EMOTIONALLY PUBLICALLY? By interaction. All awareness is developed by interaction. But how? All interaction needs other people. And there must be something to begin, some kind of framework. Without it, we are like locked out of our own house. I hope Stefan's video makes it more clear, because this is probably not intelligible, unless you're dealing with the same problem. Good luck and may god* have mercy upon us. *) The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster

I saw this video and thought it should go here. It is very interesting. It talks about how we learn facial expressions to survive in our specific culture. I wonder what effect this has if any on our internal emotions. I have to say, jump to 23:42 if you want to see the very creepy, good stuff. Its called "microexpressions". Tell me what you think! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m72bqvf_qDg I also wanted to add this short video about it. If you don't have time to watch the long one, this one is good too. He says how people can learn to spot microexpressions on the internet and it only takes about an hour to teach someone how to do it.