Happy to be here!

[Jay Paul]

Dead FDR Community,

I'm Josh and I have to say I am overjoyed to be here. I am not the best at organizing my thoughts into a logical, linerar path without outlining, but I'm going to give it a shot here as I attempt to introduce myself in this essay of a post post for those of you who actively visit this part of the forum.

My journey into philosphy began close to 6 months ago. I was back at college nearing the end of my first semester strolling through the interwebs when I sumbled upon a video by none other then Stef. It was titled "Jon Stewart's 19 Tough Questions for Libertarians!" This sparked an immediate intrest in me, because I had recently discovered Dr. Paul as the previous election cycle was nearing its overly dramatic conclusion. I was intrigued at what Stef had to say, so I dug deeper. I began exposing myself to so many new ideas and found myself immersed in a whole of logic and reason. I was home.

I had always been a deep thinker. I had always been a quite child not because I was afraid to speak up for myself, but because I was always thinking. I had been told at least a dozen times throughout my years in the state's intdoctrination program that "(I) think too much." I would often go on to question "What's wrong with that?" I never felt this to be a negative character flaw on my part, but I often found myself isolated by my own adherence to practicing logic and reason, which would in turn reap negative concequences on my childhood.

I never really had any close friends growing up. There were groups of kids around the neighborhood I used to spend time with, but I regularly found myself on the outside of the circle. There were times where I was very close with a couple other children my age growing up and even into my early teens, but this was shortlived. I had a bestfriend for a few years, but I still felt odd about my relationship to him. He was popular and had his many circles of friends he would sometimes bring my over to hangout with, but I had no one of the sort to introduce him to. He was my only close friend even growing up. This isn't to say having a plethora of friends is a requiesit for happiness, but I always felt because I was never a part of a group of friends was because of some form of character flaw on my behalf. I could go much deeper into this aspect of my conversation about my history, but I'll move on for the time being.

As for my relationship to my parents I always thought it was good until I really began examining all of my relationships for any significant truthful meaning behind them. Needless to say, I was disappointed. I was raised in a christian household of which I still reside while I am home over the summer from college. My parents' corruption towards thinking logically is signifcantly impared by their religiosity. I can say for certain that it was me leaving home to attend college free from the indocrination of having to attend church that I came to the realization that God does not exist. This realization came later than my becoming an anarchist, likely because I had always had a terrible distaste for public schooling and political figures and often found myself in to presence of fairly pleasent religious figureheads. I'd like to discuss my parents more aswell, but I do not have to time to write a compilation of essays tonight I'm afraid. I will add though that they never beat me. I was spanked on a rare occasion when I was young, but rarely suffered physical or verbal abuse, although it did occur a few time that I can recall.

I will opt to skip discussing my relationship to my siblings as well for now as I find this subject to be irrelevent to this conversation.

Here for the most present and pressing issue I currently find myself perplexed with, my love life. I don't even know where to begin here so I'll just start blurting out what I can and we'll see what were can gather from my jumbled up throguhts and emotions on this subject. I never had the sex talk with my parents. I found porn at a pretty average age as I was curious of the female anatomy that I had never been educated on. Eventually I was found out on this and my parents were very dissaproving as they are christian and believe that it is dishonorable to relieve yourself sexually in any fashion. My mother installed an internet blocker on every computer in the home to block pornography for over half a decade. This was an insufferable rollercoaster of lust, guilt, and shame that I found myself locked into and unable to escape. This experience had terrible consequences on me that I cannot even begin to go into detail on here in this part of the FDR forum. Let me just say, it fucked me up somethin bad. On to my relationships... With the aid of my best friend mentioned previously I got my first girlfriend when I was 13. Unfortunately for my self esteem she also broke up with me the same day. In retrospect this was an omen of what my future would have in store. I didn't have another girlfriend for a couple years later and that relationship only lasted for a week. The next would be a doozie. Not until my senior year of highschool did I enter what I would consider my first real relationship with a girl. She would ask me out to homecoming as I was never an out spoken person on this front. She had obvious self esteem issues while mine were always concealed beneath my indifferent demeanor. I lost my virginity to her early in our relationship and felt immediate remorse. I was emberassed to associate myself with her to any degree and broke up with her soon after. Our relationship lated just shy of a month, a new record for the 18 year old me... I will have to pass on the last relationship here for the sake of this post just being to lengthy. I appreciate those of you who have made it this far through my "introduction." I'll just say that the relationship I am leaving out is the most mutually distructive expience I have ever been apart of, and I promise to post about it tomorrow for those of you who are curious of others' remorseful histories and have a desire in your heart to help provide any support. I will the link to post I make on this page for those of you who would like to learn about my expience to follow up on. 

Yeah, so I did what I could to explain what I can about myself and relationships in this post absent of any drafting and working within the time that I have here tonight. I hope that those of you who made it all the way through didn't loose any limbs along the way. I'd just like to say that I am excited to be here amongst other rational thinkers and I look forward to sharing my thoughts, feelings, and expiences with you all in the future. Thank you. 

[Demitri]

Welcome Jay,

I look forward to hearing the rest of your story.
I can relate easily to about 90% of what you wrote already, and may have some suggestions to offer.
I'll hold off on that until after I have heard everything you are willing to tell first.

Cheers!
~Demitri

[Jay Paul]

Thank you Demitri! I will try finding the time later today to continue explaining some of the circumstances that have made me the person I am today. I look forward to finally hearing some partially-personalized external feedback. In recent months I've been scowering through Stef's podcasts on the subject matter of relationships and honesty to one's self for any beneficial perspectives to help me retain my sanity since I've come to the realization of the unhealthiness of just about all of the few relationships I have in my life. This has helped me significantly, but I really believe discussing my situations with someone else who has had similar experiences and can aid me in reasoning out why I am feeling certain emotions will be some of the greatest good I can do for exercise out what still remains of my false self, which I must disclose is the strogest evil that still exists in my phyche. Hopefully with your assistance and that of anyone else who chooses to chime in can help me cleanse this corrosiveness from my life once and for all.