Benjamin Alvarez18 said:I don't really want to get all caught up in the distractions, I just kind of want to figure out who I actually am at my core...
That's a whole different ballgame then. Not exactly a pleasant one, either. A long, drawn-out investigation without any clear or consistent results... maybe. Who is Benjamin Alvarez18 once they finally realize who they are? Or what flipped the switch from knowing to not knowing? An earthquake? A sudden brush with mortality, realizing you have zero control over anything, or just pure uncertainty about everything...
Benjamin Alvarez18 said:I guess I don't really know who I am
If you don't set some kind of goal—regardless of whether you actually hit it or can even maintain that drive, which might just come down to luck anyway—is it possible nobody really knows anything? Maybe that's the only thing that "comforts" you. If your sense of purpose is shaky, maybe you notice the uncertainty a bit more clearly? Just stay busy with something, anything... it’s always been the cure for not knowing...
You have to actually *do* something, anything... create a distraction (lose focus) to hide how much you truly don't know. Idle hands are the devil's playground. Occupy an idle mind with something familiar, or better yet, something totally unknown if you can. Because when that idle mind starts searching too hard, too focused, you end up just calculating the reality of... nothingness...
Patrick Williams8 said:And here I was, thinking we were actually Homo sapiens. I think you might be missing the point entirely... I don't have an issue with it in that specific sense; nobody's ever mistreated me.
Looking up at some massive "human" giant, maybe you'd get a momentary burst of optimism thinking everyone else could be just as big. But then you realize most people had their growth stunted way too early on—statistically speaking, most of them just got stuck. That doesn't mean they aren't technically the same species as those rare giants, though. You can still look up to them, find inspiration, or get swept up in what they do... or notice how small they actually are and how little room they have left to grow. There’s abuse, and then there’s different kinds of abuse. And maybe even more versions of that. Whether someone is a giant or just slightly bigger than average, if being "big enough" means bullying the smaller ones or just barely outgrowing the rest... are they even growing?...
Patrick Williams8 said:Why does anyone feel the need to pick on someone else? Is it some kind of ego boost? Does it make them feel more secure? Nobody goes out of their way to provoke me. It’s more that whenever I try to join in, people start giving me the cold shoulder... they don't want me around... they even get irritated... as if I've somehow forced my way into the group against everyone's will...
The thing—if you can even call it a thing—is hierarchy?
No big deal. Honestly, half the time even I don't really get what's going on. Especially when you've got these idiots (who haven't a clue) running things. Or maybe they aren't even involved, yet somehow everything still feels "off" to me. Just don't skip your daily dose of optimism—side effects be damned—and you'll be fine. Even during those "glitches," when things probably won't go well. But then again, once things stabilize and you're back to being hyper-focused on hitting your goals (and keeping control), a steady stream of optimism will carry you through until the next glitch. Hokahey. It’s just a loop. A total roller coaster... Regardless of how much life throws these unlucky circumstances at you and the knowledge that comes packaged with them, persistence is the ultimate flex. As long as you're staying productive enough to earn that dose of optimism. A broken brain is just Beelzebub's version of a virtual reality park. Just stay relentless!
wiredangler71 said:Honestly, you’d probably be better off finding some low-key physical gig—maybe something outdoors where you can actually breathe some fresh air. Personally, once I wrap up my shift, I need to just sit somewhere out in the mountains or by the coast and stare into space for at least two hours straight. While you're hunting for a new job, just spend your downtime imagining you're on a conference call with little aliens from another planet, and during your thirty-minute break, just play that little melody for them.🎉
Honestly, this whole "creative visualization" thing... might not be the best move. Especially when someone dealing with two pretty intense diagnoses—while their ears are literally bleeding because they can't make sense of the gibberish coming from these alien-sounding weirdos—starts questioning what "normal" even means... based on what, exactly? These aliens... After spending hours every single day hanging out with these outsiders, the local guys are just glad to have some semblance of stability for once. They’re basically trying to cope by acting like ear bleeding is just a standard part of life in this circle of freaks. I mean, who's actually sane here...
You don't need to harden up. You just need to stabilize. And sooner or later, one way or another, you’re going to hit that point whether you want to, wish for it, or need it... or just out of pure frustration... of "being normal." Regardless of how relative everything is, maybe try spending some time somewhere where having your ears bleed (or any other orifice, really) isn't a daily occurrence for a few hours a day. While that critical part of you shrinks and tries to rationalize why you should or could even handle that kind of constant bleeding, that wild, intolerant, eternally revolted side of you—regardless of the fallout—will do anything to stop that rationalization from becoming a routine that might actually kill you in the end. Is falling out of the system's order ("relapse") normal? To someone who lives by that rigid, repetitive grind, sure. But every time a "relapse" happens (even if it's been ages since the last one), maybe it's time for some serious looking back. Time to figure out what actually triggered the hemorrhage.
cosmicdriver42 said:I usually map out my next meal or prep my grocery run in the morning, and if I have meetings scheduled, I'll figure out how to juggle them. Beyond that, though, I just wing it. I prefer to deal with things as they come. Overplanning is a recipe for frustration if things don't go perfectly, so I try to avoid that trap.
Let me see if I get this... you're basically saying you've mastered the art of "not planning" by having a highly calculated, intentional strategy for being spontaneous—which, ironically, probably requires its own level of mental programming or software debugging to pull off properly?
Before I can even talk about self-actualization or staying relevant, I gotta define what we're even talking about—self-fulfillment, mediocrity, evil, good, right, wrong... all within these shifting, slippery boundaries. Is the merit tied to the individual or society? Honestly, probably doesn't matter. It’s usually just some frantic jumping through hoops inside a suggestive, self-hypnotic illusion, all just to serve one's own survival. Don't kill people. Unless martial law is declared. Then it’s a must, or else—it becomes a duty. Always respect someone else's life, like the guy walking his poodle with a diamond collar, while the self-proclaimed judge of "good and evil" sits there with worms crawling out of his ears, snacking on a massive "intellectual powerhouse" brain... Ivan Pavlov............
The struggles of young Werther. Then you've got him in his later years in some sequel or prequel... just an endless saga. Honestly, maybe not never-ending. Some wannabe influencer might keep it going... just making life feel never-ending once again...
Ronald Price3 said:Look, you simply cannot sell property that isn't yours; you might suggest leaving those items for the building superintendent to collect, or perhaps you could reach out to the super yourself to arrange a pickup, but selling them is strictly off-limits.
The gentleman failed to mention the actual condition of that television, the refrigerator, or the bed, but clearly, they weren't headed straight for the landfill if someone actually went through the trouble of buying them.
One man's trash is another man's treasure, right? We've got all sorts of classes and groups living in areas with wildly different economic vibes... even if they're right next to each other. Those thrift stores filled with stinky "like new" junk—is that supposed to show how enlightened the public is, or is it something else entirely? Just look at the "government" on their prime-time propaganda channels. It’s all just promoting psychics, lotteries, self-help gurus, and normalizing psychiatry and big pharma (as if some "all-natural" moonshine is gonna fix everything). It's all cheap wellness and fake social activism being pushed as wealth, even while everyone's basically broke...
Joseph Bailey41 said:With all due respect... who actually gives a damn? ☕
The guy posting dick pics on Facebook, in a world that's basically decided to spin around nothingness, everything is just breaking down into raw, disgusting factors now. It hits them in the head too, when they get blasted by the public for posting nsfl content on Facebook (or Insta, or Twitter... or whatever deplatforming mess is happening) that isn't even "content" to them—it's just their entire sick little universe at that moment. And the cruel public, this toxic outside force, these evil platforms... they do nothing, yet they'll do anything just to make sure the world keeps spinning around him, reducing him to zero. Let's save Mickey and his little Mickey dick pics as some kind of charity case, a way to promote individual insignificance where everyone is just being boiled down to nothing. Maybe for a second, as a ghost in someone's memory, until that ghost fades too. The network, whether it's this one or any other, stays around longer. Maybe.
Values? "Inverted values"? Let's be real—this whole "empathy" thing is just a buzzword used by the average Joe to feel better about himself. It’s a way to mask the fact that to actually practice it, you need a level of comfort that can only be provided by some psychopathic, systemic structure. You see these hypersensitive "empaths" acting all high and mighty, clinging to their supposed moral compass... meanwhile, they soak up this manufactured empathy from some propaganda machine. They sit there watching a staged performance of morality, judging everything with disgust while some elite in a designer suit and polished shoes—with a literal gag over their mouth—shuffles through the filth, pretending to uphold these precious "values." Fast forward to the next day, and that same "empath" walks past a crowd of homeless people with the exact same look of pure revulsion. To them, those people are just a disgusting symptom of a broken system that claims to care for its own, when really, it's just about keeping your own head above the sewage... the "concept of values" remains perfectly intact. Empathy practically glows in this dark, miserable reality where the entire system is backwards, soulless, and totally two-faced.....
Maybe if there was just a bit more actual effort involved—without needing to go all "selfless martyr" about it. If someone had actually reached out to the worker personally or stepped up to help move their own gear, maybe things would’ve gone the way they expected... Being "the good guy" by paying someone who claims they'll go volunteer somewhere else, only for it to turn out they never even did the job they were paid for? That says a lot about a person's character. They're probably just playing the hero to look big. What a messed up world.
Sounds like some "F41.2 diagnosis" thing (could be anything, really), but honestly, it probably has zero to do with burnout or whatever. It’s more about how things turn into a mindless routine, and then everyone involved just loses the will to even show up. There comes a point where it hits you... digging yourself into a hole because of something you *used* to want wasn't exactly the smartest long-term move. Maybe it's time for a reset, finding a new obsession—even if it's a "necessary evil"—just to feel some spark again. Like, hooking up with someone else seems to be the basic human math for finding meaning... but kids usually end up being the anchor that keeps two unmotivated, lazy partners stuck together. In a setup like that, it doesn't matter who's passive or active; it's just one side sucking the life out of the other. Not that the other person matters much... it's just a mutually agreed-upon parasitic relationship at that point.
There’s no juice left in a relationship when there's no genuine effort, no actual desire, and no sense that anyone is actually gaining anything from it. If gratification feels like a contractual obligation or debt slavery—just checking boxes for something that might have seemed interesting once (read: stable and useful back in the day)—then it's over. You can try to remember why you committed to this madness all you want, but you won't find any truth in it. Just a fantasy. Though, I guess talking about marriage, kids, and divorces isn't really what these psychology PDFs are for.
So, "How would you treat a partner with F41.2?" Depends on the person, I guess. Depends on what they "need" you to do, and depends on which specific diagnosis we're talking about. What's the partner even like? What's eating them? Do we even know the diagnosis? Or is the person so busy demanding attention and clinging to their own needs that they don't even notice the other person morphing into something else entirely? It’s like they expect you to just... blindly and willingly provide the exact same thing, perfectly and constantly, just because they say so. Those expectations are basically a blueprint for building something specific. But when those expectations fail to meet reality under pressure, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. Honestly, it'd be better to be smarter than your past self, clear the rubble, and start building something new on those same expectations... if you're feeling brave.
Brian Gray5 said:“They don't know the terrors that go through your mind as you lie there in the pit waiting for a hint of light to tell you that the night is over.”
Someone is down in the Mariana Trench, or maybe just stuck in some deep, bottomless pothole in the middle of nowhere.
Facts. But it all comes down to how people record things, process them, or just manipulate the narrative they've swallowed. Some guy might decide to just fry his own brain because he’s pushing his limits of what he can stomach regarding "social norms"... seems too easy. Meanwhile, you've got someone else—someone most people would look at and think, "Yeah, they're clearly struggling"—who can't even wrap their head around the idea of people who are actually "fine." These "fine" people are treated with such careful gloves, wrapped in sympathy and empathy... It's easy when it's just a first impression. But if it keeps happening, over and over, regardless of how much everyone insists there's no need for those labels, where "normal" people just keep adding layers of pretense to their own humanity... it gets exhausting. When you're trying to navigate reality, that kind of person just goes numb, hardens up, loses touch... and then, in a critical moment, instead of helping based on actual experience, a "perfectly fine" person who's just good at playing the victim tells them: "Just kill yourself, go ahead, blow your brains out." And this person, trapped in the depths of the Marianas Trench, even if it felt like a shallow pit to begin with... they listen.
Idealizing stuff, like any other surreal art form—trying to mold an external person inside yourself based on your own twisted perception and then treating that mental image as some absolute truth, or even something essential to your existence while totally ignoring the actual human being who might not look anything like your creation... that's nothing more than art. It's imaginative inspiration or inspirational imagination. Creating something from scratch that doesn't exist. It's possible, or likely, that it's completely detached from actual practice or expressing one's own reality. A masterpiece of a replica. A remake. Better than the original. Getting pissed off at your own imagination, or the attempt to actually live it out, is _____________. Purely imaginative. My 0.1¢—enjoying the frustration. Any kind of enjoyment is just enjoyment. I don't care what anyone thinks about someone's irrational choice or "burden," treating it like a problem when it really doesn't exist outside of being a piece of dramatic art.
Austin Murphy5 said:I imagine things must come much more easily to you, being the offspring of Mr. Proust and Ms. Woolf—almost like a feather drifting on a breeze.
Ugh, what a dream... pure bliss. Just 100% pure love for absolutely everything and everyone, floating on that lovely, irresistible scent of gum disease and spit mixed with chlamydia, mycoplasma, trichomonas, BV, gonorrhea, HPV, and syphilis... just the sweet smell of pus and bloody discharge after some non-stop, animalistic, all-day, all-night sex between two people where you can't even tell who is who... life and death. Any kind of idealization about anyone or anything is just impossible. Such an unbearable ease of existence...
Finding a "deal breaker" or something built to last is basically impossible for the picky crowd. In this life, it feels like we’re all just unique snowflakes looking for some kind of symbiotic match—someone who looks exactly like what we see in the mirror. But usually, when you're high or just being an asshole while trying to calculate if someone is actually compatible, you end up chasing someone who is the complete opposite of yourself. It’s tough...