Posts by Megan Nguyen22

Gender identity? Absolutely, I'm on board with that; but gender itself is a much more complicated question 😉 (since we tend to view gender roles and social constructs as things shaped by society, whereas biological sex is rooted in our physical reality).

Gregory Jackson said:So, I’ve got this one old story for you—my former mentor once went on this wild streak where he played Lines for four days and four nights straight without even blinking. You know, that super simple game where you just try to line up five colored balls in a row? It was honestly kind of intense; they basically just kept him fueled up with food and water while he was totally locked in. Now, this guy is seriously enlightened—we're talking twenty years deep into this stuff, a really powerful presence. Anyway, when he caught a glimpse of what I was thinking about earlier, he made a point similar to one of those posts above, saying that it’s really all about the quality of your consciousness and how whole or integrated it feels, rather than the specific act itself. I guess what he meant was you could be in a state of total meditation while standing in line at a Target, or you could be in the middle of absolute chaos and still be "meditating." So, yeah, it doesn't really matter if you're playing Lines or whatever else; whether you're actually being "spiritual" or not just comes down to the depth and integrity of your awareness while you're doing it.

Haha, true—but you really have to reach a point where you are that way in every single situation, rather than just waiting around for those rare moments of inspiration...

Arthur White37 said:So, here is my situation. I am quite fond of PC gaming, and there are times when I find myself lost in it for hours on end—honestly, I don't know where I would be if my parents didn't set some boundaries on my screen time 😢....
I have spent a significant amount of time delving into various conspiracy theories, and I frequently immerse myself in books regarding spirituality. I also make a conscious effort to practice meditation 😢, as I am truly striving toward a deeper level of spiritual growth.
My question is this: does my passion for computer games somehow undermine my spiritual journey? Should I consider giving it up entirely? If I were to stop, I suspect it would be an incredibly difficult transition for me to navigate.
👎 😠

Haha, we’re actually on the same page here—I was just pondering this exact thing the other day. Since I spend quite a bit of time gaming myself, I think the most grounded answer is the one wearyowl29 gave: it's really about how we choose to spend our time. At the end of the day, all this material stuff can become a trap. Once possessions start controlling us, we lose that sense of spiritual freedom. Now, don't get me wrong—I'm not saying you need to spend twenty-four hours a day meditating under an oak tree in the middle of nowhere (unless that's your thing!), but we shouldn't reach a point where we're completely dependent on things. For me, it’s like my cigarette habit; I know I shouldn't be in a position where I feel like I simply can't function without them.

We really need to draw a line between clinical depression and the modern tendency to label every minor setback as "being depressed." In my view, faith can be an incredible anchor during reactive depression—those periods triggered by life's circumstances—but it’s much harder to apply to endogenous depression, which is more biological. Now, look, I truly believe faith can offer strength in any situation, but we have to admit it's a slippery slope; you can't quantify it or measure it like a standardized medical treatment. I see plenty of people struggling with mental health issues who turn to their pastor first, only to be told they actually need to see a psychiatrist. Unfortunately, in many parts of America, there's still this heavy stigma attached to seeking psychiatric help. It’s not surprising, really—once that diagnosis hits your medical record, you feel like you're being labeled forever.
And let's be honest, medication is being prescribed for every little thing these days, too. But if we don't use them, how are we supposed to address the actual physiological problems where neurotransmitters just aren't reaching the right receptors?

Sarah Wood8 said:hahaha... you're such a clown 🤣

Honestly, though, I wonder who would even dare say that to Coco Gauff’s mom or any of those other players who just got blindsided.

Sarah Wood8 said:There was a time when people were more sensitive to tragedy because they weren't bombarded by it every single day. School violence wasn't this constant headline back then; it seems to have escalated since the 90s, perhaps fueled in part by the fallout from various conflicts.
We didn't used to hear stories about people being beaten to death in the streets, but now, America is slowly turning into Harlem.
Take the Hindenburg disaster, for example. The journalist reporting it live in 1937 actually wept on air. Fast forward to today, and you see news crews in Haiti filming a twenty-year-old kid right after he's been shot by the police. As he's literally dying, foreign journalists just aim their cameras at his face so we can all watch and consume the spectacle, while those mindless reporters don't even bother to step in with a rag to try and stop the bleeding... no, nothing. They just film him until he expires and feed it to us. That scene nearly traumatized me personally.
It’s simple: life just doesn't hold any value anymore. People go online and join forums dedicated to swapping photos of car wrecks and mangled bodies. TV does the exact same thing, and during wartime, filming executions and corpses became a literal trend.
Then we shouldn't act surprised by what our children turn into. Life means nothing to them. There was a case where a group of kids in England tied a boy to a chair, cut him alive, and eventually poured gasoline on him and set him on fire—they reportedly got the idea from Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," if I remember correctly. When you constantly broadcast this stuff, people don't just get numb to it; it subconsciously builds this idea that this kind of depravity is perfectly okay.
Even that series "Oz," which, I have to admit, drove me absolutely insane while I was watching it, might serve as a blueprint for some idiot kids to think those kinds of "interpersonal relationships" are cool to replicate in school... you know, survival of the fittest, demanding respect through fear, forming gangs, and ultimately bullying the weak or killing in the most horrific ways possible.

It’s all catastrophic... but still, you have to keep in mind that someone from a stable family who is mentally healthy isn't going to go out and beat or kill someone else. A movie might provide an idea, but it doesn't provide the motive. A colleague once warned me about that, but I find myself thinking: what if the family environment is broken and everything is falling apart? Does that mean there's no hope left because society has become uncivilized and savage? Society doesn't take responsibility for that; if someone is left to the wolves, the wolves will gladly devour them.
And that bit about the journalists hits the nail on the head—it's exploitation par excellence, purely to drive sales...
What you said is spot on—the Hindenburg caused tears; photos from Vietnam sparked massive protests. Today, everything is trivialized and the standards are gone. I mentioned in another thread that violence and various kinds of filth have always existed, but today there is a difference. At one point, honesty and virtue were at least nominally valued, but nowadays, you're considered a fool if you act that way. Today, it's "cool" to be a mobster, a thug, rude, and violent.

I’ve been reading through several posts here lately, and honestly, it’s refreshing to see so many smart takes. It makes me feel a bit better knowing there are still people who realize when something just isn't right. Violence should absolutely be phased out. The tricky part is acknowledging that it existed long before modern cinema—just like pornography did—but things feel fundamentally different today. What exactly is that difference? It feels like we’ve actually become more sensitive to this stuff rather than desensitized. I see so many people reaching a breaking point where they just can't stand turning on the TV anymore, especially when you consider how bad it gets on networks like FOX with their bottom-tier programming.
A lot of us might argue, "Yeah, but we grew up watching violence and porn, and we turned out fine." But the truth is, none of us truly knows who we would have become if we hadn't. Would we be better versions of ourselves? Less frustrated? Less numb?

And don't even get me started on reality TV—the Survivor clones, Big Brother, or those "moment of truth" shows. That might actually be worse than the violence or the adult content. These shows send a message that the bigger the idiot you are, the higher your chances of being noticed and becoming "important." In a world where so many people feel lost in a gray sea of insignificance and feeling replaceable, these shows offer a roadmap for attention-seeking behavior. They basically provide a manual for kids who are starving for validation. Not to mention the way media outlets exploit stories about teen suicides just to drive up circulation, completely ignoring the terrifying possibility that they might actually be planting the idea in someone's head.

Sarah Wood8 said:Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if there’s some much deeper political agenda driving all this violence. I'm not trying to dive headfirst into conspiracy theories here, but this constant barrage of brutality is definitely desensitizing us. It's reached a point where watching these horrific scenes—whether in movies or real life—has just become our version of saying "good morning."
Take the last twenty years, for example. Back then, seeing a mangled corpse on TV was enough to make anyone turn away in horror. But over the last decade, thanks to endless shows like *CSI* or *Dexter*, we're constantly bombarded with the most revolting footage of human decay, autopsies, and gruesome crime scenes. Two decades ago, people would have been physically sick; today, we've become completely numb to it. It feels like these shows are specifically designed to strip away our empathy. And as for how this is affecting our kids? We honestly don't know yet, and that's the scary part.

It’s incredibly plausible; honestly, it wouldn't surprise me one bit. However, I suspect the motivation isn't just to numb us, but rather to sell something—because if you can't find an audience, you can't make a buck. Violence is magnetic, partly because it taps into that sense of "schadenfreude" and partly because it remains taboo. It targets those primal human impulses, but frankly, sex is right up there with it. I agree, sex is necessary and it can be wonderful, but let's really think about this: it has been turned into a mass-marketed commodity. It’s been stripped away from intimacy, severed from respect for privacy (both our own and others'), and worst of all, it’s being disconnected from mutual love or even simple affection. If they can control us through violence, they can control us even more easily through sex.
Furthermore, as harmful as violence is, a child won't see people walking around randomly murdering each other, but they *do* notice that adults are always "doing something" regarding sex. Since adults tend to stay silent about it, kids end up looking for answers elsewhere—namely, in pornography. I'm not saying that being open about sexuality will eliminate porn, but it shouldn't be the primary reference point. It should be what it actually is: staged fiction. On the contrary, without other sources of information, pornography becomes dangerous. Does it teach respect? No. Does it teach responsibility in sexual behavior? No. Does it teach the potential negative consequences of being irresponsible? Absolutely not. Just imagine a porn scene where someone acts reluctant and shouts "no," and then you face that in reality, only to have some horny fifteen-year-old think "no" is just part of the act. In essence, you're looking at rape. There was actually a study on how many young people believe that "no" actually means "yes," and the results were devastating.
I know you watch it, and I get that it serves as a sort of release valve, but please, take a moment to reflect. You aren't seven, eight, or even ten years old. You possess maturity. You have the capacity for critical thinking. You aren't psychologically, sexually, cognitively, socially, or emotionally underdeveloped.

Morgan Bishop4 said:Did ten-year-olds used to go out and watch Terminator or Rambo and then start roaming the streets acting like they're in a movie, killing everyone because they thought "Hasta la vista, baby" was a great way to live?!
Of course not... because parents and schools exist to raise them and tell them that killing isn't okay...

In the same vein, parents can talk to their kids about STDs, how pregnancy works, and how incredibly painful it can be, so kids actually understand what they're getting into...

And as if ten-year-old boys aren't watching porn!?!?! Obviously, they'd want to mess around, but they don't have anyone to do it with, and even if they did, they wouldn't have a clue what they're doing... no matter how many millions of porn videos they watch... because they're just kids... and honestly, I don't think they'd even like it... I mean, how much pleasure can a ten-year-old really get from sex!?! They aren't even developed yet...

I'm totally with the OP on this... I hate how much violence is shoved down our throats on TV. Even in the regular news, you hear about some killer or a massive accident with a thousand dead, and then at 8 PM, they're showing bodies and blood on the highway and stuff like that... it's just... it's not just bad for kids, it's depressing for adults too...

The OP doesn't have to be some nudist, and I don't think everyone would be hooking up left and right if people were just more open about sex... though, personally, I think being more open would be pretty great...

Just imagine if your parents were talking to you about pregnancy and STDs when you were seven, eight, nine, or ten years old... maybe sharing their own experiences... since most people have dealt with something like a yeast infection or whatever... if I were a little kid and I was allowed to do whatever I wanted, but I had to listen to stories about someone having a nasty infection, how itchy it was, or how someone got pregnant, went for an abortion, and was basically falling apart from the pain... I wouldn't even dream of hooking up...

But this way, when everything is forbidden and treated like a taboo, it just makes it so much more interesting to them...

This is spot on. People don't talk about it because the very words "sexuality" or "sexual nature" are viewed as something dirty. But let’s be real: staying silent certainly doesn't kill curiosity. Kids will find answers somewhere else—which usually means turning to pornography.

It seems like there's an "either/or" mentality here based on some of the posts I've read—as if people think if they watch violence, they aren't watching porn, and vice versa. But let’s be real: one is bad enough, yet both are. It’s wrong. Both are harmful, and any psychologist you ask will tell you the exact same thing. Since when was it considered okay for kids to be exposed to violence? Just because parents might recoil and flip the channel during an intimate scene doesn't suddenly make the violence they allowed beforehand acceptable.
The point remains: constant, repeated exposure to pornography has devastating consequences for children. As for violence, I believe we need much stricter regulations on TV; honestly, I see it as the even bigger issue. And I don't care who tries to claim that pornography is somehow beautiful or connected to love. It simply isn't.

Someone once suggested that the whole point of living is to actually discover what the point is. Honestly, trying to wrap your head around who you are is a massive challenge because we’re constantly evolving. I truly believe there's a danger in getting lost in endless self-analysis—trust me, I've spent far too much time down that rabbit hole myself. A lot of people walk around thinking they've got themselves all figured out, but the truth is, we're learning about ourselves our entire lives. "Never say never" is one of the best rules to live by if you want to stay truly free.

wearyowl29 said:The thing is, good and evil aren't worlds apart; they're practically rubbing shoulders.

Hmm, yeah... I've been chewing on that even more since then. It mostly comes down to the fact that our perspective is flawed and our experience is limited. We can't truly grasp the ripple effects of what we do or even what we say, even when everything feels absolutely right in the moment.

I truly believe there is an incredible amount of power in being able to say "no" to evil and a resounding "yes" to what is good.

I believe the fundamental flaw in modern spirituality is how people cherry-pick elements from various traditions just to suit their own whims. They craft this personalized spiritual cocktail to make it easier to keep doing exactly what they’ve always done. Essentially, they focus on treating the symptoms caused by a lack of true spirituality without ever touching the core—they never actually change who they are at the center. When life gets messy, it’s always someone else's fault; the environment is "evil" or "toxic," and they use spirituality as a convenient excuse for their own behavior. If everyone starts viewing themselves as their own god, then everyone else becomes nothing more than an object. Now, I’m not saying this applies to everyone. There are those who sincerely seek spirituality—which, to me, means striving to be better people, shedding hatred, envy, and malice... I think those souls will find fertile ground.
It honestly saddens me how everything is constantly masked in mysticism, wrapped up in being "secret" or "incomprehensible" through special techniques and methods, when true spirituality is actually about simplicity. There is no such thing as "instant spirituality." It is an exhilarating process of growth in understanding and humanity. There is no point in trying to play God; it is enough to simply strive to be a truly authentic human being. I

and I know this because I see my own hypocrisy: I can talk about spiritual matters beautifully, making everything sound wonderful, only to turn cold or irritable toward the very people who need me most. If I could just be kind to those who need it, that would be enough for me.