I am in the middle of finding myself. It feels like I've been finding myself my whole life. Do we ever find ourselves? I've encountered people where this seems to be the case. It is almost unfathomable to me. I am serious. Are there people on here that feel like they have found themselves? What does that mean?
I have goals. Like I've said I want to find an (altruistic) cause to spend time on, I want good friends, and I want a girlfriend. I also want to eat less shit and move more. I don't know how I want to move. Maybe get back into tennis. Maybe get back into improv. I still have to actualize all of this stuff. It seems easier but more painful to just continue doing what I've been doing if that makes sense. That sounds like classic alcoholic behavior to me. I have so much freedom yet I seemingly continue to not make the right choices. The social anxiety has me a little shaken up. It makes me more fearful to do something new even though it is just a worry.
I don't know how to make myself choose right. What do I believe in? What do I stand for? I am like a cat with shiny ball syndrome that let's the corporation I work for dictate my life. I glide with the confines of my work schedule. I have mostly been a night owl my whole life. That is my natural temperament. It kind of sucks to be in that zone in a city where everything closes early and I don't drink or do drugs and there are no late night AA meetings/communities that I particularly like and I have barely any friends let alone any friends on this later night schedule.
My therapist mentioned that I wasn't present during a lot of my development and that is kind of a bear of a problem that compounded over time and I am still dealing with it. I think some on here maybe get that if they were addicted to BW and/or poker in their teens and twenties. So, I am still finding myself. My first reaction is like "Fuck, still?" I mean of course I am still finding myself but do I ever find myself? Maybe not. But, you know what? Just relaxing a bit here listening to some Robert Glasper Experiment and writing these thoughts out I don't feel so bad. I truly want people to try and answer some of these questions in here. I am trying to learn in anyway possible to reduce suffering and live a better life. I realize there is no magic pill. I am just a lonely SOB that is questioning myself at every turn. It feels like I have lost my smile or my personality or both. Sometimes I catch glimpses of a swagger but it doesn't seem to stick. What happened to my smile? I have a pent up zest for life waiting to burst. I think I have a feeling what I have to do. Yet, I sleep in and take naps and don't call people to do stuff and let the dishes pile up and overall don't take action. It's easy to just fall into the everything is determinism mode and just float by. Complain or hide behind determinism rather than embrace responsibility. Fuck man, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what will make me change.
I am afraid to hop back on stage. I never had major social anxiety with improv or stage fright ever but things have changed. Maybe they haven't. The only way to know would be to try it. That should really be my motto for into the future. The only way to know would be to try it. Except, If I want to know what the warmth of heroine is like. The warmth of a campfire or the warmth of a woman sounds like a better idea.
[Verse 1]
Drank a lot of coffee today
Got lost in the fray, I gave all I had for a time
Then by some strange design I got a case of the empties
The ruler of my world, a lost forgotten pearl
When fire leaves a girl
Too burned to dry my life
Living on a fault line
And at night
[Chorus]
I just laid down and cried
The waters don't really go by me
Give me something I can see
Something bigger and louder than the voices in me
Something to believe
[Bridge]
DIdn't always do it right
Might have left the heat on high
Didn't know I had any left
Thought I finally met my death
Gonna do all I can
Stay away from the quicksand
Gonna do all I can
[Verse 2]
Nobody's gonna love you the same way
Some of us go astray, I watch so far from them all
Instead of dropping the ball, I seem to carry so many
The colors don't align, a question of time
I seem to lose what I find
Please give me a sign soon
Really wanna find out the truth
And at night
[Chorus]
I just laid down and cried
The waters don't really go by me
Give me something I can see
Something bigger and louder than the voices in me
Something to believe, to believe
Something to believe
Something to believe
Something to believe
Something to believe
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
"a case of the empties" is such a cool way of putting it. It seems like 'the empties' is the one precondition for every single one of your blogs. The need to fill up the emptiness caused by the sameness of your every day working life; the need to fill up the existential vacuum with some greater purpose. It's not just you of course, most people are confronted with them regularly, but you're just compulsively transparent about it.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
"Yet when it comes to meaninglessness, the effective therapist must help patients to look away from the question: to embrace the solution of engagement rather than to plunge in and through the problem of meaninglessness. The question of meaning in life is, as the Buddha taught, not edifying. One must immerse oneself in the river of life and let the question drift away."
- Irvin D. Yalom
He makes it sound so easy... It doesn't matter how much I engage with life it seems like the questions always come back to me when I am alone in a room without much to do. It's not like because I go and do improv that some Men In Black guys come down and hit me with the red light. In fact a good bit of my improv work was based on meaninglessness, existentialism, and absurdism.
I'm an alcoholic no thank you. Beyond that I am bipolar. I talked to my Psychiatrist about doing shrooms and he agreed with me that there is a lot of compelling evidence out there for a lot of positive things that it wouldn't be worth setting of a manic episode.
Can I ask you what pills are you on? My girlfriend is bipolar, but since I'm from Poland I'm just curious what you take if you take any. Anyway, you sound like your therapy is not working, but it might take awhile, let me just say that I'm sober for four years and i turned my life around a bit but still get the feeling that nothing is ever worth anything, but I think i've learned to accept that. Dunno man, good luck
I still have to actualize all of this stuff. It seems easier but more painful to just continue doing what I've been doing if that makes sense. That sounds like classic alcoholic behavior to me.
It doesn't make sense and it does not sound like classic alcoholic behavior unless I've misinterpret it..
I take 1,200mg of Lithium and 15mg of Abilify daily.
For me, I think that it isn't that nothing is worth anything it's just that I get caught up in the robotic nature of things or just the flow of things and can't find myself to engage in life. It feels too difficult. I know there are things worthwhile but I'd rather sleep or w/e.
Do you go to any 12 step programs or recovery groups?
When I was drinking it was easier in a way to just continue drinking. My life was going to hell but I would continue drinking on. I wouldn't say my life is going to hell. I'm hanging in there but the behavior to just continue on when things aren't great is what my alcoholism was and in a way it's what my current life is.
Was it always easier to do stuff while drinking? Not under the influence, but just everyday normal stuff. I did that. I was either drunk as fuck or I just did what I needed to do except failing the most important things
I was at the therapy. I had meetings with group and therapist from 8-14 everyday for 6 weeks straight. It was open theraphy so you'd just go home after the 'classess'. After that I participated in 1 meeting weekly called 'relapses' for like half a year. Ever since then I just continued to meet my psychologist once per week for 4 years. I actually went to study psychology after that, because I got intrested and figured out I could make something good out of the bad things that happened in my life dunno if I will become theraphist tho.
I am not an expert, but you seem to have neurosis of some kind (but you probably know that already). Also the drugs you are taking make it difficult for you to be 'in touch' with yourself, but since I've seen manic episodes I would never recommend you to stop taking them. I don't know man, life is fucking tough for some people. Count me in that group. I also realize that I might sound patronising but that's not my intent.
btw I actually studied the 12 steps but refused to do them. I kind of treat the AA groups as some sort of support for people that have gone way too far with their drinking, but I get that people go there and if it works it works. Everyone who is addicted to alcohol have some kind of neurosis or/and personality disorder and I think I'm doing just fine because I've realized that alcoholism was not my major problem, it was all the other things that I had to work throught. I'm far from perfect, and I am very far from being in life where I'd like to be but yea, now I'm focused more at fighting with fear (actually i'd never call that the feeling of fear, but okay every therepist seem to be calling it fear lol). To put things simple I am fucking thinking about everything now, like if I don't want to do something I just write out my thoughts, sometimes I come to the very simple conclusion "it doesn't make any sense" or I call myself a little whiny bitch and I just do it. It works sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't. There is no shame in trying tho
On May 18 2019 06:15 kyd wrote:
Was it always easier to do stuff while drinking? Not under the influence, but just everyday normal stuff. I did that. I was either drunk as fuck or I just did what I needed to do except failing the most important things
I was at the therapy. I had meetings with group and therapist from 8-14 everyday for 6 weeks straight. It was open theraphy so you'd just go home after the 'classess'. After that I participated in 1 meeting weekly called 'relapses' for like half a year. Ever since then I just continued to meet my psychologist once per week for 4 years. I actually went to study psychology after that, because I got intrested and figured out I could make something good out of the bad things that happened in my life dunno if I will become theraphist tho.
I am not an expert, but you seem to have neurosis of some kind (but you probably know that already). Also the drugs you are taking make it difficult for you to be 'in touch' with yourself, but since I've seen manic episodes I would never recommend you to stop taking them. I don't know man, life is fucking tough for some people. Count me in that group. I also realize that I might sound patronising but that's not my intent.
btw I actually studied the 12 steps but refused to do them. I kind of treat the AA groups as some sort of support for people that have gone way too far with their drinking, but I get that people go there and if it works it works. Everyone who is addicted to alcohol have some kind of neurosis or/and personality disorder and I think I'm doing just fine because I've realized that alcoholism was not my major problem, it was all the other things that I had to work throught. I'm far from perfect, and I am very far from being in life where I'd like to be but yea, now I'm focused more at fighting with fear (actually i'd never call that the feeling of fear, but okay every therepist seem to be calling it fear lol). To put things simple I am fucking thinking about everything now, like if I don't want to do something I just write out my thoughts, sometimes I come to the very simple conclusion "it doesn't make any sense" or I call myself a little whiny bitch and I just do it. It works sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't. There is no shame in trying tho
No, it wasn't easier to do stuff while drinking it was easier to drink while drinking.
I think it comes down to choices. Or, not. My room is a mess but it is an ordered mess. I know where everything is.
I take a nap instead of cleaning my room. I post on LP instead of cleaning my room. etc. What does that mean?
What would motivate me to clean my room?
Well, if my parents had guests over I would clean my room. If I had a special lady friend coming over I would clean my room. As it is currently, the other half of my BALLER King Size Bed is covered in clothes, books, painting supplies, CDs.
What is Peterson on about? Put our life into order blah blah blah. I clean my room, then apply for jobs, then get a job, and slay dragons and shit. That still doesn't really address my existential concerns. The only reason I have been so big on joining a cause is what is the alternative?
It's sitting in my room with nothing to do at 3pm in the afternoon.
well you put a lot of energy into finding something that doesn't exist, no wonder you are a mess. Life has no meaning, there is no purpose, we are just an accident of evolution.
You can make up folly tales to try to obscure that obvious that as most people do, or you can continue this big foot search thinking that is what missing or you could simply accept it and deal it it howeer you see fit, join the ranks of the stoics clean up your room and find meaning in virtue, or go epicurean and find happiness in the little joys of life or just eat a bullet, but for fucks sake, just stop chasing your tail.
We still have to do something though. We have to make choices. There is no cosmic meaning but we can make our own terrestrial meanings here on earth. I realize that you could be just listing three modes of living but it is so much more complex than that. Even take Nietzsche who loved the Greeks but also Schopenhauer and there is that whole branch. Soren Kirkegard, Jean Paul Sartre. Countless branches I only have little knowledge of like Hegel and Heidegger. There is Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta and Daoism and countless others. There are the Psychiatrists like Freud, Jung, Otto Rank, Victor Frankl, Erich Fromm, Ernest Becker, Irvin Yalom. As far as I can tell the top 3 ways to live a better life are creative endeavors, joining an altruistic cause, and figuring out how not to be lonely ie making solid friends, connections, and significant others.
of course its much more complex but in the words of Marcus Aurelius stop talking about what a good man is like, and be one.
You are trying to trace the route and see a finishline instead of just begin walking, does the hyper-responsibility stoic appeals to you, start the walk, does other more adventorous paths seem better, then sell it all and move to Jakarta or whatever the hell you want, just go and stop rotting away lost in thoughts.
One can't go too wrong with Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations. I perhaps like Byung-Chul Han more and his highest good is to linger contemplatively. I am rotting regardless. Of course, I would like to get more out of life but lingering with my thoughts I happen to value highly as well. It's actually weird to list like top 3 things that lead to a better life or "happiness."
I don't particularly like the hyper-responsibility route and it is hard for me to take the adventurous route now a days. I have medications I need to take and psychiatrists to keep up with and psychotherapists to check in with. Of course, I don't need the ladder but I do need the former two.
What made you say Jakarta?
The people at work are trying to get me back into gaming (console). That seems like an escape to me and not a real useful skill. It's like if I am trudging through a swamp it will only keep me in the swamp but maybe a bit happier but I'm still stuck in a swamp. I've been out of the swamp before. It's a little different than the idea of rotting. I am rotting as I type. Video games are like excessive movies, netflix, HBO, marijuana, all of the above, et al. They manufacture a pure flow state. They would be a symptom of my current state. They would also be self-medication of my current state. It's like it wouldn't even matter that I didn't have many friends if I was having fun playing video games but there is something very sad in that as I know first hand because I've already lived it in the past. Maybe that's my fate. Video games are the opiate for Richard D. And Cheese. I will eat cheese and play video games. Fuck friends, girlfriends, altruistic causes, Revoluion... Fromage and video games are what I need.
It seems like they want you to play console games with them? Presumably because they like you and playing games is what they do in their free time. Sounds like a pretty good social outlet to me given your situation. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.
United States. May 14 2019 03:25. Posts 8526
