I know I'm fairly new here, but in my experience this has been pretty commonplace. — JustSomeGuy
I take it you're being facetious here? Or did I read that wrong? — JustSomeGuy
This is all a product of my study and love for Stoicism and Taoism, but in practice I have found these things to be extremely helpful and they have contributed to my overall happiness and well-being. I also do believe that, barring severe chemical imbalances (aka clinical depression or other real mental illnesses), everybody can benefit from these concepts just as I have. — JustSomeGuy
Both lack any authentic relationship with the external world, that bond formed through genuine love. — TimeLine
Most of what people form is really an infantile dependency that superficially attempts to covert this alienation by keeping them preoccupied, following and trying to be close to others and yet no matter how close they try to get, they always feel this sense of insecurity and a deep sense of anxiety because they feel - which is a form of knowing - that this alienation is not overcome. They become jaded, mechanical, and the continuity of their existence is almost entirely based on routine amusements as they passively consume to pass the time. — TimeLine
If a person finds something that she's passionate about then that's all she needs to live a fulfilling life. — TheMadFool
Depression is the result of inability or willfulness not to change. — Rich
Yeah, you don't need that much sleep to be well rested.Sure, but unfortunately, one cannot sleep 24 hours a day 7 days a week. — Lone Wolf
You don't need a reason. It happens naturally.So what reason do I have to live? — Lone Wolf
Why hasten it?! That is so futile! What will you achieve? Will you achieve something different than by waiting? No. So what's the point?If death is coming anyway, why not hasten it with a little work? — Lone Wolf
Depends on the individual.And if how should one identify what is missing? — Lone Wolf
I don't think that demonstrates an attachment. We do a lot of things without being attached to them. For example, maybe I enjoy playing football, but I'm not attached to it. I will play it for as long as it is possible.Being attached to outcomes is human nature. If one puts in effort in a relationship, then that demonstrates an attachment. — Lone Wolf
Yes, you probably would be, but that would also be your fault because you decided to trust that person, and they weren't the right person to trust.You will be hurt if the other person suddenly decides to leave without explanation unless you are not human. — Lone Wolf
I don't need to be attached to something or someone to care about it/them and have an interest in it/them. Attachment is dependency, not love.Without attachments, one has no reason to work towards anything nor to do anything. — Lone Wolf
So you finally decided to start a business :D . Congrats!I quit my all my medications since New Year's or as a unconscious resolution for this year and feel great. Planning to move to Las Vegas with a friend running a supplement company in March. Hope things go even better there and will have more money too, haha. — Posty McPostface
I also do believe that, barring severe chemical imbalances (aka clinical depression or other real mental illnesses), everybody can benefit from these concepts just as I have. — JustSomeGuy
Supplements sell like hot bread in the US. Why is it that many supplement companies are from Cali?Well, he already runs it. I hope to ride along on his wave of success. — Posty McPostface
I do think it's a lack of love. A person in love with a another person or a cause has pep in their step and purpose. That's why it's hard to empathize with someone in this state. They are gloomy and self-absorbed. Nothing fascinates or deeply pleases them. Maybe half-consciously they are fascinated by death. I remember feeling torn between life and death. — dog
I have noticed two types of love, the first being a neediness, a possessiveness, something filled with expectation and obligation, something that is measured, scored, and constantly being tested and evaluated. It's critical, demanding, and corrected by retaliation, manipulation, and withholding of affection. It is a type of love that seems to me to bring nothing but misery to both parties, yet I see people cling tightly to such relationships, I guess for fear that they might have to eat their lunch all by themselves. — Hanover
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. — Thoreau
I stated in another post that I believe a significant amount of unhappiness is caused by bad parenting, and I really believe that. I think we have kids out there who really don't know what real love is, having never experienced it, but instead being bounced between mom and dad and watching and hearing their hatred towards one another. — Hanover
Should I feel my contributions were significantly greater than my spouse's, it wouldn't be anger that I felt in having the excessive workload, but it would be concern of her lack of concern over me and our child, which would be a signal of her lack of love, or perhaps worse, that she is of the former type I described that does not know what love is. — Hanover
Yeah, you don't need that much sleep to be well rested. — Agustino
Why hasten it?! That is so futile! What will you achieve? Will you achieve something different than by waiting? No. So what's the point? — Agustino
I don't think that demonstrates an attachment. We do a lot of things without being attached to them. For example, maybe I enjoy playing football, but I'm not attached to it. I will play it for as long as it is possible. — Agustino
Love is not about being independent, but rather working together with those you love. Else you might as well be alone, and that is not healthy.I don't need to be attached to something or someone to care about it/them and have an interest in it/them. Attachment is dependency, not love. — Agustino
The Tao Te Ching has meant a lot to me and it has helped me intellectually and spiritually. It has a way of bringing me back to solid ground. It takes me to a place where I can balance. I have always been a pretty grounded person. I've always known where I fit in the world. The fact that I can feel that and still be very anxious and sometimes depressed makes it feel like two differently processes are battling it out inside me. It's like the cartoons with the devil and angel sitting on my soldier except with me it's the Buddha and Woody Allen. — T Clark
There are no criteria. The so-called criteria are merely subjective classifications of mental illness, usually based on symptoms alone. Who decided that people who have those symptoms are ill? Doctors. There are some schools of thought in the field that claim that there are no mental illnesses as such.I don't know enough about the science of it to comment on that. I assume there are specific criteria necessary in order to diagnose a mental illness, otherwise it wouldn't be a science. But I don't know what those criteria are. — JustSomeGuy
Anyway, was just wondering if the context, and/or object orientation played any role in how you view Tao Te Ching, and if it relates in any way to how you view depression. — Coldlight
What this misses is the personality type that feels crowded by others. A person can get beyond the need for that abstract audience. I suppose most of us will still want at least a single lover or a single friend. But a few of us could probably be pretty happy alone on a space station for years even, as long as the cultural stain of others was accessible. (Books, movies, etc.)It fosters a faux unity in the hope that it will relieve the anxiety, but automatons cannot love and so we work so hard at selling ourselves to an audience that is never satisfied. — TimeLine
This self-destructiveness is an unconscious frustration against this reality, a desire to destroy or end the bullshit but turned in on itself because the way that we have been trained, the way that the world functions is distinct from this actual reality that we are unable to confront consciously. — TimeLine
For example, if you are raised in a culture entrenched with the idea that your parents are absolutely and unequivocally right in everything that they say or do and if you think otherwise you are a bad person, whenever you are confronted with the possibility that this reality may not be true, you feel bad, you feel like there is something wrong with you, and the self-destructiveness is really your anger at this confusion; what you really want to destroy is the lie, but you don't know how to because you don't realise that it is a lie. — TimeLine
I can love the world I live in deeply and be unbearably anxious at the same time. — T Clark
What this misses is the personality type that feels crowded by others. A person can get beyond the need for that abstract audience. I suppose most of us will still want at least a single lover or a single friend. But a few of us could probably be pretty happy alone on a space station for years even, as long as the cultural stain of others was accessible. (Books, movies, etc.) — dog
But (from my perspective) you are ignoring the gloom of the confident, articulate, and popular personality type. — dog
Even if he gets his time in the woods with ideal companions (hard work or a risky crime footing the bill), that time is finite and ends in accident or decay. — dog
What is intolerable is the inability to connect with others; you can have a partner, family, friends and still feel unbearably alone because there is no genuine love but rather a behavioural programme that promises eventual happiness if you conform to an ideal. — TimeLine
You do what you are told by society and you are told to distrust yourself, to become alienated from yourself as though consciousness is your enemy, that the danger of losing this eventual happiness is you and so you must go. — TimeLine
Capitalism and our societal norms are like farmers fattening their cows with hormones and rearing them ready for slaughter; you are only worth something if you do what you are told. — TimeLine
The moment that you stop expecting or working hard to try and be loved by impressing this system through power or attractiveness or having popular traits, and instead start using the faculty or the inherent mental capacity to give love - charity, kindness, affection to all things and not selectively - that social system breaks down and you start to learn this new language, this very 'you' that never had a chance to know. — TimeLine
You cannot help who you fall in love with (I know that from experience) and all is vanity, but it is about the memories we share and make with one another while it lasts that matters (you should read Darkness Visible). — TimeLine
So, two people can unite and share in romance and even marriage and those experience can end, but the friendship will never end which is why friendship is a type of love that is eternal. There is nothing greater than finding a true friend to alleviate the emptiness. — TimeLine
The ideal relationship would be simultaneously the ideal sexual relationship and the ideal friendship. But there is a tension here. Sexual love is possessive. Friendship recognizes the freedom and equal status of other. — dog
I read Darkness Visible many years ago. It's a beautiful little book. Styron was there. That's an example of a married, successful, respected artist wrestling with this stuff. A great example. — dog
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