That's a good response, Micheal. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I'll write my own.
My views constantly change so much that it's ridiculous. For most of my life, I had a bad habit of wearing viewpoints like suits. I would have perceptions of reality that seemed flawless for a time, until new evidence caused them to crash. This still happens frequently.
When I was in high school, I was strongly in support of war because I thought it was cool. I was very shy in high school.
In my senior year, I decided I wanted to join the Navy ROTC. Didn't happen from exercise induced asthma. I also wanted to lose my "innocence". I acted like a deviant criminal for a few months and caused some trouble, but never got caught. I got laid. I thought I did everything and understood everything.
This is about when I started posting on the Glade. I soon acquired very libertarian views because they appealed to me. I cared a lot about rights and freedoms... basically Elmo's viewpoints.
Socially I was stuck at being shy, throughout college until my senior year. I always tried to be a perfectionist and put myself under a lot of stress, because that's how my father acts. I thought it must be the best way. Being a social perfectionist makes you shy. Being a workaholic makes you stressed.
I started wondering why I wasn't getting girls like so many other guys were, and started caring about this. I dwelled on my physical attractiveness. Obviously, that must have been the reason. I was a shy extravert stuck in a cage of perfectionism... a stable reality. I could express my true views on the Internet but that was it. I trolled on the Internet to let loose my wild side. In games I griefed for the same reason. In person, I cared far too much about other people's perceptions of me. In person, I thought it "mattered" to care a ton about other people's feelings. This is what my father always taught me. It kept me in a cage of false social reality.
By my senior year of college, I started letting loose more and more as I started seeing patterns in the behavior of girls. I didn't want to invest too much "fakeness" in getting a girl when all efforts might be in vain anyways. I started to realize... slowly... that the issue was my socializing. At first I tried to recognize behavior patterns to make myself the best socially. I'm naturally really good at recognizing patterns. I did online dating because you write before meeting someone. I tried really hard to make a good impression of myself as a stable, normal person. I was really not stable or normal, but rather an immature person held in chains, only willing to express himself on the Internet where there are no consequences.
Recently, I let loose too much. My Facebook got banned. My entire extended family thinks I'm bipolar. I let the pendulum swing too far the other way. I didn't control AT ALL anything I had in my mind. I took honesty to the extreme, and made social barriers non existent. I repeatedly had emotional breakdowns.
I'm trying now to stabilize myself and have been successful. Letting loose with strangers helps me quite a lot, actually. I don't feel as strong a need to bother family and friends. I'm still highly immature, but at least I do not feel bounded by chains. I finally feel more alive.
Politically, I began leaning more and more to the left. I think a support system is great for society. I don't want people walking around with machine guns. I want cameras on streets to catch criminals. I find it highly important to control people for their safety, and for their physical health (not mental!). I think everyone should have the right to healthcare... or to make people here happier... the "privilege" to healthcare.
However, I wish people wouldn't so strictly follow social barriers that are self-imposed. I can't force people out of them, so I will only do so with myself... to have a more fulfilling social life for myself. I think most people are in a walking daze.
My sense of "reality" crashes all the time and gets reconstructed with new, slightly better, but still paradoxical and false ideas. I'm finally able to live more and more in the present. My family still thinks I'm mental. Maybe I am, but at least I feel alive and not like the walking dead... which is the way I used to feel. Maybe I was depressed but was just too proud to see a therapist.
I have a much more forgiving view of people now. They don't bother me too much. Everyone has their own opinions and I can't be responsible for changing them. I don't hate girls for the way I sometimes think they are. Everyone is an individual. I don't hate reality... it's actually a great game to play. It's a game that constantly moves as you play. Sometimes I'm slightly pessimistic, but I can't always expect to be in a good mood. At least I recognize that I'm the source of all my emotions. This fact has helped me a lot.
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