The Glade 4.0

This is the most prescient thing that has been and can be said in this thread.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

If low self-confidence makes me do more interesting things in life, then I gladly welcome it.

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"The map is not the territory."

If you are playing the game Grand Theft Auto, do you stop playing because you know you can win?

No!! You don't!! You walk around and dominate the streets!! Just because you can!

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"The map is not the territory."

What is you rational for this? It seems a very central tenant to who you are, and I would be interested in a hearing more.

To me, it seems like you are following a great many pleasures in life- but have you considered the pleasure of helping someone else out? Making someone else feel good next to you, instead of focusing attention on yourself? There can be a great deal of pleasure in increasing the enjoyment of the lives of those around you. The more you build up others (especially those you choose to regularly spend time with) the more confidence and stability they will gain, thereby giving you more enjoyment from being around them.

You certainly seem to be primarily interested in short term relationships (sexual and non), but keeping a balance between a few long term relationships/projects and short term ones can make your life more balanced, and help out with the emotional lows (discussed below).




Lets address the paradoxes together, here:

You are picking two ends of the spectrum- the person who has high self confidence but does not act on it, and the person who has no self confidence, but acts as if they do. I would say neither is healthy.

The balance between the two is better- if you only act as though you have self confidence, but in reality are relying on the reactions of others to assure you that you are, in fact, self confident, you will not take nearly as much enjoyment out of the act due to stress over the act itself. You can have true self confidence and act on it- the difference is in the level of stress that the actions cause.

You seem to be taking the argument that by sheer force of will and repetition you can cause the stress to decrease- that may work out in the end. But I think it is also important to, in the mean time, worry less about the responses you get from others. You are being self confident in order to attract girls, at least in part, which means the pleasure you take from your actions relies on their response (again, in part). The more you can separate their response from your enjoyment, the more you will be self confident.




You assume that we have not risen above the level where everything we do is about reproduction. Quite honestly, the argument behind the drive for reproduction is to pass our genetics on, correct? But genetics are nothing more than a way to be remembered, a way to have something of yourself carried on. As we now have effective methods for creating memory and change outside reproduction, why does it carry more weight than the others? If I never have children, but I teach a great many students that carry on my ideals, is that worse than having children with my genetic imprint who do not?



Absolutely not. I think it is better to maintain emotional highs. By rationalizing your way out of emotional lows, you create a very tenuous stability in your newly found emotional high, making it more likely to crash. Taking the extra time to accept yourself without rationalization may take longer, but it will last longer as well.

Earlier I mentioned those few long term relationships, that you feed time and energy into: The point of those is essentially to create barriers or boundaries against the low points in your life. When you feed energy and time into your relationships with others, those relationships grow, the people in them grow, and the relationship will eventually be there to give back to you when you need it.

You seem to wall yourself off from deep contact with others by saying that your experience matters the most. If you are being completely honest with yourself, than that is probably true- I doubt any of us can completely overcome our self preservation instincts.

However, in my opinion, it is still good to try to occasionally put others first- it makes you grow by becoming comfortable suppressing your more 'primal' and irrational desires, and can lead to a great deal of emotional growth. In addition, it makes it likely that you will form relationships in which others will be likely to try to put you first on occasion.

If I was to relate what I've seen about your life philosophy to economics, I would say that you are all about spending- and you need to put some savings aside.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

This is an interesting statement. You say you will settle if you stumble upon a fantastic girl, but are you not, in contrast, settling by not looking for that fantastic girl?

By taking the time to search for someone who can be a true intellectual equal, you will give yourself a lifetime of consistent intellectual growth.

And I would say that 'getting girls' is far from facing the existential abyss- it seems more a distraction from having to face said existential abyss. I would say facing the existential abyss would be celibacy and meditation, coupled with consistent probing analysis of yourself, your philosophy, your ideology, your girls, through self analysis and through debate with others.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I live inside my own head... and therefore my experience is 100% important to me. It's simple logic. I only experience what my senses tell me. My own self-preservation and desires are what are most important.



Yes, I understand this. I gave a homeless man $20 the other day because I just felt like it. I sent out 2 gift cards and letters to two girls who are friends of mine (platonic).



This is true. It's difficult because the skills involved with creating new relationships can also be destructive for current relationships. I think this will come with maturity. You have a great point here.




I would say the balance between the two is "less interesting". I think that always acting on this drive is very interesting. However, you need to turn it off like a switch and consider other people's feelings in order to maintain a relationship. I used to do this too much. Now I don't do it enough. It's a maturity thing. I'm working on it.



It does decrease!! Facing death (at an emotional level by talking to strangers) kills stress like you wouldn't believe it!! It makes you feel so alive!



It's about reproductive potential. The better your quality of life (your self-confidence, your social status, your psyche, health, stress levels, etc.), the greater your reproductive potential.



My emotional highs do crash all the time! It makes life more interesting. I don't want constant emotion. That's dull... deadening.



These are good points.



It does matter the most!! It's an existential fact. I have deep contact with several people. I am the type of person who needs to jump into a deep connection or it never happens. Again maybe this is a maturity thing.



I agree that occasionally it is good to put others first. However it should always be secondary to myself. I think that emotional savings creates stress. I don't treat people like construction projects.

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"The map is not the territory."

That's boring!! The only way to face the existential abyss is to wage war or go after girls - things that affect your reproductive potential! Maybe risking your life with extreme sports can do it too. Or confronting your peers about stuff.

Cool people are cool because they went through many life challenges and faced many emotions!

Meditation is good though, but I don't do it yet.

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"The map is not the territory."

Also... I do separate myself from their responses.

Basically... you are telling me to not be empathetic! Which is what I already do! Separating myself from their responses is not being empathetic!

This stuff is so paradoxical, which is why it's so fascinating.

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"The map is not the territory."

What greater challenge is there than to understand the world around you and your position in it?

To solve actual problems instead of simply fluff? Throw yourself into scientific invention, into local politics, into community planning- they will give you emotional highs like you would not believe.

If you think talking to a stranger is like facing death (really? It doesn't phase me at all, I do it all the time), you should try speaking in front of crowds of hostile strangers, or trying to get things done against the flow of public opinion.

You seem to be thinking of challenges as small and physical, instead of large and intellectual.

I think we may be having semantic problems with what exactly it means to say that your experience is the most important: Obviously, to you, in your perception, you will have no experience more important than your own.

To my mind, however, forcing yourself out of your own perspective and looking at the large picture can help quite a bit with rationalizing just how important your own experience is.

Learning to temper your perception with events with how the event must have looked to other people is a very useful skill- it can reduce stress, it can increase perception, and it can cause you to look at events you are not involved in differently, remembering how an event you were involved in must have looked to the uninvolved.

I find your arguments on reproductive potential interesting, perhaps being married and having secured my 'reproductive potential', I look at it differently.

I do not consider the passing of my genetic potential the ultimate goal- to me, being remembered for my ideas, my philosophy, the creations that are purely from my mind- these are truer ultimate tests than simply being able to reproduce.

When I am ready to have children, it will not be the simple act of reproduction that will make it special to me, it will be the entire act of parenting, teaching, and raising that will make it my creation.

Reproductive potential is just that- potential. Why focus on potential you have no intent on following through, instead of following on potential that you can actually develop and use? (Political, financial, intellectual?)

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Actually, I'm telling you to separate your emotional stability and self worth from their responses.

You may change future methods depending on the responses, you may feel bad if you hurt someone, but you should not let it effect your assessment of your self worth.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Talking to strangers with the goal of seeing them later and touching them is like facing death. Talking to a guy with the intention of fighting him is like facing death (I don't do this but just saying). Talking to them with goals that don't affect you reproductively is not facing death. I will respond later but I need to do work.

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"The map is not the territory."

This is all true. I try to keep my emotional stability independent from other people. It is the act of trying that I enjoy, and not the results.

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"The map is not the territory."

As do I.... Although this has been a wonderful distraction from studying for my quantum test on Thursday....

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Almost everything I do... at one level... is a distraction from work. My facebook got banned as the result of emotional highs I tried to maintain in the act of procrastination. It's fascinating... I wonder if procrastination is tied to female sexual resistance at some Freudian level...

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"The map is not the territory."

Some things I learned from experience...

Girls have something called "anti-obsession". It is how they perceive stalkers. Guys have something called "obsession". The level of obsession or anti-obsession in a person is based on their emotional experience.

A girl needs some anti-obsession to sleep with a guy. She has to perceive him as stalker-ish up to her emotional limit. Younger girls have a very small anti-obsession threshold because they aren't emotionally developed. If he pushes her far past her emotional limit, then he is a stalker in her mind because he generated too much anti-obsession. She will not sleep with him. If he doesn't create enough anti-obsession, then she will also not sleep with him. It has to be the max amount that she can emotionally handle without perceiving him as too stalker-ish. It's really fascinating. Also, if his obsession is less than her anti-obsession, then he has a strategic advantage and can be more "cool" when dealing with her.

Pushing a girl past her anti-obsession threshold, often while having too much obsession yourself, = being "creepy".

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"The map is not the territory."

... I seriously can't tell if you're fakeposting or not, anymore.

Congratulations?

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I only like to talk about things that I'm not sure about. So I believe and don't believe anything I say. It's a chaotic writing style. Congratulations for figuring this out.

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"The map is not the territory."

I can't believe I went through this idiotic thread. Lex, you are so full of **** that I can't even figure out if I want to laugh at you, or pity the terrible life and mental state you've constructed for yourself. Furthermore, I can't believe other people are allowing themselves to be sucked into it as well. I'll be attempting to ignore any future postings of yours.

Hater.

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"The map is not the territory."

Stathol,

Some people become so depedent on the view of the world they've created for themselves, it's impossible to accept any other alternative. The mental gymnastics required for such a situation conditions them into being able to lie so well they can deceive even themselves.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

My views change all the time... it's like software revisions... new views work better...

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"The map is not the territory."

Red blood cells carry oxygen. What's your point?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

The difference between me and other psychotic people is that I'm smarter... which is why things will (probably) work out for me...

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"The map is not the territory."

At least he admits he's psychotic now.

It's nothing but an attempt to mask selfishness and pettiness as some sort of insight into the nature of life. Lex has no control over his dick and is using all this bullshit about "existential abysses" and "reproductive potential" and so forth to mask the fact that he's just another hormone-driven nincompoop.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."