#1
[account deactivated]
#2
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
I have a different fantasy than you. I think that I can play an important role in some "left" situation one day. I think that orienting my life around the possibility of making a decisive intervention is important. I think that my chief problem so far is that I haven't been doing this - I have been desperately trying to force myself to live a "normal" life, to psyche myself up to become an accountant or policy analyst or something like this. I think my fundamental fantasy is that I can make a decisive intervention in a key systemic issue, and I think that if I constantly try to fight against this tendency in myself that I'll continue to have major symptoms and be unable to do either "radical" work or "normal" work.

I'm not saying that I should orient myself to something completely impossible. It should be something that is within the realm of possibility, even if it seems extremely unlikely. I should clarify and say that I expect my intervention might be wholly bureaucratic, for example I might help organize a particular economic policy for a "left" regime or I might make a particular theoretical intervention in a minor debate. So this is sort of a level below your impossible overthrow and above your submission to the system. I think I need to throw myself into a radical project in order to simply function at all.
#3
[account deactivated]
#4
Post rating: ~
As an adult with pervasive developmental disorder and caught in a situation that leaves me unable to pull myself up by the bootstraps, very poorly. My comfort is to think about never waking up again as some sort of way of asserting my control over my situation and be able to get to sleep each night.

I am misunderstood as a result of my condition, socialize poorly, am intimidating as a result of my height, and profoundly uncharismatic. I wish for some sort of health subsidy or positive change in social relations following a revolution that would make feel empowered as a person, but I am of no use to any sort of agitation before then. No one likes me or would want me involved with their emancipatory struggle, except maybe as a suicide bomber.

Sometimes I think about having children and the love and joy that would bring into my life (my sister had her first child and that brought some small bit of happiness to me until she moved away) but I doubt I will ever be in a situation that makes that possible.

I suppose I can say at least I'll never sell out and submit to the Man, since I can't be shaped into a cog that will work in the capitalist machine.

edit: and my gun I guess. My gun gives me a bit of solace. I am trying to get better with it in hopes of doing some vague bit of good if the worst case scenario ever comes to pass

Edited by tapespeed ()

#5
San Francisco
Post rating: ~
I think my life is developing very well and is comfortable. Work has never been better and I am good at meeting and exceeding my responsibilities. I am quite happy with my level of dedication to self-improvement and am enjoying the fruits of my practical approach to life. I do not consider my life boring or unfulfilling; rather, there doesn't seem to be enough time to do all the things I'd like to do.

However, I am terribly disappointed with other people. They are full of silly ideas, horrifically uninterested in knowledge, the truth, or wisdom, and are too prone to cynicism and defeatism. They are morally inept and often display idiotic behaviors which I tire of tolerating. Not just strangers, but family members, contemporaries, and friends. I am increasingly judgmental towards them and find myself wishing death on particularly awful variants of societal refuse, which I interact with regularly given my urban lifestyle.

Although I am now trying to prepare myself for marrying, the idea seems unrealistic given my evidently high standards for the sort of person I would tolerate having around me nearly all the time. I greatly enjoy my solitude, but wish to have children and raise them well, and think often about my future role as a father. I might move elsewhere in a few years to improve my odds of finding someone decent, as I don't think my area has a very good selection.

Eventually I hope to go into politics in some fashion and have a significant influence, but that will have to happen after I have married and achieved financial security. My goal will be of course to guide the existing cultural and political establishment in a way that is beneficial for the state, and humanity, as a whole. I think I am a rare person and can make the world a much better place given authority, but recognize it must be earned through a lifetime of work and realism.
#6
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~
discipline, I'll try to explain what I meant a bit. I meant more a distinction like "be good / do good." Your emphasis is on trying to be a good person. So (nowadays) you make commitments over a modest time horizon, you try to build up features of your life that you wish to promote, you take opportunities presented by channels like school or working for the government, you try to build a family. I think that is healthy and it is largely what most people do. If you can do that then you probably ought to.

What I'm also saying is that due to my particular pathology, or at least psychic makeup, I'm not really able to focus on the day-to-day in the same way. So far this has manifested itself as paralysis, I simply can't do anything of much use for anyone. But I think there is a way out of this, and it is through commitment to a (set of) life-project(s). My constant time-wasting and procrastination now is not a sign that I need to "be realistic" and focus on the everyday, to try to "be good." I've tried to "be good" for a decade and I continue to muddle through. I think that this is fairly traditional obsessive-neurotic behaviour, where I constantly come up with ideas of how to improve my day-to-day life while missing the big picture. And I think the big picture (for me) is to try to "do good" in some real intervention.

Because of my particular character, I don't think that I can "do good" in a simple linear way (helping people one at a time), but rather as a sort of dialectical project. That is, when I have tried to "do good" in real life, like working as a volunteer for projects that I love, or trying to start a career in something like policy analysis, it hasn't worked out much for me either. I'm not well suited for just going somewhere and hammering at the frames of houses or writing reports for development agencies (and I've tried both too). I now think this is because it doesn't break the deadlock, it is still too close to simply "being" a good person in an almost passive and linear way. So I have to extend myself beyond my immediate comfort zone into a project that allows me to pursue my desire directly, which is ironically through a long curve. That long curve is diligent work towards a powerful intervention.

Importantly, I was already doing this the entire time, only in a hobbled state. That is, I've only been able to do what I have been able to do through a subversive, submerged orientation towards "doing good." I'm not suggesting a shift in worldview so much as that I need to embrace the worldview I really have. This involves burying the idea that I am going to "get better" in mundane terms and "be good" in a way that pleases everyone else. It means I have to make that break and say that my interest is completely found in things like theory and participation at a high level in politico-administrative endeavours. It's only at that point, when I stop doing all these frantic things to try to "cure" myself and simply embrace what it is that I really want to do, that I will paradoxically be able to unravel my symptoms and begin to "be good."
#7
tardy on these heaters
Post rating: +

lungfish posted:
I think my life is developing very well and is comfortable. Work has never been better and I am good at meeting and exceeding my responsibilities. I am quite happy with my level of dedication to self-improvement and am enjoying the fruits of my practical approach to life. I do not consider my life boring or unfulfilling; rather, there doesn't seem to be enough time to do all the things I'd like to do.

However, I am terribly disappointed with other people. They are full of silly ideas, horrifically uninterested in knowledge, the truth, or wisdom, and are too prone to cynicism and defeatism. They are morally inept and often display idiotic behaviors which I tire of tolerating. Not just strangers, but family members, contemporaries, and friends. I am increasingly judgmental towards them and find myself wishing death on particularly awful variants of societal refuse, which I interact with regularly given my urban lifestyle.

Although I am now trying to prepare myself for marrying, the idea seems unrealistic given my evidently high standards for the sort of person I would tolerate having around me nearly all the time. I greatly enjoy my solitude, but wish to have children and raise them well, and think often about my future role as a father. I might move elsewhere in a few years to improve my odds of finding someone decent, as I don't think my area has a very good selection.

Eventually I hope to go into politics in some fashion and have a significant influence, but that will have to happen after I have married and achieved financial security. My goal will be of course to guide the existing cultural and political establishment in a way that is beneficial for the state, and humanity, as a whole. I think I am a rare person and can make the world a much better place given authority, but recognize it must be earned through a lifetime of work and realism.



you sound like patrick bateman

#8
tardy on these heaters
Post rating: ~

getfiscal posted:
discipline, I'll try to explain what I meant a bit. I meant more a distinction like "be good / do good." Your emphasis is on trying to be a good person. So (nowadays) you make commitments over a modest time horizon, you try to build up features of your life that you wish to promote, you take opportunities presented by channels like school or working for the government, you try to build a family. I think that is healthy and it is largely what most people do. If you can do that then you probably ought to.

What I'm also saying is that due to my particular pathology, or at least psychic makeup, I'm not really able to focus on the day-to-day in the same way. So far this has manifested itself as paralysis, I simply can't do anything of much use for anyone. But I think there is a way out of this, and it is through commitment to a (set of) life-project(s). My constant time-wasting and procrastination now is not a sign that I need to "be realistic" and focus on the everyday, to try to "be good." I've tried to "be good" for a decade and I continue to muddle through. I think that this is fairly traditional obsessive-neurotic behaviour, where I constantly come up with ideas of how to improve my day-to-day life while missing the big picture. And I think the big picture (for me) is to try to "do good" in some real intervention.

Because of my particular character, I don't think that I can "do good" in a simple linear way (helping people one at a time), but rather as a sort of dialectical project. That is, when I have tried to "do good" in real life, like working as a volunteer for projects that I love, or trying to start a career in something like policy analysis, it hasn't worked out much for me either. I'm not well suited for just going somewhere and hammering at the frames of houses or writing reports for development agencies (and I've tried both too). I now think this is because it doesn't break the deadlock, it is still too close to simply "being" a good person in an almost passive and linear way. So I have to extend myself beyond my immediate comfort zone into a project that allows me to pursue my desire directly, which is ironically through a long curve. That long curve is diligent work towards a powerful intervention.

Importantly, I was already doing this the entire time, only in a hobbled state. That is, I've only been able to do what I have been able to do through a subversive, submerged orientation towards "doing good." I'm not suggesting a shift in worldview so much as that I need to embrace the worldview I really have. This involves burying the idea that I am going to "get better" in mundane terms and "be good" in a way that pleases everyone else. It means I have to make that break and say that my interest is completely found in things like theory and participation at a high level in politico-administrative endeavours. It's only at that point, when I stop doing all these frantic things to try to "cure" myself and simply embrace what it is that I really want to do, that I will paradoxically be able to unravel my symptoms and begin to "be good."



I appreciate what you're saying. However I think that "doing good" is basically superficial and its gains are lost to the whimsy of the historical present, and that "being good" is timeless and lasting. "Doing good" can be erroneous and co-opted, while "being good" is firmly rooted in a sound morality and maintains an upright character through generations. I've thought about this sort of thing a lot over the past year or so and this is basically where I'm at on this question: "be good" and all your doings are good. To "do good" without "being good" is an attempt to cheat virtue.

#9
Post rating: ~
i intend to become richer and whiter as i grow older.
#10
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~
Yes I understand what you mean. I mean more that I feel (due to mental issues) that I paradoxically can only "be good" by launching myself into a project that allows me to possibly "do good." In other terms, maybe I could say that I think I need a strong (anticipated) "public role" in order to be successful in a "private role."

Obviously everyone needs goals (specific or vague) to get them through their days, I'm not saying I've discovered anything profound for anyone else or something, I just mean that maybe in my particular situation I need to sort of "go with" my impulse to launch into projects and avoid "normal" work, to the point of orienting myself around a large project that allows me to do some sort of work at all.
#11
[account deactivated]
#12
Post rating: +

lungfish posted:
I think my life is developing very well and is comfortable. Work has never been better and I am good at meeting and exceeding my responsibilities. I am quite happy with my level of dedication to self-improvement and am enjoying the fruits of my practical approach to life. I do not consider my life boring or unfulfilling; rather, there doesn't seem to be enough time to do all the things I'd like to do.

However, I am terribly disappointed with other people. They are full of silly ideas, horrifically uninterested in knowledge, the truth, or wisdom, and are too prone to cynicism and defeatism. They are morally inept and often display idiotic behaviors which I tire of tolerating. Not just strangers, but family members, contemporaries, and friends. I am increasingly judgmental towards them and find myself wishing death on particularly awful variants of societal refuse, which I interact with regularly given my urban lifestyle.

Although I am now trying to prepare myself for marrying, the idea seems unrealistic given my evidently high standards for the sort of person I would tolerate having around me nearly all the time. I greatly enjoy my solitude, but wish to have children and raise them well, and think often about my future role as a father. I might move elsewhere in a few years to improve my odds of finding someone decent, as I don't think my area has a very good selection.

Eventually I hope to go into politics in some fashion and have a significant influence, but that will have to happen after I have married and achieved financial security. My goal will be of course to guide the existing cultural and political establishment in a way that is beneficial for the state, and humanity, as a whole. I think I am a rare person and can make the world a much better place given authority, but recognize it must be earned through a lifetime of work and realism.



JEsus christ.

#13
Post rating: ~

tapespeed posted:
As an adult with pervasive developmental disorder and caught in a situation that leaves me unable to pull myself up by the bootstraps, very poorly. My comfort is to think about never waking up again as some sort of way of asserting my control over my situation and be able to get to sleep each night.

I am misunderstood as a result of my condition, socialize poorly, am intimidating as a result of my height, and profoundly uncharismatic. I wish for some sort of health subsidy or positive change in social relations following a revolution that would make feel empowered as a person, but I am of no use to any sort of agitation before then. No one likes me or would want me involved with their emancipatory struggle, except maybe as a suicide bomber.

Sometimes I think about having children and the love and joy that would bring into my life (my sister had her first child and that brought some small bit of happiness to me until she moved away) but I doubt I will ever be in a situation that makes that possible.

I suppose I can say at least I'll never sell out and submit to the Man, since I can't be shaped into a cog that will work in the capitalist machine.

edit: and my gun I guess. My gun gives me a bit of solace. I am trying to get better with it in hopes of doing some vague bit of good if the worst case scenario ever comes to pass



lmao

#14
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~

discipline posted:
so what exactly do you expect acts of virtue to "do" for you?

I don't believe in virtue ethics, I'm not sure what you mean.

what kind of deadlock are you stuck in?

Obsessive-neurotic.

do you ever suspect that working towards something so distance and ephemeral in the future (you say powerful intervention but you have admitted you don't know what this is) is simply buying you more time to procrastinate?

Well, yes, it is working through a fantasy. But there is no "authentic" core to myself that I have to "reveal" in some New Age way. It's more just demonstrating fidelity to the basic coordinates of my reality. Like, my mind is set up in a certain way, and I would prefer to express this in a way that feels good and follows up on projects I'm excited about.

#15
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~
I should add that I can see the contours of what I think is close to the truth at this point, but it is still in very simple terms and only emerging. As in, I have an informed hunch about a particular strategy, based on years of struggling with neurosis, and I think that this might be fruitful. I'm also fairly firm in knowing what I think is largely irrelevant to my case. But I might be talking in incomplete, confused terms and I might change my mind in dramatic ways still.
#16
Post rating: ~
“The most powerful and affecting of the poems of this time is ‘Die drei Soldaten’ (‘The Three Soldiers’ — A Book for Children), which appeared in the Versuche of 1932. Georg Grosz supplied the incisive and bitter illustrations. The poem consists of fourteen sections of rhymed couplets, and describes how three soldiers — Hunger, Mishap, and Consumption — desert toward the end of the war, and make their way through various cities. Here they encounter the rich, the poor, children, men of the church. They are witnesses of the destruction of wheat in a time of hunger. They attend the trial of a worker who has been framed. They see mustard gas being manufactured. They have a private session with God himself; watch the war of the classes, and finally reach Moscow.

They are so outraged by what they saw in Germany, particularly the passivity with which the poor and the stricken accept their plight; the hardened hearts of the well-to-do in the face of misery; the impotence of God; and (most shameful indignity of all!) the fact that they themselves, the soldiers, are taken for granted, that they begin to commit atrocities. When they finally reach Moscow, they discover that the populace there will not stand for them. The three soldiers laugh for the first time. They say: ‘These people have some sense. None of them takes us for granted. They’ll simply put us up against a wall and shoot us.’ Which is what happens.

Brecht’s anger is white-hot — anger at those who tolerate such outrages no less than at those who perpetrate them. Through the three soldiers he voices his affronted conscience. They resolve

To shoot all
Who put up with things as they were.
For there are many who are afraid to grumble,
Saying Yes and Amen to all.
And these would have to be shot,
So that one at last might know what’s what.

Among the bitterest passages in the poem is that describing the soldiers’ conference with God, which is attended by personages of wealth. The Lord God, seeing that it is ‘impossible’ to change the world agrees to make misery ‘invisible.’ So the soldiers become transparent and one can no longer see Hunger, Mishap, and Consumption. One sees only injustice on earth and the people tormented and exploited. One sees the results but not the causes! And even God, having lost all authority with His subordinates on earth, and having Himself forgotten the contents of the book He had once written, is found blundering down below. He too has to be stood up against a wall. With the death of God, the invisible becomes visible again. The class war is revealed.”
#17
Post rating: ~
My incapacity to think, to observe, to determine the truth of things, to remember, to speak, to take part in the life of others, becomes greater each day; I am turning into stone . . . If I don't save myself in some work, I am lost.

Am I concerned with happiness? I'm concerned with my work

Edited by Impper ()

#18
Post rating: ~

mangosteen posted:
lmao


It's not funny.

#19
Post rating: +
I work a very unglamorous engineering position. The train affords me 2 hours every day to read and take notes. A couple days a week I am able to clear my schedule and write for many hours in a stretch. I live comfortably and have, after a trial of tweaking (including new jobs, new cities, removal of terrible friends etc) been able to avoid the various neuroses and pitfalls that I know all too well. Adult life is, for the first time ever, pretty good for me-- I don't feel guilty about that at all because I have this vague notion that I will be able to "give something back" as the libs say, hopefully through my chosen crafts.
#20
tardy on these heaters
Post rating: ~

animedad posted:
I work a very unglamorous engineering position. The train affords me 2 hours every day to read and take notes. A couple days a week I am able to clear my schedule and write for many hours in a stretch. I live comfortably and have, after a trial of tweaking (including new jobs, new cities, removal of terrible friends etc) been able to avoid the various neuroses and pitfalls that I know all too well. Adult life is, for the first time ever, pretty good for me-- I don't feel guilty about that at all because I have this vague notion that I will be able to "give something back" as the libs say, hopefully through my chosen crafts.



write front page article

#21
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~

animedad posted:
I work a very unglamorous engineering position. The train affords me 2 hours every day to read and take notes. A couple days a week I am able to clear my schedule and write for many hours in a stretch. I live comfortably and have, after a trial of tweaking (including new jobs, new cities, removal of terrible friends etc) been able to avoid the various neuroses and pitfalls that I know all too well. Adult life is, for the first time ever, pretty good for me-- I don't feel guilty about that at all because I have this vague notion that I will be able to "give something back" as the libs say, hopefully through my chosen crafts.

you can just say you are going to blow up a building here. no need to pussyfoot around it. this place is encrypted like nine layers, no fed will ever read it. wait what? *whispers* OHHHHHH SAFETY LOL

#22
Post rating: +

discipline posted:
I'm sort of offended you have labeled my desire to live in harmony with my own values and within the boundaries of reality and my physical/mental capabilities as "submission to the system". if you mean "submission to god" or "acceptance of my own mortality, my intellectual ability, and the nature of social change" then I could agree but you said what I have oriented myself towards was a "fantasy", while I think it is just understanding myself better and living with a lot less stress and a lot more focus and productivity. maybe it's easier to see things in a more manageable format, after all.. one eats an elephant one bite at a time. I could still have dreams of doing bigger and more meaningful things, but expecting and working towards something more realistic and comprehending the meaning in the smaller things has made me a happier person. one day the weather might blow some crazy opportunity into my lap, and I am fond of taking pretty large risks, which sets me ahead anyway, but until then I can just work within the time frame of the next six months and be happy. this all might be some sort of kneejerk reaction to me leaving the country in two weeks but I dunno. I sorta picked up this mentality overseas anyway.



If we subtract fantasy from reality, then reality itself loses its consistency and disintegrates. To choose between "either accepting reality or choosing fantasy" is wrong: if we really want to change or escape our social reality, the first thing to do is change our fantasies that make us fit this reality.

#23
Post rating: ~

babyfinland posted:
animedad posted:
I work a very unglamorous engineering position. The train affords me 2 hours every day to read and take notes. A couple days a week I am able to clear my schedule and write for many hours in a stretch. I live comfortably and have, after a trial of tweaking (including new jobs, new cities, removal of terrible friends etc) been able to avoid the various neuroses and pitfalls that I know all too well. Adult life is, for the first time ever, pretty good for me-- I don't feel guilty about that at all because I have this vague notion that I will be able to "give something back" as the libs say, hopefully through my chosen crafts.



write front page article


i have a couple of ideas for posts that im fleshing out right now. we'll see if any of them make the cut!

#24
Post rating: ~
doub step
#25
Post rating: ~
how am i handling it? poorly.
#26
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating: ~

discipline posted:
revolution is like the weather, it happens when certain conditions align themselves and then nothing can stop it.

nice ad homonym.

#27
Post rating: ~
i have no idea what i'm doing other than working a dead end job to pay bills and distracting myself with daydreams and video games. i look back on an idealised childhood as the only time when i was truly happy and lived in the world that i wanted to.
#28
Post rating: ~

SomeIsraeliFuck posted:
i intend to become richer and whiter as i grow older.



uh, ive got some bad news about that whole 'becoming whiter' thing for ya buddy

#29
Post rating: ~
i just pull it over my head
#30
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~

Vivian posted:
i just pull it over my head

GOOD POST

#31
Post rating: ~

Tsargon posted:
SomeIsraeliFuck posted:
i intend to become richer and whiter as i grow older.


uh, ive got some bad news about that whole 'becoming whiter' thing for ya buddy



yes?

#32
Post rating: ~

SomeIsraeliFuck posted:

Tsargon posted:
SomeIsraeliFuck posted:
i intend to become richer and whiter as i grow older.


uh, ive got some bad news about that whole 'becoming whiter' thing for ya buddy

yes?



~ jews aint white~

#33
Post rating: +
might makes white
#34
[account deactivated]
#35
Post rating: ~
i hope to one day be able to express myself at least on an internet forum in my own words and have it mean something to someone. i'm not a grownup at all, i'm easily the most gigatnitc loser that ever lived. i hate myself and don't want to die.
#36
Post rating: ~
Adulthood is great and life keeps getting better and better.
#37
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~
i think i'm going to talk to someone tomorrow for a referral to a psychoanalyst.
#38
Post rating: ~
i dont understand how you guys go to doctors and stuff
#39
Post rating: ~

Impper posted:
i dont understand how you guys go to doctors and stuff



same, the whole psycho-medical complex seems really strange

#40
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~
what do you mean specifically about going to doctors. i also take antipsychotics and antidepressants. i've been assessed like 4 times in the past year or so.