I think that you're kinder than I am to maintain the first half. I think that expediency is what is sought. The medical industry doesn't treat causes, but symptoms. You come in and complain about symptoms, and they deal with those symptoms, the fastest, cheapest ways possible. Chemical lobotomy tends to be most popular.

So, I wouldn't agree that they are very helpful. I think that once something turns from charity and humanitarianism to profit, and corporatism, it becomes corrupt. The incentives for doing it vastly shift. As for possible endemia, perhaps, but a gross minority, particularly when you can just look at their health and circumstances and behavior and pretty easily infer that they are less than ideal.

Only in the arts, it seems to me, but art isn't mythos anymore, it's mere entertainment -- and when it disagrees with millennia old myths, and misrepresents causality, and the affects of behavior by any type of person playing any type of person without appreciation of the affects of life-style and character on one's appearance, it becomes the worst propaganda, and confusion generator the world has ever seen. The opposite of what it once was... though there are still some diamonds buried in the rough.

Sometimes I do fear that these are the end times... lol soon spirit will die entirely, and AI will take right over. The humanity!

Personally, I think that one should break down, and admit the truth to themselves, and take responsibility. I think that helps, and has helped much more than anything else has. Though, it certainly is different, the causes and what to do about them.

I don't know that they help. A lot of people I know are medicated, and even though they are at a higher mood, they still act perplexed why they cannot sleep well while drinking coffee and pop all day... they stop people from complaining, and feeling bad, by drugging them... are they helping? Counseling besides the kind that just allows you to vent, and doesn't offer a solution at all, but just listens, does that fix them? Unless it gets them to change their life, and habits, then I doubt it. How one gets to the point where they do that is complicated, but I think that the facts are, that that is always what needs to be done, and entertaining in any sense that it doesn't, can't be helpful.

All because someone "helps" for a living, doesn't indicate to me that they're helping at all.

Personally, I don't think that depression is motivating enough, particularly if medicated, I think that one has to succumb to feeling worse before they can feel better. Their situation must become intolerable, or why else bother to change? Maybe one has to be faced with "die or change" for real change to occur... but it seems that most don't live or die, they just float.

"But even in saying that, you're setting yourself up to not succeed. It's almost like you want to believe it. Just saying."

I mean, it seems mean... but this seems completely right to me. Almost certainly on account of the things you're doing or not doing... and almost certainly not due to "chemical imbalances", or just because some people feel random ways that have nothing to do with the things they're doing or not doing...

It's obvious and simple stuff. You know... in the factual and causal department, but as they say, the truth isn't complicated, people are.

Well, reason as slave to the passions is basically meaning that we are charged with pleasing the limbic system. That's what life's about! You don't control how you feel, or how perception is marked by signification, nor how memory is consolidated, and motivations established, but you do know what causes what, and how to figure stuff out... you know, if you aren't too afraid to admit it.

Oh, you start to get pretty energetic the more empty you get, and more tired the more full you get. There are some studies that suggest that it works on depression.

No, I don't have a problem with depression.

Have you tried fasting?

When it comes to IQs of university students, the only thing that seems harder than philosophy is physics.

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/25/average-iq-of-students-by-college-major-and-gender-ratio/

https://www.quora.com/What-college-majors-have-on-average-students-with-the-highest-IQ

Pilot Chef

A pilot chef must avoid turbulence else the bread will not rise.

The King and You

Anna quits and becomes a baker.

Show me the Dough

A high paced, high staked corporate tycoon in bed with big bakery must wheel and deal while sustaining his coke high.

I don't know that there is any disadvantage to intelligence, besides being less able to relate, and less interested in others. When just the level and quality of information differs so greatly (which is precisely what is tested for to establish intelligence differentials), then communication becomes much more difficult. Or rather, you may enjoy being the correct and correcting one 90% of the time, and they may enjoy being the wrong and corrected one 90% of the time, the relationship dynamic is still too unequal for significant intimacy.

It's true that one can be the smartest person in the world, and still spend 0% time perfecting their characters, but all things being equal, and both spending similar time perfecting characters, and the more intelligent person would develop quicker. More than that, if character actually is important, matters and relates to understandable wisdom and truth, one would think that the more intelligent person would appreciate this more often and more fully than the less intelligent person.

This pans out with criminal statistics, the average intelligence of career criminals is low, and the average intelligence of violent criminals is low. I would think that lower intelligence correlates with anti-social activity, and higher intelligence with pro-social activity, though of course not necessarily.

That does sound like a good book. Thanks for mentioning it.

I only mean to say that "death" isn't a thing, it's an abstraction, that's definition has changed over time, from failure of the heart, until we started restarting them, to failure of the brain. It's abstract, and vague, but the things that are killing you are very crisp, and very real.

I don't know what you're identifying with through time. Clearly we are our body and faculties, and like the heap problem, at what point we are no longer ourselves, as we've been too damaged, or altered isn't clear. Even a drastic change in outlook, one can say that they are not the same as before. Under ideal conditions... perhaps, but I think that the ideal conditions we're speaking of is the health and functionality of our faculties which as a totality constitute us, and the degradation and loss of those faculties until their complete loss.

It's much worse than it seems. The Angel of Death isn't content to leave you alone until your final day, but is continually attempting to hack pieces out of you until the final fatal blow. We die in stages, in degrees, continually. Senses dull, faculties slow, and fail. All along the journey, it requires a near super human effort to maintain health, contentment, presence... gravity twisting and distorting you, muscles tiring from overuse, and others atrophying from underuse. Every stress taking its toll.

But, I'm alive right now, and my own death is pure fiction. Right now is all that exists, and my own death doesn't, but all of those pressures trying to slowly kill me... that's another story.

Importance is relational, as in, one is of relative importance to other sentient things. So that, if I have a low estimate of my own importance, I by contrast show a high estimate of the importance of others, and vice versa. Not only do I of course (of course...) know the definition of humble, but it can be easily inferred from the definition of "arrogant". Far from surprising.

ar·ro·gant
ˈerəɡənt/Submit
adjective
having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.
"he's arrogant and opinionated"
synonyms: haughty, conceited, self-important, egotistic, full of oneself, superior; More

All things in measure, perhaps? Excessive pride, hubris, or arrogance is considered negative everywhere, but there are some small prides, related to belonging, a satisfactory job, a joy generated by the right doing of a relative, or comrade.

There are some cases, where humility, or modesty seems almost insulting as well. If you are competitive with someone that is far superior skilled, and they say "it's nothing", "no big deal", and talk of how they could have done better, when it was far superior to your performance seems almost incendiary.

I think that the duality holds, but as we approach the center, or different contexts, the movement in either direction becomes more or less appropriate, but excess in either direction, I think that we could agree, is rarely justified.

I would also add that excesses of shame, unless projecting, is rarely alluring, and is therefore less necessary to guard against, or watch out for.

That's an excellent way of putting it. As if the balancing shame generated by, or that the pride is a response to continually needs ventilation, or something to be consumed in order to sustain the pride.

Thanks for the reply! I think so too. Hope is the real fuel, and "willpower" is just what it looks like from the outside, I think.

It's pride that one is basking in, not joy, and the higher the pride, the deeper the shame. Basking in ones strength, beauty, goodness, superiority, and then to have this challenged or brought into question transforms it to shame. The greater the pride, the deeper the shame.

The deadly sins. One reduces their levels of shame, by not succumbing to the joys and sirens of pride.

Okay, yeah, I agree with that.

How are you on Maslow's pyramid of needs? Just to wonder what the cause may be.

The topic though... what's better, misery or agony? I'd suggest that you construct an image of what the ideal, or at least, better you would look like, and then feel bad for not doing it, until you do it, and then feel great!

Those Indians, they have some interesting pyschological ideas too, in Hinduism. There are basically three vital energies that make up the drives, the sattvas, rajas, and tamas. People are said to be made up of the interplay between these drive types. The goal of spiritual practice, or the idea, is that sattva is the aspect of you drawn towards virtue, goodness, and truth, which you should cultivate. Rajas are more concerned with getting yours, moving you towards goals, active expressive displays. Tamas are basically negative energies. Inaction, lethargy, anxiety, disorder, and depression, one would think.

What you need is a clear vision of what a differently constituted you would look like, and then identify with that.

Love is the pinnacle, I really believe. I'd rather not be taken seriously, than give up on love! It takes much much more strength to love in the face of hatred than to hate. The proof is in the difficulty of it. Hate is easy, love is hard.

Thank you for the encouragement, it is much appreciated.

How do you stop feelings ways? There is definitely breathing, and calming techniques, but there is also the numbing of sensation through addiction, and the influence of beliefs over our emotions. To believe something that is terrible, if true, is to feel terrible. To alter this in any massive way, or to change what one feels, requires chemical alterations, physical damage, or believing things.

"Take a deep breath....and another.....lather, rinse and repeat as necessary. "

You know, I believe this to be not only good, but the best advice that can be given in just such a heated moment. There's a kind of elegance in those that know it that still brings me awe. Hearing it repeated, something so simple, and so many times in my life and yet it fell to deaf ears. It's those little, yet so significant things that in my fervor just pasted me right by for so long. What else so important do I not hear people telling me on such a frequent basis?

Maybe I should be able to handle it better as well. I think that both can be true, for sure. Thank you for your comment.

You're not trying to change me? What are you doing then? Having a laugh? Wasting time? Personally I would much prefer it if you were actually trying to change me... but what are you doing?

I'm with you on all but the last bit. Are you suggesting that the last part is a mistaken move? Or that it is descriptive, and it is a mistake to move to the prescriptive? If one is not following the rules to play sports that are taken from the description of successful ways to play sports, and as a result, play inferior spots, or fail to play sports at all, it is then not a description but a prescription in their case?

More than that, what if one could come upon a personal relationship with what appear to be totally rule based, that are not descriptive, as one continues to fail to follow them, but prescriptive in that one is fully aware in pursuing something of ultimate good in its attempt?

The latter part of course is not third person describable, so can be reasonably ignored if you like, but it is the religious claim.

I do agree, that in order for cooperation to get off the ground, it must begin in morality, and one can reasonably extract a common set of moral precepts from the pool of all games. Or to put it another way, cooperation is the foundation of competition in the context of repeatable competitive activities like games.

No, that is not my concern, but you can of course hold and proponent any position that you like.

I don't wish to control my emotions, I wish to control the world. Accept the things I cannot change, but change the things I can. Just changing how I feel towards them is easy though, it's called delusion and addiction.

What are the results we seek? To not care that someone is drowning next to us, or for someone not to be drowning next to us. Unless our feelings towards things are arbitrary, and it's perfectly valid and reasonable to feel any which way about anything, then I don't think that it is appropriate, or rational to just change the way we feel. Unless we feel the ways we do for mistaken reasons in the first place.

Emotions are felt in the heart, right? Or at least in the body, one makes different facial expressions, takes different postures and positions, and is otherwise animated by the things they feel. I think that the personal benefit to health, well being, and all forms of human interaction from a basis of love are positive, and good. They are not just things we feel, but things that effect every facet of our lives, and interject into all levels of human life.

I really don't understand your point on self control. Is all forms of derogatory and hateful speech always okay, and it is incumbent on the listener in every case, and their own personal flaw, because they chose to take offence? That there is no factual difference between flattery, insult, and neutral and moderate ways of speaking? That this is all in one's head?

As I said in other topics, I do think that when someone's tone changes to mockery, or non-serious, where they've begun to make a joke of the things you've said or you, is indeed ego inflation, and how one acts to inferiors that just don't seem to understand what fools they are -- but getting upset suggests affronting something deeply held or cared about, it is more defensive, and protective. That is why the former makes you out to be a fool, but the latter a monster.

Well, if I've been horribly villainous visibly, then I must be way more so on the inside, I guess. I think that the demand for patience has been high. I fully admit to not being a stoic, but being emotionally swayed by the lights I'm painted in by others.

I haven't addressed the possible emotional distress except in that example with children. Christianity is perhaps the most successful institution to grace the earth, that it hasn't fully succeeded doesn't mean that it hasn't succeeded better than anything else ever has.

The important point though, is that you're talking past me, imagining that I'm personally hurt by verbal abuse and complaining, when that never occurred, it was in perusing the site that I noticed the prevalence of it, and suggested that it was, indeed, unpleasant (as if it were not intended to be), but the subject was that it is counter productive, and poor strategy.

I think that it goes without saying that we all know that this restraint is necessary in many relational contexts. For work, friends, dates, or whenever we really want something from someone. That's why we have notions of flattery, buttering up, and whatnot. It is really only the case that one treats others with such disrespect when they don't want anything, or it can't "come back to them".

I'm attempting to continue in this vein within which I think that people fully assent already to the idea, and extend it further.

Imagine we have two families, two sets of parents. One of them is supporting and encouraging. The other disparaging, insulting. Do you think that the results on the child would be random, all else being equal? Or if the child is damaged, this is because they allowed themselves to be, and is their own fault?

I know that it is often said that you shouldn't care what people think, but sometimes they're right. The disdain, disgust, and disapproval is fully justified, and accurate, and you should care about it. It is meant to give you pause, and check your behavior, beliefs, or some other aspect of it, and needs to be taken seriously. This is why I both spoke of restraint (even in one's own heart and mind), and better strategies to dissuade one from such things.

I wouldn't endorse just not caring, or worrying that others see you in such lights (I think that it is worrying, and ought to be deeply and seriously considered), but before that generally can happen, one first needs precisely to care about what you think and feel about them, and there are more and less conducive kinds of relationships with respect to this.

It's not a poor me act, it's trying to understand where all of these baseless accusations are coming from. I don't think that replying to you further is worth while. I'm not actually worried that I'm going to be interpreted in such lights in general. As this rarely happens, as a matter of fact.

Do you want me to leave, or trying to manufacture cause to force it? Why are you trying to paint me as such a villain?

I never said that I was particularly kind and loving, wouldn't require confession and redemption if I were. Just that they are really important things to strive for. Not only for personal well being, but because they work better to operate on within human relationships at every level.

I am sincerely not worried about this exchange making me look bad.

Lol, but none of that is remotely true. It's character assassination... of course I can't assent to that...

I asked you in what sense I was passive aggressive, and you wouldn't tell me, so I had to guess.

That's right, I confess and repent, and it is a real thing, and it is an important thing. Never denied that.

"Some of the strategies you specifically have used have been to falsely imply that others are ignorant of the topic at hand, and to impugn and mock the characters of those who don't agree with your discoursal strategy suggesting they may have some personal psychological deficit you are above."

Half of this is true, I do believe, as I have explicitly mentioned a number of times, and never denied, is that there is a real connection to the divine, that brings new outlooks, understanding, new life. It is the most important thing as far as I'm concerned, but I have not been cruel or disrespectful to anyone. That is baseless.