I'm no psychology or sociology expert, but I tremendously agree.
Feedback cycles and network effects can create these wonderful
positive circles or these terribly negative snowballs.
Rohit, you once told me in your best Jack Nicholson (which is actually
pretty awful), "You can't HANDLE the feedback!" Maybe your point was
that feedback is a difficult thing to incorporate if positive, and a
difficult thing to overcome if negative.
But no one ever said this would be easy.
Then Cobraboy wrote that his life isn't all shooter girls:
> Well I guess it's personal sharing time. Many moon's ago I found the
> "perfect" girl/woman/chick whatever we're calling the female of the species
> this week. We went together for four years and were at one point engaged.
> Due to a number of reasons things didn't work out. Actually due to two
> things, 1) me being a butthead and fucking everything that walked when we
> were together (nothing succeeds like success) and 2) the job I had that was
> putting tremendous pressure on me at way too early of an age. Hence I came
> home and took it out on her. (Actually it is much more #2 than #1)
Sounds to me like you've grown a whole lot since then, Tim...
> Regardless as a result of all this I have seriously hated myself for years.
...but for some reason you still need to take it out on yourself.
I agree that it's a whole lot easier to forgive other people than to
forgive yourself -- because you have a complete picture of what you were
doing and what you were thinking and those can be difficult to reconcile.
I had an interesting dream about something like this last night.
I don't remember all of the details, but I do remember some. Here goes:
last night, I died. I got news of Bill Gates buying a painting for some
$30 million, and I had had too much tequila from Cinco de Mayo, and I
had a heart attack and died. And I got to go to the place where people
go when they die. Not some people, but all people. This wasn't heaven
and it wasn't hell, and there were no angels or devils or any hint of
the divine. In fact, there was no hint of the corporeal either: this
was just an astrally ethereal place full of energy clouds representing the
lives of all the people who had once lived on planet earth. And now
here's the part that's hard to describe in words, but I'll try: peoples'
manifestations, instead of physical bodies, were their core (for lack of
a better word) essences. Not the knowledge or wealth that they had
acquired on earth -- those were left behind with the meat of their dead
bodies -- but the wholeness of their being at the time of their death.
Different aspects of this essence had different colors, so sometimes I'd
see a person who was entirely red light, or sometimes I'd encounter a
"rainbow" person. As I floated through this space communicating from
person to person I discovered what people WERE able to take with them as
part of their essence: abstract things like love and hate and anger and
jealousy and joy and misery and courage and so on. And I came to
realize that it was far easier to transition from these states of mind
to others on planet earth than it was in this post-earth place, because
something about having knowledge and having bodies and so on actually
accelerated the process of transition. So the lesson of this dream, if
there was one, was that I should try to resolve my issues now while I
still had resources like my knowledge and my body.
Not sure how I got on this tangent. I guess I figured I'd give you the
advice that you should take every effort possible to lose the hate now,
because it only gets more difficult the more you let it sink in.
And I know that neither you nor anyone can solely seek validation from
other people -- that it has to come from within, ultimately -- but if
it helps, Tim, I do respect you highly as a human being and love you as
a friend. My calling you an asshole from time to time is strictly a
term of endearment... :) ...except, of course, when you're actually
being an asshole in which case all bets are off. :)
> Every relationship that I have been in has been an effort to replace her.
Individuals are unique and cannot be replaced. IMHO, what you'd like is
to supplant the feeling that you blew it with a feeling that it
ultimately was for the best. And it is entirely possible that you will
find someone better for you than her (and you would be better for that
someone than you were for her). You're a smart, interesting, good
lookin' guy, so I'd say it's not only possible: it's probable.
But you need to love yourself first. You cannot be good for anyone
until you are good for yourself. I really believe that.
> I've tried it all and nothing has worked. A little over a year or so ago I
> met someone and we "clicked" However the years of built up self hatred
> which had now turned into self doubt caused me to not go for it.
You need to fight the self-doubt, because sometimes as a defense
mechanism your brain will lie to you to prevent the possibility for hurt.
No possibility for hurt, however, also means no possibility for
happiness. You have to risk something to get something.
This is not to say that you should jump willy nilly into anything. You
have a brain, and you have the ability to make sound judgment. You can
figure out what to do. Just beware the _Liar's Poker_ tale: "You know
how to make a small fortune in the stock market? Start out with a large
fortune." Or was that from _Bombadiers_? I forget. I like _Liar's
Poker_ better anyway, because 1) Cringely recommended it, and 2) Dan
Kohn told me that its author Michael Lewis is married to Tabatha Soren.
> When I realized that due to what was and will never be again I was
> limiting myself and excluding myself from happiness is when I began to
> snap out of it.
Good for you, Tim. I want you to know I support you in this endeavor.
> That is why most lottery winners are miserable. They were miserable
> without the money and the money just makes it worse. Happiness comes
> from within.
Well spoken.
> And we will never understand how a woman thinks.
I think I am starting to understand how *A* woman thinks. I just can't
generalize it because all people are unique.
> Rohit's problem is a very simple one. We discussed this last night. Rohit
> just plain out and out thinks to much.
Yes, but how does one convince one's brain to stop thinking, when
thinking is what runs every aspect of one's life?
It's a hard, hard problem. It's like overeating. Drug addicts can cold
turkey give up drugs if they can deal with all of the baggage withdrawal
implies, but overeaters cannot cold turkey give up food because people
need food to live.
In some senses, learning to think in moderation -- like learning to
intake food in moderation -- is harder than giving it up lock stock and
barrel. And yet it is necessary both to survive and to overcome the
addiction.
I thought I was joking when I called Rohit an information junkee, but
the sad truth is it may be more true than I originally ascertained.
How about we change the mailing list's name from FoRK to NINJA --
Networked INformation Junkees Anonymous? (Darn, Ernie, I haven't played
the initials game in a great long while... :)
> Rohit looks to human behavior as some sort of complex maze like puzzle
> that has to be figured out. Rohit wants his equal in a female.
Heck, I can't even find Rohit's equal in a male. Of course, all people
are unique, so there'd never be an exact match, but just finding people
on Rohit's level is a painstaking task. FoRK is the closest thing I've
encountered to what I'd consider to be Rohit's peers, but most of us are
not nearly the NINJAs that Sir Rohit himself is.
> As I told him last night it ain't going to happen. And why would you
> want it? It's either a bad case of total self love or mixed up
> priorities. I don't want someone that is going to agree with me on
> everything.
Agreed 100%. :)
> I want my butt kicked from time to time. (Hence I'm on the Voxers) I
> want the girl I marry to say to me, "Tim, you're so full of shit, but
> that is why I love you, now shut up and take off your clothes."
Sounds like you're well on the road away from self-hatred. Seriously,
good for you. Because if my dream is right, you can take that with you.
Wherever you go, there you are.
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because,
remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
-- http://us.imdb.com/More?quotes+Adventures+of+Buckaroo+Banzai+Across+the+8th+Dimension,+The+(1984)