Venting 2020

[Wukash]

When they said the world was going to end in 2020, they were right - and in many ways it has. How can we go on with the amount of horror, pain, suffering, corruption, death, starvation and a Leninist-Marxist inspired Totalitarian Government (With charactaristics) now seemingly calling the shots across the world.

The Gates', Fauci's, Hitler's, Zedong's... The list seems to go on and on. I'm very much a "live and let live" person, until those people start impinging on my life, and then I get mad.

Then I ask myself... Are these people really bad? Is it just my own pig-headedness that doesn't accept change (Maybe because it's always bad?) that leads me to this conclusion. After all, as reprehensible as these people are in the eyes of many, are they not ultimately Human Beings operating within an already fucked financial and political system. They are going about their lives, doing what some/many of us are doing, trying to make money, caring for loved ones etc.

Everything is just so hard to accept right now, and it's not getting any easier. I have made the decision to come off all pharmacutical drugs, to abstain from caffeine (decaf tea is ok) and sugar (tho still have bread sometimes). I also have 2 weeks recovery from a compulsive pornography and masturbation habit that would otherwise destroy me. All this just means that everything is raw at the moment, and I feel everything particularly strongly.

While I am distracting myself, life is bearable, then I start hearing what is really going on in the world and I cannot cope with it. What can we do? Protest? Start activism? Write to our Representatives (If we are in a democracy). When I feel like this, I feel that nothing will every really change, therefore am I only torturing myself by opening my ears to what is really going on in the world... Is ignorance really bliss?

I have a supportive employer (to a point) and a supportive friend - who I care about a great deal (so much so I've been lying and cheating to them about important mutual financial matters). I have been immoral, deviant and just an all out horrible person. I sometimes feel that is who I am, and the effort to change to become nice is not worth it because people will just fuck me over anyway.

It's just the state of the world at the moment which just makes me so depressed and despondent. I know there is no antidote to that other than Serenity.

I don't really know what I hope to gain from writing this, and I haven't really thought it through greatly - perhaps it will resonate with someone and they would share their thoughts.

That said I feel a little better having written it and posted it, perhaps this is the therapy that I am missing (Until I can obtain some Hallucinogenic Indole Alkaloid).

Signing off for now,
Wukash.

 

[mr.smileysad]

the world is on fire right now but it will get better eventually it always does and if I were you I would go back on alcohol or whatever the real world is too harsh. ignorance is a blessing

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I felt your whole post. I, too, struggle with such thoughts about the shit in the world, and recognizing the common humanity with even the most oppressive. It reminded me of something I just read in the Wikipedia about misanthropy:

Plato argues that "art" would have allowed the potential misanthrope to recognize that the majority of men are to be found in between good and evil.​

The Stoics say that all men are capable of the same good and evil, that there is good and evil in every heart, and the virtuous person tries to connect with the virtue that is present in every other person's heart, but they also recognize that even if evil only has small area to the side in one's heart, there is always a bridge to it. It keeps their egos in check, and helps keep compassion going.

The same Wikipedia entry also refers to Aristotle, and mentions the understanding that the misanthrope is either a god (on a high horse looking down, seems to me) or a beast (giving up on the good and becoming evil, too). I have a tendency to head toward the god end and have to recognize when I'm doing so to stay grounded and compassionate, and there is pain in being so.

I have been immoral, deviant and just an all out horrible person. I sometimes feel that is who I am, and the effort to change to become nice is not worth it because people will just fuck me over anyway.

This made me think of a couple quotes:

It would be foolish to regard small improvements with contempt when it is so rare to find any other kind. So if Stoics seek great things but get only part way there, the discrepancy should not cause them to be thought of as hypocrites. They aimed high, fell short, and did well.​

​

- Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic​

​

It is far more wretched to harm than to be harmed.​

​

- Seneca​

All this just means that everything is raw at the moment, and I feel everything particularly strongly.

While I am distracting myself, life is bearable, then I start hearing what is really going on in the world and I cannot cope with it. What can we do? Protest? Start activism? Write to our Representatives (If we are in a democracy). When I feel like this, I feel that nothing will every really change, therefore am I only torturing myself by opening my ears to what is really going on in the world... Is ignorance really bliss?

And this made me think of this quote:

If any person is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act rightly, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth, by which no person was ever injured. But they are injured who abide in their error and ignorance.​

​

- Marcus Aurelius​

I'm so sorry that you're feeling such rawness and feeling everything particularly strongly. That can be a challenge with the loss of addictions and building healthy new ways of feeling and managing, and a challenge of becoming aware. I hope you have some support while you go through this, whether friends, books, exercise, someone you respect and can trust, or even just posting here. We have a recovery section, it doesn't just have to be about recovery from suicide. There are lots of people in recovery from the same things you are, and folks seem happy to provide support around here. Also, is there anyone you particularly admire, respect, and would want to emulate? I'm 49 and I only found that person this year: Marcus Aurelius.

I, too, wonder about what I can do, and I get overwhelmed and despondent about all of the oppression and torture, and I don't have the agency to change anything. I'm sick about how I can't trust the democracy, they serve big business and other interests, they don't serve the people. I think about protesting. I think about how I wish everyone would abstain from voting since we're not really given a choice, just choosing between evils, and I don't like choosing any evil so I don't participate. I think about how I wish everyone would not submit income tax returns every year and put a huge dent in the financial stability of a government that taxes without representation. I think about how I wish I could be an ethical advisor to non-ethical leaders. I feel like my soul hurts and is disgusted by all the obscenity of what is done to humans by those in power.

I use things like Stoic and Buddhist philosopy to help me manage and to work on my own management, growth, ethics and moral compass even if I can't directly impact anyone else's.

I have a notebook of quotes under different headings, and at the front of the notebook I wrote this quote:

For as savage dogs are excited at every sound, and are only soothed by a familiar voice, so also is it not easy to quiet the wild passions of the soul, unless familiar and well-known arguments be at hand to check its excitement.​

​

- Plutarch​

I hope something I wrote may be of benefit to you, even just to know that what you wrote strongly resonated with me, and I feel and think many things that you do. I hope SS is of some benefit to you.

 

[Wukash]

Dear GoodPersonEffed,

When you write to me so timely, so detailed, so thoughtfully, and I cannot do the same in a reasonable timescale - it hurts me.
That said I wanted to come back on here and tell you that I did appreciate it.

Your message has got me interested in Stoicism and I will give that further study. I am already interested in Bhuddism and find meditation very helpful, but another perspective is always welcome, especially one that seems to have been so helpful to another Human.

all men are capable of the same good and evil

How true is this, and it reinforces the fact that it isn't the Humans that are the problem, it is the systems that they go into. I'm sure many Humans have gone into systems hoping to change the nature of the systems. But the systems persist because it is the systems that are designed to make more money, get more power for themselves. How did Trump and Obama want to really change things? I think they did, but the systems they went into were so toxic and corrupt that they end being corrupted themselves.

It would be foolish to regard small improvements with contempt when it is so rare to find any other kind

So often we go into recovery expecting miracles. We join a fellowship, see others around us who are years ahead of us in their recovery and we want what they have. Well, that didn't happen overnight - it was a process of daily pain, and incremental improvements.

It is far more wretched to harm than to be harmed.

And I've done my fair amount of harming - worse of all I've harmed people who have only been there to help me, because the real culprits are inaccessable to me right now and I've not made peace with that. (Read: Mother with some Cluster B P.D's)

is there anyone you particularly admire, respect, and would want to emulate?

This got me thinking... I never had a particularly strong male role model in my life. But there are so many strong and successful males in society that I can look up to and emulate. I will listen to more strong male voices (One such is that I heard in this podcast https://considerbeforeconsumingpodcast.com/jay-taylor/) and change my outlook and habits based on what I hear.

I use things like Stoic and Buddhist philosopy to help me manage and to work on my own management, growth, ethics and moral compass even if I can't directly impact anyone else's.

If you have a good intro epub or pdf about Stoicism that you'd recommend, I'd really love to learn more.

As I am 40 years old now, I realise that time is rapidly running out. I feel that the last 40 years of my life have just rushed past and ultimately been a complete waste of time. There's been good parts and bad parts, but no real self-direction because I never knew how important that was.

I could sit here and lament about how my parents fucked up my life forever. I could sit cowed in the corner because Bill Gates wants to rewrite my DNA.
Or I could take responsibility for everything that I think, feel and do for here-on-out. I could look back on my life in 10 years time and think to myself - What a loving and kind decision I made to myself to do that.

Thank you again,

Wukash

 

[BipolarGuy]

When they said the world was going to end in 2020, they were right - and in many ways it has. How can we go on with the amount of horror, pain, suffering, corruption, death, starvation and a Leninist-Marxist inspired Totalitarian Government (With charactaristics) now seemingly calling the shots across the world.

The Gates', Fauci's, Hitler's, Zedong's... The list seems to go on and on. I'm very much a "live and let live" person, until those people start impinging on my life, and then I get mad.

Then I ask myself... Are these people really bad? Is it just my own pig-headedness that doesn't accept change (Maybe because it's always bad?) that leads me to this conclusion. After all, as reprehensible as these people are in the eyes of many, are they not ultimately Human Beings operating within an already fucked financial and political system. They are going about their lives, doing what some/many of us are doing, trying to make money, caring for loved ones etc.

Everything is just so hard to accept right now, and it's not getting any easier. I have made the decision to come off all pharmacutical drugs, to abstain from caffeine (decaf tea is ok) and sugar (tho still have bread sometimes). I also have 2 weeks recovery from a compulsive pornography and masturbation habit that would otherwise destroy me. All this just means that everything is raw at the moment, and I feel everything particularly strongly.

While I am distracting myself, life is bearable, then I start hearing what is really going on in the world and I cannot cope with it. What can we do? Protest? Start activism? Write to our Representatives (If we are in a democracy). When I feel like this, I feel that nothing will every really change, therefore am I only torturing myself by opening my ears to what is really going on in the world... Is ignorance really bliss?

I have a supportive employer (to a point) and a supportive friend - who I care about a great deal (so much so I've been lying and cheating to them about important mutual financial matters). I have been immoral, deviant and just an all out horrible person. I sometimes feel that is who I am, and the effort to change to become nice is not worth it because people will just fuck me over anyway.

It's just the state of the world at the moment which just makes me so depressed and despondent. I know there is no antidote to that other than Serenity.

I don't really know what I hope to gain from writing this, and I haven't really thought it through greatly - perhaps it will resonate with someone and they would share their thoughts.

That said I feel a little better having written it and posted it, perhaps this is the therapy that I am missing (Until I can obtain some Hallucinogenic Indole Alkaloid).

Signing off for now,
Wukash.

At least during the next pandemic people will be able to look back with 2020 hindsight!

 

[Adamsnolife]

This is like World war 3 without the guns and the bombs

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

If you have a good intro epub or pdf about Stoicism that you'd recommend, I'd really love to learn more.

The book I got the most out of is The Practicing Stoic by Ward Farnsworth. It's available on kindle. It breaks down Stoic thought into 9 subjects for daily life, like adversity, death, other people's opinions, virtues, etc., and is full of quotes.

I'm glad you appreciated my comment. I appreciated your reply.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

The Stoics say that all men are capable of the same good and evil, that there is good and evil in every heart, and the virtuous person tries to connect with the virtue that is present in every other person's heart, but they also recognize that even if evil only has small area to the side in one's heart, there is always a bridge to it. It keeps their egos in check, and helps keep compassion going.

This reminds me of the Solzenitsyn quote "the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart"

It is far more wretched to harm than to be harmed.- Seneca

There is a similar saying attributed to Socrates in the Gorgias dialogue by Plato, "It is better to suffer an injustice than to commit one"

 

[Deleted member 1768]

When they said the world was going to end in 2020, they were right - and in many ways it has. How can we go on with the amount of horror, pain, suffering, corruption, death, starvation and a Leninist-Marxist inspired Totalitarian Government (With charactaristics) now seemingly calling the shots across the world.

The Gates', Fauci's, Hitler's, Zedong's... The list seems to go on and on. I'm very much a "live and let live" person, until those people start impinging on my life, and then I get mad.

Then I ask myself... Are these people really bad? Is it just my own pig-headedness that doesn't accept change (Maybe because it's always bad?) that leads me to this conclusion. After all, as reprehensible as these people are in the eyes of many, are they not ultimately Human Beings operating within an already fucked financial and political system. They are going about their lives, doing what some/many of us are doing, trying to make money, caring for loved ones etc.

Everything is just so hard to accept right now, and it's not getting any easier. I have made the decision to come off all pharmacutical drugs, to abstain from caffeine (decaf tea is ok) and sugar (tho still have bread sometimes). I also have 2 weeks recovery from a compulsive pornography and masturbation habit that would otherwise destroy me. All this just means that everything is raw at the moment, and I feel everything particularly strongly.

While I am distracting myself, life is bearable, then I start hearing what is really going on in the world and I cannot cope with it. What can we do? Protest? Start activism? Write to our Representatives (If we are in a democracy). When I feel like this, I feel that nothing will every really change, therefore am I only torturing myself by opening my ears to what is really going on in the world... Is ignorance really bliss?

I have a supportive employer (to a point) and a supportive friend - who I care about a great deal (so much so I've been lying and cheating to them about important mutual financial matters). I have been immoral, deviant and just an all out horrible person. I sometimes feel that is who I am, and the effort to change to become nice is not worth it because people will just fuck me over anyway.

It's just the state of the world at the moment which just makes me so depressed and despondent. I know there is no antidote to that other than Serenity.

I don't really know what I hope to gain from writing this, and I haven't really thought it through greatly - perhaps it will resonate with someone and they would share their thoughts.

That said I feel a little better having written it and posted it, perhaps this is the therapy that I am missing (Until I can obtain some Hallucinogenic Indole Alkaloid).

Signing off for now,
Wukash.

There is no such thing as a democracy anymore. Our governments are run by WHO, and because democracy has died we have no other way to vent either voice or frustration. People are blaming governments, and their neighbours, not those actually responsible.