Thoughts in order as they appeared while reading… Not a super lot of input from my end this week… 

 

That is a bit funny, the students and the last two weeks of the semester 

Pretty Clever study, a good chance I would have been one of the students that brings the class average down (During my first attempt at college anyways, my old mindset) 

• This is one of the reasons I still think about taking more classes. It is something that forces me to do a little reading and writing. I can tend to have trouble staying motivated otherwise. My commitment to this blog has proven a substantial motivator though! The Eclectic Schizophrenic may be the perfect outlet for me while I am in my current situation. 

• (Side note: This was written before I found out I was denied disability. Looks like I will be trying to go back to school now. Looks like I will have lots of motivation coming in the future to continue reading and writing.) 

He makes a strong argument as to why work environments may have come to be the way they are and how it could even be considered vital to Human existence to have some sort of chain of command in the workplace. We seem to at least need a reliable way of holding ourselves accountable at the minimum. 

• Based off of one study of course! Which they are also young college students who may need an extra shove in the right direction 
• You know what I mean though, when we are dealing in industries that are vital to life, they need to run like a fine oiled machine… can’t let procrastination spread like a cancer throughout the work place and industry. 

I am not sure I could see either of the first two health care plans ever coming to fruition… Perhaps if your healthcare provider just offered you money or some sort of incentive for showing up. Some sort of preventative care incentive plan. 

• I was always back and forth about that seat belt law… If it is making the road more dangerous for other people I could better understand. For instance, if you weren’t buckled and had to swerve, which then that made you slide over in your car making it harder for you to control your car, increasing the likelihood of an accident… But they always seem to sell it as protecting ourselves from ourselves, not in normal American fashion for sure. We are usually very anti nanny state, that the government isn’t our mother… My fellow Americans have certainly instilled that belief into me. I suppose I could be open to hearing debate over certain nanny state proposals. Which these are often problems that overlap between kids and adults though… Smoking cigarettes would seem to be a hotly debated issue these days… 

Very cool with the Smart Credit Cart… 

• It is a mark against Humans that it was potentially denied because companies would rather prey on people that have trouble controlling their spending habits, rather than help them. 
• That is one of the bad things about our economy at times… profit at all costs… out of control spending ruins lives and the environment. 

Interesting tie in between B.F. Skinner’s “schedules of reinforcement” and e-mail. 

• Could also play a factor into Facebook and my Favorite Meme website for me… 
• A very thoughtful and keen observation for sure… this Author definitely seems wired for psychology! 

Pretty cool to see some of what I learned in college in action this chapter. 

Thought provoking closing thought, wondering if putting more focus on teaching and understanding decision making might be better for the overall health of the country (world). 

• I still might argue that medical technology is more important 

• How much has insulin alone raised the life expectancy of the country I wonder? 
• Does insulin count as technology? I think it might fall under the umbrella. 
• Could say the same for other drugs and technology and their effect on life expectancy… all added together, could amount to many extra years for people. 
• In 1910 life expectancy for white men was 49 years of age… Pretty crazy when you think about it… One might argue our increase over the years was more the cause of technology rather than lifestyle choices. 
• Probably technology in general increased it a lot… Safer work environments, medical technology, etc… 

 

Interesting chapter… I will be interested to see if the Smart Credit Card ever takes off, very cool to know who came up with the idea! 

Well, I am definitely disappointed I got denied disability. Maybe there is some slim chance that I will get approved by the appeal council, if of course my lawyer decides that is a good option to pursue… either way I am not so sure that is any longer something I should rest my hopes on… 

I need a new Path… A new mental path… A vision that is a path of least resistance for my brain… I think I have found one. 

I think I will chase down what I originally went back to school for… to be a therapist/counselor…  

I got a little sidetracked during school, but what is good, is that I took classes to help me along that career path… I am pretty sure if I go back to a 4-year school that all my general education is done as well, which is good, that is one of the things that did me in many years ago during my first go at school… I should just have classes left to do that I will enjoy doing for the most part, although I am sure they will still be mentally exhausting. 

If I managed to get over all the hurdles, I think I may actually like being a therapist… it may prove to be a rather beneficial symbiotic relationship between me and my clients. I rather enjoy talking to people and trying to help them with any problems they might be having. It will hopefully be along the lines of, if you enjoy what you are doing you will never work a day in your life… Talking with people, getting inside their heads a bit, and trying to help them seems like one of the only jobs I would actually be able to do really, at least comfortably… especially since it doesn’t look like this writing endeavor is going to work out… 

Hopefully if I apply for this schizophrenia scholarship I have looked into, it may help with finances… I worry about the debt, but I think this is probably what I should do regardless… it definitely puts the pressure on to succeed with the mission. Anything short of being a licensed therapist does not seem very appealing in my opinion. Hopefully I can pull it off… A man on a mission for sure… will not be a walk in the park… getting into graduate school will certainly be a big hurdle… 

When I get back to school, I definitely want to start picking some teachers brains… I really want to be a faith based/spiritual counselor… It is my personal belief that therapy doesn’t work that well unless it is centered around God and Heaven. If I could use theology and spiritual guidance in my practice, I would really be in my element. I am just not sure what the laws are regarding a licensed therapist using a spiritual angle, I will have a lot to learn for sure. I am not so sure that I want to be a therapist for a specific religion either, but I still want to counsel from a spiritual angle… Like I was saying, I will need to pick some teachers brains and figure out a career path… If I end up just having to be some cookie cutter therapist to make a living, perhaps that is what I will have to do… In the back of my mind, I always feel like I can’t use my intelligence that much while I am in this initiation/bet, so I am not sure how much I can buck the system and still be successful… May be something that I just have to fall in line with… 

I think this is the path I need to walk down though… seems the most mentally appealing, even with its challenges… what have I got to lose? 

Well… I am sure everyone knows that I got an unfavorable decision from my disability hearing… Pretty Disappointing, I suppose there might be some slim chance the appeals council may find it favorable if my attorney decides it is worth the effort to give it a try… hearing about that may take another 6 months to 2 years… 

It also would seem that this writing endeavor has no chance of working out… With the stuff I have put out, if it hasn’t gone viral yet, it probably isn’t going to go viral, at least I shouldn’t plan on it anyways… I sent articles out to almost every newspaper in New York, nothing… I tried doing a bit of advertising, doesn’t ever seem to go anywhere… Not looking good in that department… Would seem against the rules of this initiation/bet whether I like it or not… 

Makes me want to just lose my mind a bit for sure… but I have even tried that before and have gotten nowhere, the world I see never changes… 

I was starting to think I might enjoy life, but I might have to continue to fight… 

Perhaps if I find the right part time job and I get in the right mindset, I can still enjoy life a bit… I have no choice but to try it would seem… 

I worry I have nothing to look forward too… I worry I have been so screwed, the only thing I really have to look forward to is eventually dying and going to heaven… Will this end when I am 40? 45? 50? 65? I don’t know… perhaps it was some sort of sick life-long bet everyone signed me up for… at least there is a retirement age, which will probably be raised or gone by the time I get there though… 

The problem is, I don’t want to believe it’s over when I am 45 or 50… because if I set a date and I get excited for it; it crushes my soul when the date comes and goes… Not to mention as the date gets closer, the back and forth begins of will it end or won’t it, I am excited one moment and depressed the next… there also isn’t any shortage of my enemy trying to make it as bad for me as possible… It’s almost better to accept that I have been screwed for life… Then I can focus my effort more on trying to be happy in the present moment… learn not to get my hopes up for anything… It is depressing, but better than the alternative… Just accept the position I am in and try and achieve as much happiness within it as possible… 

The only thing I really have to look forward to for the most part is my blogging, tweeting and painting… which is why I plan to continue to do it even though it doesn’t seem to have a chance of working out. I still like doing all the calculations in my head of what the world is thinking and all that goes on with my mind when I blog… I like helping people, making people laugh, and sharing thought provoking ideas… Even if sometimes I think heaven might not be as full as everyone thinks it will be when everything is said and done… It is a good outlet for me… 

At least I have a bit of savings that will last me for a while, while I try and find a suitable part time job… Still thinking I might try and get that scholarship for people afflicted with schizophrenia… homelessness and jail have even crossed my mind… I am a bit all over the place…  

Maybe I will start with a part time job first… 

Also thinking at this moment how crazy it is, the level of evil that exists in the World right now… It is disturbing for sure… 

Cowardice 

Deep down I only survive because I am a coward 

If only there was some button I could push, I would leave in a second 

There is no other reason I stay 

No soul here gives me that internal power 

I wouldn’t care if I left behind Armageddon 

So, I stay and succumb to Stockholm Syndrome 

I succumb so I can tolerate it enough here to find some happiness 

At the depths of me lies such a coward 

Perhaps cowardice is one of the greatest propagators of life 

Painting Time

Do you want to buy some of my time?

I am pretty sure that is what I am Painting

I am not selling skilled labor

Pretty sure a child could do as much or better

But a child hasn’t lived my life

Has my Life been intriguing enough that you would like to buy a portion?

I’m not so sure you can put time in a bottle

But I am fairly confident I can paint it

I’m fairly confident the painting can capture some of my time

I tend to paint the entire canvas so you can own more of it

When I paint less, I feel I might be selling you short

I paint with small brushes and strokes to take more time

Sometimes I even think the painting will look worse if I add more paint

But I am more in the business of selling time

If I fill that in, there is another hour of my time

As I sit her staring at my painting

It almost looks like a refracted hour glass

I think they are meaningful enough

I am much more in favor of teaching acceptance rather than delusion when we are not happy with our physical bodies… 

Everyone that struggles with weight should read the book, “The Compass of Pleasure” by David J. Linden. In part of the book he tackles weight from a more psychological point of view. They contend that our minds are all genetically wired to want a certain amount of fat in our bodies. Which there is evidence that shows that when our fat dips below our brains desired amount, our brain will actually make our metabolisms slow down and make us start to crave more food. This is why many people may feel really hungry one month, but the next month not feel that hungry at all and may find it easy to lose a few pounds. There studies show that while many peoples weight fluctuates throughout the year, year after year it tends to average out. There are obviously exceptions to all rules as some eating might be the result of stress and things like that. I was personally 50 pounds over my brains desired amount, but it sure let me know. I never felt that good and I started to get all sorts of physical sensations when I ate certain foods, and my brain kept making me think I had diabetes… when I lost the 50 pounds I started to feel much better mentally and physically… my brain still lets me know when I eat foods it doesn’t like… Linden would argue that a 600-pound person doesn’t have the fat restrictor plate in our brains that the vast majority of us have. 

I say this to start with the idea that battles with weight are often losing battles… that it is genetics… that many people, literally no matter how hard they try, will always be around a certain weight, their brain will do everything in its power to see to it, even if that means slowing down their metabolism so it is easier to put on fat. 

Now to my acceptance part… I actually don’t like the growing trend of trying to delusion ourselves to see ourselves as the most beautiful person in the world physically… Most everyone has a natural idea in their head of what is physically most pleasing… it is mental torture in a way to try and delusion ourselves day after day to change what we see as physically attractive… it is just a belief that is very much at the core of us… It is mental torture to fight your brain like that, it is a losing battle… 

You need to look at your body here as just a biological shell while you are on this planet… I joke that if I was heavy, I would call myself “Trans Fit”, a physically fit person living in a heavy-set body… that when I get to heaven, I will have the body I always wanted and one that I can change when I see fit to my own liking… In heaven we can probably change our bodies like we change our hair if you get my drift… 

You should look at your body here as more your cross to bear for this small amount of time… I once heard a person describe this as living this life on hard mode… we all know that physically attractive people have had advantages for sure, no denying it. 

You should try to become very confident on a soulful level… and accept this biological shell you are beholden to for a while. 

Speaking as a man that has certain qualities that he finds physically attractive… pretty standard ones as deemed by society… If I were to date someone that doesn’t meet those qualities, let’s say a heavier set woman… I would much rather that they saw themselves as a fit person living in a heavy body. I don’t think I could spend my life with someone that keeps trying to make me delusion myself to see them as the most physically attractive person I have ever seen. I would like to see them as the most beautiful soul I have ever met… but it sounds like torture to me, to try and delusion myself day after day, trying to convince myself that you are extremely physically attractive. Especially if you can’t be happy if I don’t see you as the most physically attractive person ever… 

Some people that really start to fall in Love may come to actually like that you are stuck in a heavy body while you are here… often times when people fall madly in love with someone, they start to wish that their partner wasn’t physically attractive to anyone else anymore. One of our goals becomes getting through this life without cheating on each other until we get to heaven and our love is protected by God. 

It is just this short little period of time when we are all obsessed with being seen as the most beautiful person in the world by someone… Nobody is in their 80’s saying, this is the body I want for eternity… You know what I mean… It is a short period of time here and a blip on our eternal timeline… 

I just don’t think this growing movement of trying to make everyone delusion themselves is a good thing… I am much for preaching acceptance and just looking at our bodies as a temporary biological shell we have for a while… to accept and be fine with not being your ideal self right now or the worlds ideal look… what we find physically attractive is so built into us, it is a part of who we are… I think it is torture to try and delusion ourselves day after day… 

It is much healthier to learn acceptance than delusion ourselves… 

The world also needs to realize that weight is out of the control of most people… I think a large part of our non-acceptance stems from love that comes out in some bad ways sometimes. We all know that heavier people on average don’t tend to live as long. I think deep down we want to see everyone live forever… it is a little like watching a drug user to some extent, it can be a harsh reality for a lot of people to accept… 

Acceptance people… 

(Thoughts in order as I was reading along with the chapter) 

 

The first study was interesting… considering their results, it raises a lot of concerns when alcohol is mixed into the equation and our inhibitions are lowered. 

• Makes me stand more firmly behind the idea that alcohol and opposite sex parties don’t mix well and why I am for chaperoned parties even throughout the college years. 
• Also speaks to the importance of teaching young people to be social drinkers 

• I don’t want to draw too much from one simple study though of course 
• It is scary what sex drive does to some people… 
• It is nuts to think about how much affect it has on society in general… A primary driver of evolution… although somewhere along the way I think Love became a primary driver as well… I don’t think sex drive has completely left the building yet 
• Has such a spell over the young adult world 
• I wonder how much can be enculturated out of us though… 

I think some of his conclusions might be a little wildly over exaggerated for most people… small study with lots of variables still… How much might the students even be giving the experimenters what they want? Could still be a little bit of a placebo affect because they might be expecting a change (you know what I mean, not to discredit the study by any means)… I don’t know as though we all have a monster lurking within us… Some of what he described in his examples is the survivalist that lives within us as well… All kinds of different arousals and stressors… 

• An interesting study none the less… I do think the core principles tend to ring true. Like I was saying previously, sex drive really holds a spell over us, especially during certain years of our lives… Maybe knowing it is something that comes and goes is part of overcoming it. That it is a stage along our biological clock…That there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the vast majority of us (Hopefully everyone, although there always seems exceptions to every rule), that we won’t be driven by such carnal desires for an extremely long time, that it isn’t something that needs to be repressed for life… that we don’t need to give into it, rather outlast it… to manage it through various means including self-gratification. 

Learning to manage new emotions, feelings and stress is very difficult… makes for stressful times. 

• I think it is a large part of why people are happier when they are older, despite no longer living in their prime… They are on the other side of tackling all of those mental hurdles… their mind has figured out how to deal with them in a much better way… their mind figured out some good and proper mental paths to deal with issues that arise… 
• I think I blogged about it previously, but I am not so sure a mental breakdown in your earlier years is really that avoidable. We become overwhelmed by new stressors, emotions and feelings our mind has no clue how to deal with yet. Could be comforting to know that it happens to pretty much everybody and that your best mental years should still be ahead of you. Just have to get through and survive while your brain figures it out… mindfulness and meditation helps… breathing techniques 

• Breakdown rates probably heightened by this fast-paced digital age as well. Our technology and society probably evolved faster than we did. We may be living ahead of our time a bit. 

Wow, I never really looked into modern cars through this mindset… makes me wonder about the future of tickets and traffic infractions… GPS and onboard computers could easily recognize drivers and track their driving. 

• Current society would be far from accepting this, perhaps somewhere in the future. 
• Current society still very much likes laws that allow them to still get away with things, even at the cost to societies overall well-being… They prefer the cat and mouse game; many would prefer to even get rid of the cats on the road. 
• There could be some other potential ethical issues with this… Honestly, probably the biggest part is people want to break rules and not be caught. 

Nice closing arguments that lend to the notion that this area of Human behavior may need a lot more research! 

Can’t stop thinking about how eye opening his thoughts on modern cars were… I have a feeling this will spark a lot of debate for years to come! 

Pulled this question off of a website while searching for things to write about…

(I will just write out the response the same way that I wrote it in my notebook) 

 

• Interesting… I would say both, some episodes meant to be absurdist humor, others meant to actually deliver meaningful opinions and messages. 
• I feel it is no longer something someone in my position can watch anymore. Not unless they change some things… Some episodes I could certainly re-watch, that stand up even within our emerging PC Culture, “Losing Edge” is a great example. 
• I think they took a big swing and miss trying to take on the PC Culture. 
• PC is happening and I don’t think it is going away. 
• We want everybody to laugh at Jokes, not be the butt of the Jokes. 
• In my opinion, comedy is going to change forever… It will adapt to PC Culture and it will still be funny… Comedy is an Art and there are a lot of smart comedians. 
• A lot of blow back is probably from people that can’t envision themselves adapting well to the change and think they are losing their jobs… Some probably will… 
• The professional bully style comedian is dying… A matter of time in my opinion… Especially in the Mainstream. 
• I look back and am ashamed at some of the stuff I laughed at years go… I should be ashamed… I was a bit young and lacking empathy and accountability. An example would be laughing at the song “Special Olympics”, we then become enablers and part of the problem… Society gets more of what it rewards… when we make a bad comedian famous and rich, more people will copy their style and humor… 
• The South Park guys are really smart in all actuality and I know they can be funny within the PC Culture… they are adaptable for sure and will still have us crying laughing. 
• I think they have been on the wrong side of the PC Battle Though… I was actually a little surprised at how hard they went all in… They normally have a much better read on our culture and a general sense of morals and empathy. 
• I think they truly just want to make everyone laugh, not just a minority of people… Which is a large part of what the PC Culture movement is about in comedy. 
• Even when you pick on people, it should be in a way that we are laughing with you, not at you… 
• I actually think South Park was good for a lot of people. 
• One might be surprised at how much they were actually teaching the Youth of America… Giving valuable opinions and messages in a humorous way… They think rather logically in my opinion… 
• I will be happy when they finally succumb to the PC movement… It was one of my favorite cartoons… Granted they certainly went too far sometimes… I didn’t like when they made Cartman a complete psychopath for instance. 
• I have hope they will come to their senses… They have been wasting their Talents! 
• One might worry that they may take a while due to the psychological concept, “Justification of Effort”, that they have went so all in on the Anti PC culture that they will have a tough time switching stances now… 
• There is a middle ground somewhere… South Park was a pursuit of the World lightening up a bit and not taking everything so seriously, not being wound up so tight and aggressive… trying to get people to learn to laugh at themselves a bit… there wasn’t too many subcultures within society that didn’t get some light jabs thrown at it…  
• I personally still think the PC Culture is a good thing in general though… I have no doubt that comedians with adapt… the best ones are extremely smart and actually very empathetic, can do a rather good job at analyzing cultures and the people within them. 
• To be a successful big-time comedian is very hard! Many would actually be great sociologists and perform very well in the Humanities & Social Sciences… I could see some of them getting their doctorates for sure! 

 

I am not really sure if I answered the original question or not, but I rather like the way the conversation went anyways! 

Free Verse Generation

Does a Poem need to Rhyme?

For my heart to be so tamed would be such a crime

Limiting my artistic expression

There must exist some form of exception

Free Verse allows me to Unleash my Soul

To extend my words out of the Realm of Control

To my ears a Rhyme sounds a bit silly

But make no mistake, it certainly isn’t easy

A generation raised on Dr. Suess and Where the Sidewalk Ends

To untie rhyming with childhood humor is not so easy to get out of our heads

Perhaps I should try and Rhyme from time to time

To pay homage to the original poetic Paradigm

A rhyme feels like it should go on Forever

But alas I have found the right words to conclude our endeavor

I was planning on writing something else, but have found myself drawn back to this topic… 

I know I have talked about how I have trouble with faces before… so perhaps this is just an update… It really has proven to be a constant source of stress that is hard to overcome… 

You see, although I haven’t had one website view in the past 4 or 5 days, in my head, I think billions of people read my posts… including everyone I might come across in a day… 

So, it is frustrating when I see negative faces or people that look mad at me, I take it very personally… I like to look at people’s faces to help gauge the reaction to things I say, especially since people don’t comment on my posts… I desire feedback… 

Which, it is very hard to come to terms with not seeing smiling faces all the time… But I have to accept that I probably won’t ever see 100% smiling faces all the time while I am in this initiation/bet… technically, given the information given to me, no one should really even know who I am, or that they certainly don’t take the time to read my posts… It should be in a way, like nobody knows who I am… 

So, given the parameters of this initiation/bet and what information is given to me… I will always see many neutral faces or people with (resting bitch face)… sometimes people will just look downright upset… It is hard for me… 

It is especially hard because I have a tough time not trying to figure out why people are mad at me… I used to do that all the time, I would replay everything I said in my head to try and see what could have made people mad or why people may have taken something the wrong way… I would then always address all of the possible problems I could find… I even started to feel that they would try to use a specific type of person to look at me a certain way… so if I was seeing a lot of mad old people, I would ask myself, what did I say or do that is making old people so mad?…which then you could take that question and just insert any given type of person… 

It was probably a good thing in some ways, because I was probably addressing real concerns some people had… maybe that is what was really happening for a while as I was trying to win everybody over to my side… gradually winning over all of the different groups and age groups… I was constantly trying to address any concerns people might have… it probably helped me evolve in some ways and really smooth out my message and fine tune it… 

This whole process is even more elevated when you include the news and documentaries and things like that… trying to take on and win over ever group, no matter where their viewpoints were… I might hear some horrible viewpoint and my opinion would be, that viewpoint exists and everything in between, so I would address it… I always addressed the worst-case scenario, even if just in case… I would have rather had some instance of delusion than not address some really negative or evil viewpoint or thought about something… which I am sure that my enemy used my internal process against me, making up very negative viewpoints and opinions by groups that they never actually said… 

But now I have gotten to a point where I tend to believe it is just Good vs. Evil left and not much if anything in between… there are people on the other side of this initiation/bet and then there is everybody on my side of the initiation/bet… I don’t even think proportionally the other side has that many people, it is just that a small proportion can still contain millions of people that could potentially reek a lot of havoc. 

My opinion is that there really isn’t that much more I can do on the grounds of having people switch to my side… I have a feeling we do scrape away at their side little by little… but that responsibility can now be delegated to many of the people on my side… as well as the reasoning with anybody left in the middle… 

I don’t believe basically anything I see or hear in the news anymore except for natural disasters… I think we are experiencing the greatest world peace the world has ever known and that we are all working together more than ever to achieve common goals… 

I don’t believe any of the negative faces anymore either… It is just that old habits die hard and I so desire just to see smiling faces all the time and to just be surrounded by people that are happy with all that I have done…  

The faces just have a special power over me for sure… probably to because I have always valued the opinions of my hometown my entire life, they have always had a special place in my heart… A large driving factor of my life was always trying to make my hometown (The Valley) proud… I always desired to be seen in a positive light by these people… 

I have to learn to let it go though… accept there is no way I am going to see 100% smiling faces while I am in this initiation/bet…  

I have to trust that I have already won in many ways… no more battles left for me to fight… 

I personally feel so good about to the point I have gotten too, that if I went a bit nuts now, it’s not like people would hold it against me, that it isn’t who I am… people have seen and know the true me anymore, anything else would be a sign that I just need some help or something… which is a good feeling, takes a lot of pressure off, don’t have to worry about everything I say and feel like I am walking on egg shells… don’t have to replay everything the way I used to… I feel the unconditional Love now… I might also say that I feel that I earned it…  

If that all makes sense…