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Where to Go; Just wondering if anybody has any idea how to help.
Topic Started: Aug 31 2016, 07:09 PM (368 Views)
Zerraspace
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When I returned to the forum about a month and a half ago I mentioned that things weren't really going all that well for me. That hasn't really changed. I still have a lot of things I need to deal with, too many thoughts and issues I need to get off my chest, but it's become quite messy, complicated, beyond normal resources, and I don't know where to begin.

You see I sorted through my emotions a while ago, and have no trouble determining what I feel and why I feel it. Well before even this, I realized I could be happy simply by choosing to be so, that an event only had the power I gave it and I could turn my life around and turn it into whatever I want with nothing more than the proper attitude. For most people, things would have ended here, but sometime I realized the disturbing implications of this - if what you perceive are not events, but the emotions surrounding them, then what is actually out there? Depression is a bias, but what most people won't admit is that happiness is a bias too.

My friends' response has been along the lines that we cannot know the truth, so we can only accept what we feel to be right, what our heart tells us must have value (such things as the importance of love, family, friendship, happiness and the human life). Life is pointless, so we should do as we want, getting as much happiness out of it as possible and doing the best we can for others, as defined by those things we believe in. Questioning this will only bring about pain to no end, and result in self destruction. My father has gone so far as to say I am a fool to doubt these things, since they are the truth. Hence, their question arises: what do I want, and what makes me happy?

What I’m not sure that they understand - despite my pressing the point, using these exact words - is that I don’t want to be happy; I want to know what is real, what is right, and what I should do. They are asking for the answers inside of my head, while what I need is something outside of it, something that I can trust will not change according to my mood and is not a function of my whims.

For the past year I have been pushing myself in this, and managed to find some answers, things I can call truth and not simply what I want to believe. However, the going has been slow, as I am pushing the limits of my knowledge and self-awareness, and I have already exhausted the abilities of my family and friends, insofar as they were willing to entertain thoughts beyond those already mentioned and not simply tell me off. By now, I can generally predict what any of them will do, say or think - or, for that matter, what I will. I need new ideas, things I couldn't come up with on my own and might lead me down new paths or expand my horizons, if I am to continue to progress.

I examined a couple depression forums, hoping to find someone with this issue there, but from a cursory examination, their members focus almost solely on the medical, emotional or day-to-day needs; they cannot help me in this manner. I have also thought about writing a blog on it, but that would go unnoticed without a means of drawing attention, which would most likely start with the very friends and family I want to avoid.

I don't know whether any of you have experience with this, but if any of you could tell me where I could go next, I'd appreciate it - at least as far as I can appreciate anything in this state. If it's too personal, PM me, where nobody else has to see it. I can certainly understand the reluctance.
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Ebervalius
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Sorry if this isn't helpful, but I think your folks are right. I've had thoughts and made questions similar to yours in the past, until I realised it was pointless. Life per se is devoid of any meaning. It's only up to ourselves to assign a meaning to it. Some resort to religion, others to love, or friendship, or joy... The list goes on. Anyway... I hope you get over this, man. I know how much it sucks.
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TAXESbutNano
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My best guess would be seeing someone who's trained for talking about life issues. My own indirect experience (helping out a friend with depression) tells me that, as a general rule, family and friends are more the bedrock than the... assorted... building supplies, if that metaphor makes any sense? Good will is definitely needed, but it doesn't seem to be the solution.

So yeah. I'd recommend finding someone who's trained to help answer these sorts of questions, because if they've put the work in to get the training, then they both want to help and know how to help. And that is a helpful thing.

Edit: Okay I figured out how to explain what I mean. From what I'm guessing, it's like asking 'How do I represent the sun?' The average guy is going to say 'Draw a yellow circle', so you'd have to ask someone who knows about art, because they'll be able to help answer the question the way you want it.
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malicious-monkey
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If you do go the therapy route, just know that there are a great variety of them and you might not find a the right match the first time. Don't give up, there almost certainly is someone out there who can help you figure things out in a way that works for you, provided you have access.
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Holben
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Aug 31 2016, 07:09 PM
if what you perceive are not events, but the emotions surrounding them, then what is actually out there?
But that's the human experience- we are limited by what sensory data we can take in, how we can store that, and what we can infer from that data. We don't have a sense for every phenomenon and those we do have can only extract so much information from a few select properties of the phenomena around us. Our ideas about what the world is like will always be models based on incomplete data. We can always learn more than what we know now but always within the bounds of sensation and inferrence.

The best source of new ideas about these sorts of things is talking to people in real life in my experience. Not everyone wants to talk about them and their reasons are fair enough but when you meet people who are interested just keep discovering what they've come up with!

The nebulous word happiness as a goal is a poor goal IMO; I don't want to be 'happy' as that idea presented in our culture, I want to be in a situation where I have meaningful relationships, live in an engaging environment, and have frequent challenges I can succeed at that don't cause long term anxiety or emotional imbalances. Fundamentally those are the elements of the environment any mammal does best in I suppose.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

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Dragon
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If you have clinical depression, an actual diagnosis from a doctor will help. They'll typically prescribe antidepressants, which in conjunction with therapy and other types of support, will help a lot (this, of course, is assuming you don't have a prescription for them already)
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Niedfaru
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It sounds like you are taking a very long and arduous road, and I applaud it, but do be aware that some answers are impossible to reach. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try mind you, but neither should your happiness be contingent upon success in that endeavour.

For your particular case, I strongly recommend reading Siddharta by Herman Hesse. It will help with questions of truth and the personal quest for it. Despite the name, it's not a religious book, though it does flirt with religious ideas.
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Zerraspace
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I suppose I should have written this, but I have gone through both medication and therapy (corresponding fairly well to the years I was off the forum), and neither has made any headway because neither of them deals with this particular aspect. Medication merely softens the negative emotions, but does nothing about the thoughts that generate said emotions and cannot really provide any form of answer, and I've found that awareness of the dulling reduces its impact, as my mind very quickly works around it - when I was on suicide watch I had a full on anafranil drip and while that did take away the edge, my thoughts and responses were the same as before. Similarly, therapists' modus operandi is to attempt to assert my own beliefs, generally via convincing me by pursuing certain thoughts or that certain thoughts are indicators of satisfaction, without respecting that which I seek. In fact, they will never try to help me find an answer, because their profession essentially states that everyone has their own means of thinking, so the therapist cannot share his own thoughts for risk of interfering or influencing the patient, and must simply teach them how to help themselves. This is precisely opposite to my style of thinking, and doesn't really help when I already consider these issues on a routine basis in great depth.

In any event, I have run through most of the therapists who are in my small country. The first told me to just hold it in, the second informed me during her second week that she had neglected to tell me upon taking me on that she would be leaving for two months right after this session, the third repeated the same questions over and over again and got increasingly infuriated when I either repeated answers or asked to know why certain things were done (contrary to her beliefs, I have thought about these things very hard as my exhausting descriptions should display, as I've asked myself these questions enough times, and you're not getting different answers without adding new information or pursuing a different path - and patient confidentiality does not mean the patient cannot be allowed to know how they are to be treated), the fourth saw me two times before pronouncing that I was recovering remarkably quickly (how did that guy get a license), and while the fifth was decent and actually willing to help pursue my thoughts his responses were still too close to those of my family and friends to really learn from. Ironic that the fifth was a fresh graduate and the others "established experts". Past this, I'll have to look outside, and that isn't really going to happen - Lebanon's neighbors are Syria (boom) and Israel (which won't even let me in on account of living here - and even if they did, Lebanon wouldn't let me back after I'd been there). Once I'm in the US, I do intend to start looking again - the therapists are probably better in a country where most people actually admit to the existence of mental issues - but where I am I've exhausted my options.

I appreciate your concerns, but I am not looking for personal happiness. I will not say it does not matter, and if it can be achieved while allowing for duty and right or even facilitates them then I shall take it, but it is not relevant to what I am searching for. I cannot simply think it into being, for then I will realize that it is only my desire and not an expression of reality. I am more annoyed by the persistence of negative thoughts and the accompanying sense of futility, for they are no more true but are not so easily swayed, but even this would be acceptable were it not an impediment to my functioning. Emotions should be notifications of need, not weights, and if they cannot perform their function and respond to the fulfillment of such needs, giving me a valid indicator of my status, then they must be corrected. Quite frankly, my less rational side would rather I could do away with them and their biases entirely, which would further rid me of several accessory needs that only they generate, but that desire is probably a delusion so long as I'm stuck in this redundant wetware, and living life drugged to the gills does not sound particularly appealing.

Perhaps you would argue, as those around me have done, that emotion is what makes us human, and that I am tearing myself apart doing otherwise. My belief is that it is self-awareness that makes us human, our ability to analyze our emotions and act outside of ourselves, awareness that I have seen in my friends and that all save one have suppressed in their pursuit of happiness. To some extent, I begrudge them that, their surrender of what I see as their greatest potential, but on the other hand I realize that this is what suits them, and serves as the culmination of their struggles and a freedom from pain.

I refuse to stop, even though I know the consequences of my actions, because I believe that my personal welfare is less important - it is another thing that I only give to - and the attempts at validating it via repetitions of the same beliefs are becoming increasingly grating, however good their will. Contrary to all the doubts, I have found some measure of success, and have found true things that exist outside of my sensation. They're not answers, but they are frameworks through which other answers have been constructed, and with more viewpoints I can expand the framework to see what they draw from. Less important is any particular philosophy (which I also get bombarded with) than how a philosophy arises, why people think the way they do - and with enough study, you see that religion, science and social cues share in some aspects as they do. Most of the time, what you find is not reality, but an expression of the limited human perception - deep-held beliefs and tendencies of thought. You have to go down to the thoughts you don't even realize you're thinking.

Nanotyranus hit the nail on the head; I need somebody who understands these issues and is capable of expressing them, because most people around me aren't willing to examine themselves in more than a cursory manner before deciding it will get them nowhere, and I have already worn out those I know, personal and professional, and while I am attempting to engage others as you suggested, Holben, most people (especially here) aren't open for such discussion or repeat what I already know, so it would help to have a more reliable source. My first thought was that the depressed, those who doubt what most take for granted, might have some further leads, but their solutions are generally some form of suppression that may help them succeed in their goal, but does nothing for mine. This forum was my next recourse because I thought you are all of a more intellectual bent, and if anyone I knew were to ask the big questions (or at least try to), it would be you.

That being said, however I come off (I realize I am not being kind to any of you, and I'm quite possibly demeaning), thank all of you for caring enough to answer - and Niedfaru, I will search for that title.
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That is how we first set foot on the planet we have come to know as Zainter, the world that would change our lives forever.
- Remake of Zainter
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Holben
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Could I ask what you consider your near-future and mid-future goals to be?

Have you entertained the possibility that your current train of thought is a rationalisation of your depression and a narrative you constructed to help neutralise your anxiety? It's usually a lot harder to get very intelligent people out of depression by intervention such as therapy and medication because they are very, very good at rationalising how they think and feel. I've always thought that removing the conditions causing depression was a far better approach than invervention anyway.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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TAXESbutNano
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Have you got any local universities or other places to contact teachers/proffessors? I've personally never studied philosophy, so I couldn't say if it's relevant or not, but if it's anything like english literature or english language then there's a possibility they know how to break down big questions like this into answerable ones.

In regards to my own beliefs in how to live my life, unfortunately they only go as far as 'be chill, be sensible, and everything bad is no longer your fault'. It works decently well for me, but by and large that's because I'm not the sort to look further into life when I've got *insert latest distraction* to brainstorm on.
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Zerraspace
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Holben
 
Could I ask what you consider your near-future and mid-future goals to be?


My only immediate goal is getting an engineering job outside of the Middle East, preferably one in the US or Europe that can eventually lead to some design or space-based industry. Beyond that, everything is nebulous - someday I intend to actually get to writing my novel, which I dream might someday become a movie, maybe try to improve my fitness, and I hope to find a woman who's emotionally and intellectually compatible that I might someday start a family with - and I don't see much of a point to it. The days will continue as they do now, today spent to make sure that we get to do these same things tomorrow, with the occasionally interspersed distraction that we are supposed to believe makes all the rest of it worthwhile, or serves no purpose other than to combat the ever increasing boredom, until someday tomorrow stops coming, and again we convince ourselves that something has been made of all that time to validate life lived like any other for no purpose but allowing the sequence of tomorrows. Without meaning, that's all that's going to happen.

Holben
 
Have you entertained the possibility that your current train of thought is a rationalisation of your depression and a narrative you constructed to help neutralise your anxiety?


Let me say that when you start doubting reality, your thought processes are the first victim and you second guess everything you do and every reason behind it, from which doubting doubt itself is a quick recourse. I understand that I might be avoiding some more deep-seated issue, making problems practically insurmountable so that I can justify my perceived helplessness and insecurity or simply seek attention, and it is more likely that which really troubles me than any enlightened meaning, simply because however much I wish otherwise I am human and am probably much more shallow than I'd like to think I am. However, this does not stop the questions from arising in my mind or accompanying my actions, questions which I realize I do not have an answer for that make valid points, and many immediate responses come too quickly for me to take stock in them, that I am sure they are simply what I want. That does not mean they must necessarily be false, but that is no reason to trust in them either, and to that end I require more work before I can come to what might be deemed a reasonable conclusion.

If I had to pin it down to one thing, I would say that doubt generates anxiety - doubt regarding my actions and those of others, which is reinforced by this thought process. Doubt can only be combated by suppression (which is a function of your strength of will), distraction (which, like the former, doesn't deal with the doubt itself and will eventually fail as the doubt becomes more insidious), faith (within emotion or knowledge, that which I hope for reasons made obvious by now, I think would be a poor respite) or certainty. Hence, I seek the last of these.

Nanotyranus
 
Have you got any local universities or other places to contact teachers/proffessors? I've personally never studied philosophy, so I couldn't say if it's relevant or not, but if it's anything like english literature or english language then there's a possibility they know how to break down big questions like this into answerable ones.


I had access to my university for a while, back before I graduated, and managed to take some philosophy and counselling courses: this led to the respective amusing comments that "[you] think a lot, for an engineer" and "you have a startling amount of self awareness". It is a little more difficult now that I am out of it, seeing as the place is two hours away. Still, that's a better lead than any I've been given thus far. Thanks Nanotyranus!
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That is how we first set foot on the planet we have come to know as Zainter, the world that would change our lives forever.
- Remake of Zainter
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