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Pwolf
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Re: The Vent Thread

Post by Pwolf » Tue Oct 09, 2012 4:48 pm

Same thing happened to me a while back. Was working for my mother and she had me run errands using her car. Turned out the registration was renewed and I got pulled over. The citation only cost me $120 but when you don't have $120 to spare, it's a bit much. Your mom might have renewed the registration but it's possible there could be something holding it back, like a smog check. I don't know how strict other states are when it comes to those.

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Radical_Yue
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Re: The Vent Thread

Post by Radical_Yue » Tue Oct 09, 2012 6:42 pm

Jen, there is actually a chance that she might not be lying. I work for a car insurance company and I get calls pretty regularly with customers begging and pleading for the officer standing by their car to talk to me and verify their insurance. More than once I've been looking at a completely active policy but they say "If it ain't in my 'puter, it ain't valid." State reporting can be a broken, bitchy system and I hear miserable stories daily from customers that have had all kinds of issues with it.

As for me...

1) It's a year to the day that my dog had to be put down. I still have a hard time with it now and then. Yes it was just a dog, but fuck you. That little guy will stick with me for the rest of my life.
2) Matt has to go to some town 3+ hours away and stay there for the next 2 1/2 days due to work. That means not only will I be all alone and depressed, but I also get to walk to and from work (7:30am and 7:15pm) so boo. I've gotten used to not being alone and I'm having a hard time dealing with it again, even if it is only for a few days.

I can't even enjoy my 1 year anniversary at work today because of what it coincides with -_-

EDIT: Awesome. Now I also have a very depressed cat who is sitting in 'his spot' waiting for Matt to get home.

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meleechampion
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Re: The Vent Thread

Post by meleechampion » Tue Oct 09, 2012 11:32 pm

I'm drunk but fuck it.

I don't get it. "If we let go of our dreams, are we even alive?"

To keep going, to trod through every day, then faced with the problems that arise from the inability to make oneself happy. Where is the salvation? Is there none? What keeps us pushing forward day by day?

Let's say you're having a down day. Nothing is going right, and you're just outright depressed. What is the cure? How can you possibly recommend "keep your head down and keep grinding. Think of something that makes you happy. Go do something that makes you happy." What if nothing makes you happy? Objectively happy? What if you identify that your current set of hobbies/interests/etc doesn't fulfill you. As a person, as a soul, whatever. Then what? Place hope and optimism in the fact that you just haven't found it yet? Seriously, what if nothing on this earth can make you absolutely, in the moment, happy? Sure it might all be relative, that there is no true happiness. FUCK. Then what? You're seeking something beyond this mortal realm of existence? Or are you just settling for relative highs? Okay, acknowledging that where does that put you? Oh okay, make the most of it. Find the relative highs, seek to recreate them as often as possible. It's a math game now. If I work this job, if I acquire these things necessary to have a "good time" with these people then I win. I get it, life's not a game, doesn't keep me from trying to deconstruct it as one.

UGH. The apathy. It creeps in, doubt from every corner. If I'm to believe that people have inherent worth, that we're not just a sum of our past accomplishments/failures, that we transcend our past, believe in the potential of our future, then what are we currently? Jack shit, I say. What is supposed to make me happy about that? Working, the betterment of mankind, the future... such aspirations are noble and unapproachable? I call bullshit.

I wonder, to the people seeking the most out of life, to capitalize on the random happenstance that "you" exist, if you see the futility of it all, shove it aside, and take an ignorance is bliss approach to living... because the human condition, the "you are not even a speck on a galactic map" perspective puts any other worldly worries TO SHAME, some of our daily "problems" relative makes things so... so UNBEARABLY heavy that the only solution is to not even think like this. I guess. If existing to your potential is that important to you. I can't blame you either. If a society, even if a self, requires no.. it values productivity. Waste time thinking this way and become unproductive? Better to be a slave I guess. There. There is your self-worth. You are contributing! Haha! You are a member of this society. You belong. Doesn't that feel great? To be included? That's all you really wanted, after all. Ahh, if only. If only I could resign myself to that level of contribution, if only it provided satisfaction.

Then why my answer incorrect? Is it better to be weird or to be normal?

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Kitsuner
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Re: The Vent Thread

Post by Kitsuner » Wed Oct 10, 2012 12:32 am

Man, I hear that. I don't have any sort of answer, because I feel the same creeping dread most of the time too. So I guess this post is just to say "You're not alone in feeling alone."

Fuck, man.
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Re: The Vent Thread

Post by Otohiko » Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:29 am

meleechampion wrote:I'm drunk but fuck it.

I don't get it. "If we let go of our dreams, are we even alive?"

To keep going, to trod through every day, then faced with the problems that arise from the inability to make oneself happy. Where is the salvation? Is there none?
Fatalism.

Sadly, I think most people misunderstand that word, and in fact it's something that can necessarily be learned or taught. For me it's something that came out of my cultural background on the one hand, and out of a 3-year personal crisis on the other - which was long enough ago now that I can reflect on and learn from it. At the time, it seemed like I clung to some sort of hope for hope. I raged and fumed at where my life was going. I desperately wanted to be happy, loved, needed, accepted and valued as I am. I still do. Nothing's changed and I continue trying, raging, hoping. But the difference is that I realized that, as my favourite musician would put it, "hope is unreasonable". Or to be more accurate, the quote goes: "In a strange and ever-changing world where points of orientation shift and small certainties of daily life appear to be threatened, reasonable people may feel hopeless, and despair. But hope is unreasonable. And love is greater than this." Again, not in the sense that most people would define "love" - more in a somewhat religious sense of it. A lot of things happened to me, especially during my 3-year crisis. The dread that I had for the worst things I could imagine happening to me in life had largely gone away, because a couple of the worst things I could imagine did happen. I realized that I have no defense against this. I found myself completely helpless to retain anything that I considered dear in life. I found myself coming to terms with the fact that what I actually want in life are things that I will never, ever get. And I found myself face to face with the fact that I am a lot closer to being dead than will ever be acceptable.

I gave up hoping. It has made me an incredibly happy person but, yet again, not in the way that most people would define "happy". I feel psychologically stronger, more mature, and more "normal" as a result. I've lost a lot of my fears and reduced my anxieties. Life still sucks, but I am okay with that, because it also doesn't. I've gained a lot of appreciation for life, and to where it inevitably leads. All thanks to embracing a positive, reflective, spiritual form of fatalism.

That's all I can add on this subject from personal experience. But hang in there!
The Birds are using humanity in order to throw something terrifying at this green pig. And then what happens to us all later, that’s simply not important to them…

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aesling
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Re: The Vent Thread

Post by aesling » Wed Oct 10, 2012 2:42 am

meleechampion wrote:Snip
I don't think have a perfect answer for you, but here it goes. The way I see it, you aren't an entity that exists alone in a vacuum, seeking fulfillment. It helps me to think not of the things that I can suck happiness or meaning out of, but instead of the people to whom I provide that function. The people whose lives you give something to. These are the people who give me context. And don't try to tell me you don't have anyone like that, because fuck you, yes you do. Happiness does not last, but if you can manage to find it in small moments, and string enough of those moments together, it becomes easier to retain your sanity.

I had a lot more rambling that I typed up and deleted, because basically what I'm trying to say is stop being such a fajit and talk to your friends more. It helps.
:ying:

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Re: The Vent Thread

Post by Catastrophe Clash » Wed Oct 10, 2012 6:52 pm

Fuck, I'm trying too hard with this one. Guys, life is what you make of it. It can all be taken away at once before you even realize it's gone. And Death doesn't have to be something scary. It's happened to every person throughout the entirety of human history (Unless there's some jerk out there who's not telling.) No shame in going the way of guys like Isaac Newton or Alexander the Great.

That said, I recommend living. Even if there isn't tons happiness all the time there are a ton of interesting things to do, ideas to contemplate and people to talk to. It's not all fun, but this is overall a pretty good place. Beats the shit outta being chased around a dirty rock by some buck toothed tiger.

Melee, I read your post and I'm pretty sure, even if you question yourself, there are things you consider good and worthwhile in this world. I personally recommend pursuing those things, even if they seem impossible. Pursuit of the impossible is the noblest goal of humanity. We might be the sum of our past failures and successes, but what you determine to be a failure and a success is up to you. I personally have an incredible amount of failure in my past, but I learned alot of valuable things from them, things I realize now I might not have learned if I had succeeded.

Oto, I'll just say to go with whatever works for you. Hope is by nature unreasonable. It is also the only chance anybody has to do anything at all extraordinary. I won't criticize your world view, but I will leave you with one of my favourite quotes, "Now becomes the past in an instant and everyone will eventually die! Destiny triumphs over human knowledge and goes mad, that is the way of things. I spit upon this frail crazed world! I spit upon the second law of thermodynamics!" Anyway, trying will always get you farther than not trying.

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Re: The Vent Thread

Post by Otohiko » Wed Oct 10, 2012 8:09 pm

Good post Dan. :O

I should point out that I hadn't said anything about not trying, that's why I feel like maybe that's missing the point. I haven't got anything against pursuits of the impossible, and actually I support it. Same with making effort to change things for better. I think there is a lot to be said for fatalism in an existential sort of way, where while certain things are inevitable, every moment that one exists is also a moment where choices are possible.

I could simply connect my view of "fatalism" (yes I have to use quotation marks now) to the idea of the Noble Truths in Buddhism for example (though that's not the only way of explaining it, and I am not a Buddhist). On the surface, the Noble Truths may look like an expression of negative fatalism ("all is suffering" - "the cause of suffering is desire" - "the cessation of suffering = cessation of desire" - "the way to cessation of desire is the Eight-fold Path"). But when you actually look at the doctrines that underlie the so-called "Eight-fold Path", you'll find that it's a very human sort of way of learning to live in a way that is compassionate, responsible, aware of other people and living things, and, most importantly - active. This is the type of "fatalism" I mean, and where I feel I've been misunderstood. Be active, but be active with the right mindset that doesn't get you hung up on things you can do nothing about.

I am not advocating passive fatalism as a solution to everything, I'm simply suggesting that a lot of this anxiety about the future comes from the fact that we are socially conditioned to attachment and a cycle of constant wanting-for-things-to-be-right, when in fact life is actually (provably, observably and inevitably) a process of slowly losing everything. There is literally nothing that people can keep. That is not an open invitation to drop everything and go die, because nothing is possible; that's an invitation to live responsibly and in a manner that takes this as not a tragedy but a massively liberating kind of thing - because you are absolutely and inevitably free while you're here and while you still have the world around you that offers almost limitless possibilities, as long as you're not too boxed-up and anxious to use them. Anxiety over what's "normal", anxiety over achievement, anxiety over where one is in life, anxiety over where one will be tomorrow, anxiety over what the next thing will be that one will lose - these are all essentially problems of desire and attachment. They are actually irresolvable, because at the end of the day they only lead to more, not less desire, and thus more anxiety and suffering. I am not advocating crying in a corner over it - what I'm saying with my "fatalism" is that once you realize that those things can't be helped and you'll never have an answer as to why you're not "normal", why you can't ever seem to be rid of stress over what's gonna happen, or whether or not you are really a good person, you suddenly become a lot more free, free specifically to go out and do things with yourself within the available limits (and maybe even somewhat beyond them). Pushing limits and living actively requires no desire, anxiety or requisite attachment whatsoever if one has the right mindset.

I don't want to turn this into a pretentious rant over philosophy and spiritualism, especially since all I meant to say is that I'm concerned about Bobby and want to tell him "hey dude, don't worry so much, it's really not worth worrying about, those things that bother you - go be awesome. You already are."

However, here's a poem in spoiler tags that explains what I might personally mean when I say "fatalism", because apparently I can't explain it very well through trying to be logical:
Spoiler :
The river carries past all sorts of things -
Sometimes capricious and quick,
Sometimes it’s gently calm,
Sometimes it’s overflowing with icy meltwater,
Sometimes it’s shallow under the summer sun

I am a stone inside the river, entranced by water
It dances all around me in its eddies:
Sometimes before me spins an autumn leaf in sorrow,
Else the playful fish amuse me,
Or the slow turn of driftwood makes me wonder

I am a stone. The river plays with me,
And brings to me all sorts of small things
I answer to it: “Truly, I am amazed!
How great must YOU be,
If these are just your toys?”

The river calmly purrs: “No problem!
And that, too, you will find out in time!
You met with joy all that I gave -
And I will help you reap the fruit of answer
From what was naturally sown by the seed of your question.

One day, I will grind down your sides
With my flow, layer by layer, I will wash you into me
Love will unite us - we will become an indivisible ONE,
And you will know what it means –
To be a river.”

There is no meaning to gifts, without one to receive them!
No experience of love, where there are no lovers!
Foolish is the stone that seeks to disappear, to find peace in the river.
Value the EXPRESSION of Love, while it still divides you,
And in THIS, learn to rejoice!

(Ilya Chort – River and Stone (Translated from Russian))
The Birds are using humanity in order to throw something terrifying at this green pig. And then what happens to us all later, that’s simply not important to them…

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BasharOfTheAges
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Re: The Vent Thread

Post by BasharOfTheAges » Thu Oct 11, 2012 8:59 am

I was apparently in such a hurry this morning I forgot to take any of my medication. Haven't done that in a long time. It's a bit of a problem, though, since my 24hour alergy medicine needs to constantly be in my system or I'll get a debilitating sinus headache that lasts all day and my current office isn't 5 minutes down the street anymore... it's a 60 minute drive away.
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Kionon
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Re: The Vent Thread

Post by Kionon » Thu Oct 11, 2012 9:03 am

Yeah, I leave medicine in my house, in my bag, and in my file cabinet in the teachers room at my desk just in case...
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