quote
follow
So here's my yesterday's update, guess every year around October something in my brain compels me to finally make a video update to my YouTube channel. Maybe Autumn with its seasonal depression make more people look for pessimistic gloomy talks online, and some even write me asking whether I'm going to make a new video ever again.
So I did! Deal with it! ))
I have a very mild light in my kitchen so even this HD video came out grainy. Need to buy a lamp of some sort because I rarely make videos in daylight, as all good vampires I sleep through most of it, haha.
More posts from this category: Invisibility cap... and thoughtsSorry, less hair :D
Irina |
04-11-2016
Thank you, Kirk! Not sure if such a beautiful soul, I know too much about me :D or rather, realize and accept my not so fabulous - by some standards :P - parts. Do you have an older sister then? Because I find it hard to imagine having a brother at all, haha, I only have sisters and sousin sisters. And then, the very next day, they wil kill and eat the object of yesterday's affection, just like humans! Right, that is much like humans. Doesn't that make a thinking person disilusioned in what they call romantic love? When you know today's feelings of "love of my life, together forever" and all that jazz can simply be replaced with "don't care, you're not the one, good-bye". And that's not the nastiest way it can end. You didn't read anything in Russian like I had hinted at, but that's OK LOL no.)))) Could've read that passage in Russian though, Chekhov's, it's more eloquent in original, but sadly most people can't understand Russian. I like that Chekhov writes so pessimistically sometimes, because he's not a morbid gloomy pessimist who can be blamed for 'depression' and 'tough childhood' and so discredited altogether. Conveys the message that it's OK to notice the bad side of life and call attention to them. Ouch, shingles. No, I won't ever be vaccinated against it 'cause I've had it as a kid. But it wan't that bad, a few days out of school watching tv trying not to scratch those spots - that was the only symptom, the rash, no fever or swelling. Most kids had it in those days, I think, probably this particular disease is indeed no big deal in childhood, and then you have immunity for life. What IS worrying is that aparently there's no antirabic vaccine in Ukraine, almost none, and we have dozens of stray dogs in every city. Luckily, absolute majority of them are healthy but they do bite people sometimes and from rabbies one can die in 3 days or so, if the bite is bad and close to major blood vessels. Some people report having to go to neighboring Poland for vaccine when their loved ones got bitten. Ah wait this summer we finally got some antirabic stuff, years later. Ok then. Life here has its 'spice', hehe, sort of. Hope you're feeling even better by now. Well, didn't they establish that one's happier with religion in some studies? Could be. Freud said once, that no man is happy without some kind of an illusion... |
Kirk
|
06-11-2016
@Irina I know you aren't perfect! The attraction is the psychological visibility, what people really long for most of their lives but don't always find. But the more "normal", or towards the mathematical norm that is to say, the easier it is, in general. And neither of us is anywhere near normal. But knowing you hit upon the truth effectively on your own (your parents, church, or school didn't indoctrinate you into it) and can make a good case for it speaks to your level of intelligence, ability, and willingness to do the hard mental work of applying it, and having the compassion to implement it. What percentage of the population does that (hint: fractions of a percent)?
I had no sisters, only two younger brothers, but I did have two girl cousins who I spent a lot of time with on the farm, though usually I was out in the field with my grandfather and father digging post holes, or riding horseback, or ploughing a field with an early 1900s tractor with metal wheels, or hunting deer, etc, while my girl cousins canned and preserved, shucked corn, peas, beans, etc., and all the while I was contemplating existence and the point of it all, and why no one else seemed able to function at my level, in spite of their intelligence and education, and see the truth of it all. Amazingly lonely. Anyway, my point was the older of the two, within one year of me, was intellectually so very close that any game we played that didn't rely on much luck usually ended in a tie if at all possible. Even with chess, we would stalemate. But she turned out like my middle brother, out for her own self, though pleasant in nature, with two kids, big house, and wealth through engineering and a dental business, whereas I sought truth and did engineering and teaching (though I enjoy teaching) to make a living and pursued other hobbies. She remained Catholic and all that goes with it, which amazes me, since no, I don't think religion is a good idea in almost any case. So I don't feel understand by her, nor her by me, at all. And Freud, well, not a big fan, overall, and I guess I made a decision (if anyone really can) long ago that I would be as happy as possible by knowing the truth (which doesn't mean I would be happy at all) rather than trying to delude myself with consumerism, family, or religious distractions, since having to endure those as a child was extremely stress-inducing because I was not able to suspend disbelief and participate in the fraud that they were. I may have told this story before, but I'll repeat it just in case (that's a sign of "maturation" I hear) where in elementary school we had to sing this insipid song, maybe you have it in Ukraine, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands, if you're happy and you know it, stomp your feet" ad nauseum. And every child was supposed to act on the words of whatever we sang, so I did neither. And a teacher, fearing retardation or outright insubordination, ask me why I was not clapping and stomping like all of the other good boys and girls. And I told her, "Well, the song says you need to both be happy AND know it, and either I am happy but don't know it, or I am not happy, so in any case, no clapping or stomping." Me being 9 years old, she just stopped cold, her jaw dropped open, she shut it again, and turned her attention to the rest of the class! I had chicken pox as a child, there was no vaccine then, and once it is in your system, it waits for decades to attack again, often causing paralysis, numbness, and more, sometimes for many years, and that is what in English is called shingles. If you have the virus in your system (it seems you do), there is probably half a chance you will contract shingles in the next 20 years or so unless you get the new shingles vaccination, which here costs about $500 I think. How it affects you seems to be a dice roll. You could read that passage in Russian in short video, that would be a great addendum to the English version you read. I'd love to hear you read it. If I were up to the video thang, I could read something in my best Spanish, which I have been told is reasonably good for a partial native speaker that never uses it of consequence. And you are right, sometimes, many times, people confuse clear understanding and vision with depression, though often one follows the other naturally, like being sad when you realize a loss. The very fact that so many suffer from both is just another notch on the AN gun stock. |
Dick O'Brick
|
07-11-2016
Hello Irina (& El Capitan),
Nice to see a new video from you and that you're still one of the few unfortunate sane souls in this oh so crazy world. A good portion of your talk was spent explaining to your YouTubian audience how you've found it unnecessary to continually harp on about the same tired topics over and over again - a lesson that Gary '500 videos a day' Inmendham doesn't seem to have yet grasped. Although I've never chosen to go the visually public route you've taken I can fully empathise with this sentiment. In this regard, you may have noticed my lack of comments on your last few blog posts. It's as if a 'fuck it' button was on a timer inside my head and once activated, the motivation to spew forth the same tired verbiage ad nauseum simply left me. It's funny too because your short 'Just Existing' post resonated and laid bare my life more than any other entry on your site.* Without wanting to set our Texan friend off on another determinism vs free will rant, it's very clear to me how this near vegetative state I'm in has nothing at all to do with choice and is merely a natural reaction/defence mechanism to the world I see around me coupled with decades worth of often painful experience. You mentioned how we are nothing more than animals and your ending quote from Chekhov (that's Anton, Kirk, not your shipmate, Pavel) about how people as a whole manage to remain happy with suffering all around them is a confirmation of nature's relentless drive to survive no matter what. It is evolution in action. For if we were perfectly attuned to the constancy and magnitude of suffering, as well as correspondingly affected by it, then none of us would still be here. As Huxley said in Brave New World Revisited: "The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. "Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does." They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted." Amen to that. Setting aside the heavy stuff, what's all this nonsense, Kirk: quote:
I had no sisters, only two younger brothers, but I did have two girl cousins who I spent a lot of time with on the farm, though usually I was out in the field with my grandfather and father digging post holes, or riding horseback, or ploughing a field with an early 1900s tractor with metal wheels, or hunting deer, etc, while my girl cousins canned and preserved, shucked corn, peas, beans, etc. I thought you flew in a starship?? Whereas the picture you've painted here is a plot straight from The Waltons... or maybe it was Little House On The Prairie. I'd be wary of this guy, Rina, just saying. Ok folks, it's back to staring at the wall for me. Adios. *Psychologically speaking. I wasn't implying I'm a wrinkled old grandma. ... Not yet anyway. |
Irina |
09-11-2016
Hey welcome back Dick O'Brick I can emphasize with the apathy, I've spent some time now communicating to no one, just couldn't bring myself to write an email or initiate or even respond to someone's request for a Skype or chat in private. Not even on the discussion groups on Facebook. I was just working, hobbying, watching stuff, reading, but not talking or writing much. Weird state, or, stranger than usual)) Maybe it's also that all the interesting people, like-minded people are far away and the virtual communication never quite replaces the real thing, like getting drunk together in one bar or a kitchen :D Anyway, our impending doom might just be getting closer with Trump as next president of US. Let's buckle up, it;s going to be fun. |
Kirk
|
07-11-2016
@Brick Born in a small, farming environment in Iowa in 2228…
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2081 |
Dick O'Brick
|
07-11-2016
I knew it!
Hope your hand and other injuries are healing. |
Brian W.
|
09-11-2016
Donald Trump will be America's President. You were right, Irina...the world just sucks.
|
Irina |
09-11-2016
Yep. Here's the best selection of reactions to Trump's winning to cheer everybody up though http://www.boredpanda.com/funny-reactions-trump-winning-presidential-elections-2016/ |
My experience with animals on the farm and in natural settings, mostly gained as a youth, has me believing that animals are pragmatic, but can show concern and dare I say it, love, for those not of their species. I have seen compassion, sadness, gaiety, depression, and all of the other emotions we feel as humans only we possess. And then, the very next day, they wil kill and eat the object of yesterday's affection, just like humans!
So in that, perhaps we are not in exact accord, but maybe you have a more distant understanding due to a different type of exposure, and there is no fault in that.
If you continue on your path, you will not change your mind, and every day you will settle a little more into a position as you describe, knowing you can change very little, and trying to be as happy as possible, in spite of all that passes in the world that needs changing but won't.
I will say this to you, if anyone can ever truly be somewhat understood, being the fundamentals of that person that I speak of, through limited and distant discourse, that I have never felt more psychologically visible to anyone more than with who you seem to be through that limited discourse. And that's very heartening to me!
You didn't read anything in Russian like I had hinted at, but that's OK, maybe in your last video from planet Earth you'll remember to do it, just cuz I asked. ;0
Good passage, fundamentally all true. And ultimately, non-natalism is not a difficult concept, and your current body of work surely addresses the major objections that most might bring against it, so no worries there, it is more than I have done, at least in a visible way on the interwebs, though I have used my time spent teaching professionally and in my daily life attempting to encourage clear and compassionate thought, and nudge people where possible.
It's a good feeling to know that almost every healthy-brained ANer has arrived at their conclusions in *spite* of those around them, and in a multitude of environments rife with opposing indoctrination, and very often in intellectual isolation. That alone lends so much credibility to the position in my mind, it's the icing on the cake for AN.
I am coming off of a trip to Britain which would have been very decent, but halfway through contracted shingles (you probably have had the chicken pox vaccination available now, but if not it most probably awaits you in a few years if you don't get it) with high fever and massive swelling on one side of my head.
Finally in recovery, with the nerve damage slowly subsiding, a woman decides to ignore a stop sign and proceeds to total my car, bruise my spine, and break my hand! The religious zealots where I live all asked me if I was praying to gawd and thanking him for saving my life, whereas I told them that more likely he set out to kill me, but only managed to break my hand!