Everything Sucks - Let Me Explain

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Fear and Loathing in MoFo... The Gunslinger 45's Top 50 Favorite Films

In the 10 Ring: Gunslinger45's reviews

Fair enough, I recognize the fact that I may not be entirely right with that one since I personally have no authority on biological matters and can only repeat what I've heard or read from sources which are valid to me. I may not have remembered or understood everything correctly.

But please, don't call my teacher and idiot. Maybe she overgeneralized a topic but that's a strategy teachers often employ to save time (because they only have 45 minutes for their disposal per lesson and the numbers of lessons don't go into thousands for obvious reasons). Also, she's one of the most respected teachers in that school (she recently became vice-principal, I heard) and the school itself is actually one of the top state schools in the voivodeship (kind of like a province). And the Polish schooling system is actually quite decent compared to that of other countries so uhh... there's no kind way to put it: have some respect, man.

Anyway, I teach English and also have seen the results of this method. A good example would be the articles. Teachers usually tell the students that if they need to use the singular indefinite article, they should put "a" before a word that begins with a consonant and "an" before a word that begins with a vowel. The truth is that it actually depends on consonant and vowel sounds (in pronunciation) rather than what is written but then you have to explain pronunciation and sounds to grade school children. See my point?

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Check out my blog: Yasashii's Retro Game Playground

Tread lightly with that sh*t. Please.

Then you should realize the consequences of going into attack mode such as your comment above (one of many like it).

Personally, I get your post and agree with much of it, but the devolution of threads because of this sort of thing is getting old. If you want a conversation then stop belittling people who respond or I'll lock this down and kick it to the curb.

And that might indeed suck.

Then as a teacher and someone who knows first hand that teachers frequently omit the finer details of a subject, you should know better than to tout the words of a fellow teacher as cold, hard fact regardless of their supposed qualifications.

Also, I reserve my respect only for those who earn it and anyone making that statement you parroted from her doesn't qualify in that regard, so please save it for someone who cares.

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Sir Toose, please recognize the fact that I received an answer to my thread by Sedai which appeared offensive towards me first. That was the reason why I responded that way. Then both me and Sedai acknowledged that the purpose of eiher of our posts was not to offend each other so the situation was righted.

Except that it isn't. It's much more nuanced than that in our species. There are plenty of animals in which females are only sexually receptive during ovulation. Humans aren't one of those species.

A big part of sex is procreation, but it's also about pair bonding, social status, and recreation. And we aren't the only species that engage in sex in this way.

I'm just suggesting (strongly) that the personal attack BS end here.

That said, I would challenge you to explain this a bit more (it's interesting):

How do you know this and which chemicals are involved?

Any cliff notes for wall of text?

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I would say that's biblical as Adam & Eve were told not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. I read it as a suggestion to embrace faith or 'knowledge' (whatever that means) may lead you astray of God.

It's an interesting crossroads to contemplate.

http://asdn.net/asdn/chemistry/chemistry_of_love.php - that appears to be a good example.

However, let me admit an important thing here: I have learnt about love being the result of chemical reactions at school first (yes, that same teacher) and yes, the specifics were not explained in detail due to lack of time. (It was middle school, not a university of medicine)

The link I have provided in this post is one I quickly googled - if you consider this to be a total invalidation of my claim then I have nothing more to say to defend it. I'm a guy with the experience of having fallen in love and having the things told to me at school confirmed (because it hit me strongly at first and then very slowly dissipated which, in my mind, confirms the chemicals "theory")

That's what I was after. Thank you.

I've been mired in that particular swamp myself.

Sorry again. I guess that watching movies all day till 4 AM has some side effects on you after all.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

first off about sex being only for having children-which you`ve already back down on but i just wanted to add that humans and dolphines (i think!) are about the only ones (proven) to/ who have sex for enjoyment and not to reproduce.

Anyway...I am definitely one of those who constantly smiles and seems chipper,its a way to spread positivty to both yourself and others-that doesnt mean I,or anyone like me,is deluded about whats really going on in the world. Also about people not speaking to you because you "burst their bubble" by not being that way-it sounds more like maybe youre a bit stand off-ish or unapproachable.It seems weird to wonder why people dont small talk with you when youre so negative about people being in a good mood.

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I'm just like this as well, Topsy

Yeah, I always try to stay giddy and cheerful, sometimes just out of spite. I can't remember who it was now, but someone said "the only thing worse than being hurt is letting others know you're hurt" I feel like it may have been Greta Garbo, but I'm not really sure, I like that quote anyway. Anyway, I know I tend to be feel better about my day if someone smiles my way or says hello to me, so I try to reciprocate.

But I agree with Topsy, I don't think you should necessarily be surprised if people don't want to engage in small talk with you when you're bothered about an attitude where doing so is probably normal.

I think you're right about the dolphin fact as well, Topsy

LOL i had a friend once to took a "course" on being happy- Basically you just have to fake it till you make it
yeah,If you let yourself devour in everything thats bad in your life you`re definitely going to be unhappy,but theres no reason to drag other people down for something as trivial as being in a good mood,unless one is looking for things to be upset about.

Maybe thats why they called him willy

nevermind willy is not a dolphine i was thinking of Flipper

Haven't read all the posts yet, but as someone who's spent some time studying positive (and negative) thinking within the realms of psychology and the self-help movement (also referred to with the more palatable term as the area of "personal development"), this is one of my favorite subjects.

Whenever I doubt the sheer power of thought, attitude or focus, I look only to my own family for perfect examples of the unstoppable & relentless POWER of negative thinking. These are people who've single-handedly (and single-mindedly) brought about disaster, downfall, devastating ill health, continuous failure and utter despair to themselves and everyone close to them - all through lifelong attitudes of negativity, anger and fear.

The principle isn't that negative thinking in particular is so strong, but that a consistent mental attitude of any type is so strong that it will effect, mold and determine the outcomes of every situation throughout your entire life. And the results (whether viewed as good or bad) depend entirely on which direction you focus this power - on the positive or on the negative.

I believe in balance and I think Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf summed up the most balanced & pragmatic attitude to have when he said, "Expect the best, but plan for the worst."

My problem with that kind of attitude is that you convince yourself that you're not deluded. Can I prove you wrong right now? No. But just give it a little time. Life will eventually screw you over hard. You will lose a limb because someone will drive their car into the side of yours because they'll be one of those idiots who claim that winter tyres are overrated. Or you will get fired from your job because your boss will conclude that the joke about his receding hairline you told to your coworker (whom you thought you could trust) after work in a pub wasn't that funny at all. Whatever. Life finds a way.

After a series of such events you might start questioning whether there is that much in the world to be happy about. I won't be there when that happens, of course, to say "I told you so". Still, it would be nice if there was a thought at the back of your head saying "Well, maybe the happy face I was putting on every day didn't impact the events in my life after all."

And please don't convince yourself that you're spreading positivity with your attitude. People can smile at me all they want, they can chat me up, tell me jokes, hug me even, and all that other cutesy stuff. You know what it will change in my life? Absolutely nothing. Sure, there are people who buy into that. Maybe their mood will be elevated slightly for a few hours, tops. Does it change the fact that their child died of cancer? It'd be nice, but it doesn't.

As for the small talk part, at which point did I make it seem like I care for that? I hate small talk. It's pointless. An utter waste of time. Nothing substantial ever comes out of those conversations, as a result of which I find them annoying. I don't give a damn if people want to engage in that stuff with me. I give a damn if they start avoiding it, though, because they convince themselves that the logical error in their perfect perception of the world isn't there and will just go away if they don't acknowledge it. Well, guess what, I'm still alive, whether you like it or not.

So, you put on a smile (or a mask, if you will) to cover up the fact that maybe life isn't as jolly as it seems in order for other people not to pick up on that fact. Do you enjoy constantly acting, not being who you really are? You know, you wouldn't have to if society was willing to acknowledge that being as giddy as a schoolgirl isn't a realistic approach to life. But society won't do that. I think it should be forced to, so that this pathetic farce can finally end.

You can fake everything for as long as you want. You might start believing your own lie after a while but it won't make it a reality by any measure, ever.

You might convince yourself that you are, for instance, a medical doctor. It won't give you the legal right or the ability to actually help people just because you have faith in yourself that's not backed-up by years of medical training and experience. In fact, a guy actually tried that. Several times. Heard of the Dr. Love-Robinson scandals? Look it up, it's hilarious (until you realize that the guy was practicing medicine and could have killed somebody). Spoiler alert: the guy is in a lot of trouble.

Ok, so according to this theory, if I was thinking positive thoughts, my life would be a lot better. Well, I tried that a while ago. I kept it up for years. All that happened is that because I had hope and because I assumed the optimistic scenarios for everything, I got a lot more bitterly disappointed every time the turd hit the fan. It just simply doesn't work. At all. It's just wishful thinking and it makes about as much sense as wishing I will win the lottery. It either will happen or won't happen (and statistically, it probably won't). The universe doesn't care about what I want. It doesn't care about anything because it's not actually a conscious being that's capable of making decisions. It's as inanimate as the chair I'm sitting in right now. I don't turn to my chair for a better life, so it wouldn't make sense for me to turn to the universe for that either.


The reason why some of my responses in this post might seem somewhat sarcastic is that you've hit a nerve. You might not realize this, but with your attitudes, you're effectively forcing me and other people to either fake happiness and lie to ourselves that it's real, or at the very least put on a mask and stop making it visible that you're not jolly.

You're not spreading joy. You're spreading misery. A person who doesn't appear to be happy is not what's generally agreed upon to be normal. You know what happens to the abnormal? Well, we put teenagers who fail to become the shining examples of progress we want them to be in jail for scoring some pot (in some countries, at least). We put the mentally disabled in institutions, even if they're not posing a threat to society or themselves. We put the old in homes so that other people can change their diapers. And what do we do if someone's unhappy? TO A THERAPIST, QUICK!

Yes, we are unhappy so obviously we need our wallets sucked dry with therapy (that either won't work or will work for a while just because people convince themselves it should) and with pills (as it turns out, producing anti-depressants isn't an exact science. It's still unknown how those pills actually work but statistically they do sometimes so what the hell, pop a lot of them! Oh, your penis isn't working now? Well, let me prescribe a different pill which will make your limbs go numb instead!)

I've tried happy thoughts and optimism. I've tried anti-depressants. I've tried therapy, group therapy, different specialists. None of that worked because the underlying cause is still there and will always be there: life sucks. Deal with it. Don't deny it.

Yasashii - it sounds like you believe people are trying to sell you on a magic bullet: "start thinking positively and bad things will never happen to you again!"

But that's not how it works and that's not how most people claim that it works. It's more a matter of choosing perspective - what you focus on expands (for you).

Just because someone thinks positively it doesn't mean bad things stop happening to them. As Jim Rohn said, "It is not what happens that determines the major part of your future. What happens, happens to us all. It is what you do about what happens that counts."

Positive thinkers notice the positive aspects of life - they even begin to see the potential benefits in the bad things - opportunities to learn, to grow, to become stronger, to become more capable in dealing with the next adversity. Because the focus is on the positive (and even the potential positive within each negative) positive outcomes seem to expand for those who think that way.

I'm not talking about looking at all of life through rose-colored glasses, or engaging in self delusion, but about making a conscious choice in how you are going to react, emotionally, spiritually and mentally, to all occurrences whether positive or negative. Is everything to be treated like the end of the world? Or maybe that reaction is best kept in reserve for the actual end of the world while mole hills can remain mole hills and instead of focussing on them, we focus our concentration on our strengths, our love, our abilities, our blessings, that which we are grateful for, and the creativity, beauty and wonder that is all around us.

In reality, the statistics of good & bad (which is completely subjective) work out about the same for everybody. But positive thinkers are happier (and therefore more productive which makes them more successful, healthier and more able to find fulfillment) as a result of their choice of focus.

And I can say from firsthand experience that a consistent negative attitude (pessimism, cynicism, ridicule, isolation, distrust, prejudice, lack of gratitude, etc.) does repel good things, people, situations and opportunities. It gives one an unpleasant personality that repels people & positive situations. It closes one's eyes to opportunities, the potential in others and chances to expand. It diminishes productivity, teamwork, taking risks, reaching out for help, taking things on with confidence, all of which reduce or eliminate the odds of success.

Negativity stems from fear, and continuous fear is the most debilitating and destructive thought and emotion there is to every aspect of life.

There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. This means that happiness is not something you find, it's not something you get, are rewarded with, or arrive at, it's not something that is obtained once certain variables are met. It's something you have to create and cultivate in all situations.

Sexy, you're inspiring me to go back and read this entire thread!