That's the spirit of the whole thing, isn't it? A place to discuss whatever is on your mind - ask questions when you have them, propose theories or explain thoughts when they come to you. An open place for conversation among many diverse individuals.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Something fun I like to do...

Examine your most frequent surroundings (work, home, school, etc...) and analyze how you would fair there given a: zombie attack, vampire outbreak, serial killer on the loose, werewolf, etc...

Yes, it's silly, but really - think about it...how would you fair?  I'll give you all my answer tonight!

Monday, February 9, 2009

What's the sound of one hand clapping?

Add it to the 'life list' - be a contestant on Jeopardy and get to the Final Jeopardy Round (finish the first two rounds in the pluses).

A couple rhetorical questions - first, let's say you found an exuberant amount of money (say a million, or whatever you think would define exuberant if that isn't enough for you)...would you keep it? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you find it in a supermarket, like in an aisle over in hardware and you see an open...bucket and then you notice it's filled with money. I wanted to go that way versus, you know, a briefcase in the street which seems unlikely (whereas this is very probable). Now, no one sees you noticing the money and this is off camera...and you have a purse and/or backpack with you meaning you can easily conceal the money quickly without making yourself notable. Here's my thoughts - I'd probably take it, impulsively, by I'm most afraid that it would make me paranoid for the rest of my life. Here's how I got there - first and foremost, any large sum of money found in that situation is most likely here under nefarious circumstances, right? Therefore the money is probably ill-gotten one way or another, therefore taking it in itself wouldn't be wrong, right? Taking it the police is the obvious alternative. Here's where my paranoia sets in...let's say this is a mob drop (you don't know, it could happen) and you just interfered. No one saw you take the money, but maybe saw you walking from the aisle where the money was dropped and noted a suspicious way in your walk or look on your face - now you're a target. You walk away without touching the money, you may be in no danger (although you still saw it - you're a witness). Now you take the money - you can't deposit it into a bank account, at least not all at once, so you have to plan that out...maybe deposit $1000 at a time and always carry $100 and spend cash like it's going out of style. Still though, wouldn't you have that nagging feeling that the rightful recipient of that money is hunting you down to kill you (No Country For Old Men?) So I ask - what would you do?

I thought I had another, but I'm drawing a blank here at the moment, so I'm out for now. Still no Internet at home, so I'll get back to you when I can (Wednesday I'm at school). Nathan out - ta.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Stresses

So life is hard, right? How are you finding out about as you grow older? What particularly stresses you out about adulthood? Any of the older participants out there - what things came difficultly for you during that transition? Let's discuss a bit of the transition from childhood to teenager versus teenager or even young adult to a stand alone citizen?

I don't have Internet at home right now and likely won't until the 16th, so I'll try to bounce back to this topic when I can. Ta.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Virtues and Vices

So nobody's perfect, right? We all have our little problems that we deal with in our own ways...I want to look at alcoholism and the rise of alcoholics anonymous in particular. Now obviously, it's a system that works for most who go through the program, but I want to think about why such systems work for certain things.

First, to look at alcoholism as a disease - buy or sell? Is it a cop-out to kind of think of it as an uncontrollable issue? Where's the self-control? Aren't we responsible for our own actions and drinking and/or getting drunk would fall under things that we can control? That being said, I can buy it because alcohol is one of those things that's kind of self-reciprocating. You drink, for whatever reason, and then perhaps you do something regrettable or depressing and all of a sudden, alcohol becomes a method of escapism, which creates more feelings in which to escape from. Once someone is in that cycle, I can understand, although not from personal experience, how that can come about and become a serious issue.

So now the question becomes how do we defeat this? My biggest problem is admitting something is a problem, but I think that might be a personal thing versus an actual legitimate argument. I think identifying something as a problem kind of gives it strength - you're strengthening it in your mind by admitting to yourself that it's stronger than you are, while it was you who created the problem. I think admitting that you've created a problem, or you've made a mistake, would be much more effective in defeating something like that. I could be way off course, never having competed with something like that prior, or maybe I'm just misunderstanding the process...both very likely, but that's how I see it. It just seems to me that, by saying - I'm the one in the wrong here, I need to fix it, you're not putting the ball in your own court and enabling yourself to taking the situation back into your own hands. I can see the same thing with quitting smoking, but again, I have no real life experience, so I don't know how much strength my thoughts can have. Any former smokers out there or current smokers who have tried to quit and failed?

Then there's the network of support - and I want to start first with the legally appointed help should one's alcoholism become an issue for the courts (drunk driving, drunk in public, etc...) These people are naturally there to help the alcoholic defeat their problem. This kind of treads into the argument of punishment versus rehabilitation, and I don't want to get into that in this post...maybe another day. Here's my immediate beef with the rehab system - regardless of any good intentions or meanings, anyone in this field of work will quickly become jaded. For instance, a good point Scrubs has pointed out to me (that's right, I take moral queues from a sitcom, what of it?) is that just because one person may be just faking illness just to score drugs, not everyone is. It's hard to prove pain tangibly, I can easily say I have a headache, wince my eyes in pain and why would you question me? Why would I say I have a headache if I don't? So when an alcoholic comes in and says that it was a one time thing, happened to get in trouble, won't happen again - where's the basis for believing them when odds are, you've heard that line from tons of people who really do have a serious problem? Who is telling the truth? How do you tell a nervous reaction to being in an unfamiliar situation from the tells of a liar? I think that rehab is the best system, helping people along, but the system itself is too rigid and the people running the show are clearly so jaded that it stacks the table against anyone trying to play by the rules. I'm not saying all criminals are innocent, but I think we're quickly losing the 'reasonable doubt' aspect of our criminal system because it's easier to lock them up then look a little deeper.

I think I've rambled on a bit much here and I obviously didn't touch on AA as much as I was planning, maybe tomorrow...but I forgot my coat and I have to go make sure no one stole it. Nathan out - ta.