[Martinelv]

Have you ever suddenly been struck by the enormity of some of the things you've experienced in your life? I hope this doesn't come across as big-headed or anything, it certainly isn?t' intended to be, but I was just sitting in a meeting paying no attention whatsoever, and I started dreamily playing over some memories - some good, some bad. And suddenly I felt gob smacked at some of the things I've seen and done. Really, physically shattered. I nearly had to leave the meeting. It was like all my life I had taken things for granted and now they had come back to haunt me, or take some payback. I can't decide if it was a nice feeling or not. It got me thinking - have I been emotionally numb all my life? Have some of my experiences, which at the time felt meaningless, should really have been quite earth-shattering?

I feel stunned. I really can't believe some of the s**t that has happened to me, and some of the incredibly stupid things I've done. :shock: I sit here in a suit and tie, in front of a computer, pretending to be a regular guy, yet I feel like a total freak. I was banging a prostitute the other night for Christ's sake! That isn't me!! Surely I can't have done that! I've slept in a wheely bin! A WHEELY BIN!! I've had sex with men!!! I've fried my brains with drugs!! I've spunked thosands of pounds on women and beer and holidays. I've got Leaukemia! For f**s sake !!!! SYSTEM OVERLOAD !! I've tried to kill myself, twice !!! Agggggggggghh....
I'm only 34 and I'm goddam cursed.

Trust me, I'm not bragging. Far from it. It just feels like too much, yet, absurdly, it's never enough! Even if I went to the moon I'd be quickly bored. :evil: Reality check! What the hell is going on!

 

[Guest]

you slept in a WHAT? lol

See, for some of us, while it might really LOOK like we are desperately involved in doing things to find meaning, that's a trick du mind. What we're really doing is living a desperate search to try everything, so we can abolish meaning in all of it.

[email protected]! GIMME MORE!
nope, that was no good.
nuh, did nuthin' for me.

GIMME GIMME GIMME
rather worthless, if you ask me.

more.
gimme more.
so many things to devalue,
so little time.

:wink:

 

[Scattered]

Ah yes. The destruction of meaning is an entertaining past time.

 

[Martinelv]

That's an interesting slant on it. Now, where did I put the arsenic?

Scattered, I know I can always rely on you to put the sparkle back into my life, with a click of your heels and your girlish laughter ringing in my ears. :roll:

 

[terri*]

I'm telling you, you should do the narcy squid thing. :wink:

This may or may not be helpful, you are going to get older. :shock:

As this happens, you will be amazed at how your reflection on how the screwed up things in your past can be thought of and reflected on in less than a minute flat. " I had how many husbands? I had sex where? I spent all that money on drugs. My parents screwed me up in the head. I woke up in the middle of a field with that cow munching over me." etc. Truly, you get older and you have addressed these issues so many times that you just go bam, bam,bam and the thought process ends with very little if any emotional involvement.

Ease up on yourself. You'll be an old, gimpy fart some day and some of it will downright tickle you.

 

[terri*]

Just one more quick thought...

Someday, when you've "stopped the insanity", you might get married again and have children of your own. Your focas will shift alot at that point. And then your parents will get older and you will have to address issues with them. So many other things will start coming between you and yourself. As a matter of fact, upon reflection of rereading that, you will almost lose yourself.



So now that I think about it, enjoy some of these screwed up moments you're living. As you know, when you're outta here-you're outta here.

 

[g-funk]

Ok, let's all post something that we think we have done that we feel is out of character and why. Something you look back on and think 'that's not me'.

I have a point, but don't expect me to explain it :lol:

I'll start.

I shoplifted a few times when I was younger. :evil:

And Janine, a Wheely bin is one of those big bins on wheels :wink:

 

[Homeskooled]

I'm too young to know what's "in character" for me. A freind of mine who is going through an awful time in his life, well, actually he's my roommate, and he has bipolar disorder, asked me two days ago if I thought he was at a "normal" or "right" place in his life. I told him I thought this was a common mental error. We grow up programmed by our schooling that there is a proper "place" for us to be at mentally, physically, activity-wise, where the rest of our age-group is. Ninth grade. Senior year. Kindergarten. But all bets are off in your twenties. The one thing that is for sure is that anyone can take ANY path they want to at our point in life. And come to think of it, in your thirties as well, Martin. I told my friend that there might be an AVERAGE place he could be at - a place where the largest percentage of 21 year olds are in life. I told him that would be college, and he might want to head back there. But its certainly not an obligation, nor is it the "right" thing to do. You do what you want to do with your adult life, and you learn from that. A wiser adult just does less things they regret. Thats the only measure I can think of that tells you if your on the right path - regret.

But can you truly act "in-character" or "out-of-character"? I think that your character is an ever-evolving thing that directly reflects your actions, which in turn directly reflect your inner desires. You choose who you are, and are the sum of those choices. You may go against your inner dispositions, or perhaps against your inner intuitions, but those are probably the things we call conscience and identity. Character, though, is a different animal.

Peace
Homeskooled

 

[Milan]

Martin, reading through all the things you have done I must admit I was shocked when I read that you have had sex with men (plural?). And I found it interesting that no one mentioned anything about it. Maybe they already knew the fact. From your posts I thought you were so into women and never suspected bisexual tendencies. I know it's no big deal but as I was going through your list it just stopped me dead in my tracks. It reminded me when a friend came out of the closet but in that case I sort of knew that he was probably gay. You never cease to amaze me. My life seems so boring in comparison.

 

[sebastian]

Well Milan, i think what Martin meant to say is that he didn't have sex with men, per se, but with male iguanas. Big difference. Does that make him gay? I don't know. But i'll tell you one thing. I'm sure as hell keeping my pet iguanas away from him. At least the male ones. I really don't know what i'll do with the female ones. I suppose he can talk to them and maybe watch TV with them or something, but i think that's where i'll draw the line. There's no telling what he'll do next.

s.

 

[Milan]

There's no telling what he'll do next

I'm keeping a padlock on my fishtank!

 

[person3]

i bet in real life martin is really shy and quiet

and janine is a man

(well at least i really believe the first one)

uh...janine...why do we want to abolish meaning in everything? please explain more, at least before martin has something else grandiose to post 8)

 

[g-funk]

so nothing can 'touch' us, we are invincible? We are not ordinary humans who feel, and are moved by things? OR so we want to believe?

Not sure really, just a guess!

 

[boohoo]

Martine lv, are you going through a mid-life crisis?
I'm going through a crisis at the moment as I now spend all my time at home thinking. And recently, I too became overwhelmed at everything I've seen and done. It's like, I never gave myself time to reflect on anything in the past because I was always too busy.
But my hunger for experience is what got me into this mess I'm in now (meaning, wanting to try drugs). But still, I don't have many regrets because I've tried things simply for the experience, and because I can, which is why I chose to go to bed with a woman, even though I'm straight, or to swim naked in the Mediterranean sea at midnight... just to feel everything I can possibly feel, for the sake of being alive and being able to, for taking every opportunity.
Do you know what I mean?
And then when everything slows down, it's like (quote Casper from Kids)
Jesus Christ, what happened?!!

 

[g-funk]

There's another way to look at it, regardless of your motivation for doing these things, I think the issue here is how you are reviewing yourself. Forgive me for sounding like I have swallowed a Janine shaped dictionary...

This was the point I was going to make earlier on. We all do things that we may regret, but rather than learning from it and integrating the experience like most people, we like to keep it all orderly like life is a project, just means to a perfect end or living up to an image we unconsciously have of ourselves. So neatly arranging experiences into files rather than just absorbing them, otherwise they wouldn't seem 'out of character'. Hence feeling like an observer rather than experiencer. There is a difference between the normal feeling of regret and shame than the DP feeling of 'that wasn't me'.

Not that any of you started this post meaning that was what you were feeling, but I just wanted to add it because I reckon a lot of people here do, because otherwise they wouldn't be on this forum. It's this kind of thinking that opens the door and says HELLO, WELCOME INTO MY HOME DP AND SH*T ALL OVER MY CARPET, PLEASE

 

[Guest]

One does wonder why I bother to reply when person3 thinks I?m really a MAN, and I happen to know gfunk thinks I work for the government (sort of like an Agent Scully trying to demystify ?mystical truths?)?yet, I being the CIA fellow I am, I forge ahead here.

Sometimes we like to destroy all meaning for the following reason:

Imagine a bitter, disappointed, angry, ugly, needy old man. Just a pill. Nobody likes him. The Board wouldn?t even have him. He hates life. Feels like a failure. Thinks life sucks and always has. Figures his time is about up.

His young nephew comes to live with him (poor little sucker). Every day he fills the boy?s head full of hardluck stories about this awful world. He tells him he is trying to ?protect? him from his own future disappointments, from having his heart broken, etc. He says all he harps on is for the boy?s own good.

Truth? He does it because he?s terribly envious that the boy is young ? and still has chances. And the old man doesn?t want to die all alone.

When we try to destroy meaning, sometimes it?s because we are ?split? in our own minds ? it?s as if we are both the old bitter envious bastard and the young hopeful. We try to protect ourself from the cruel world. In reality, we are being sadist and masochist?.we are a self-contained universe, the ultimate one-man-show, hell-bent on making the self need NOBODY?.so we can keep our existence as a kind of ?me and me, against the world?

Mr. Baker, Special Services

 

[Scattered]

I'm such a worthless sack of shit.

 

[Martinelv]

Woo, so many posts - so little time.

Homeskooled: You wrote too many truths to quote here. Thank you friend.

Person3 :

at least before martin has something else grandiose to post

What's that supposed to mean? I try desperately not to come across as some worldly-wise big head who had done and seen anything, because despite the things I've done, I'm still a complete mess. I'll post in monosylables from now on, if that will keep you happy. I'm bored with defending myself.

Scattered:

I'm such a worthless sack of sh*t

Scattered is 19 years old. :roll: Well, you've got a lifetime ahead of you, so you'd better sew some sacks together to take your imaginary mountain of s**t

Boohoo:

Martinelv, are you going through a mid-life crisis?

No, I've been like this for as long as I can remember. I call it my mid-no life-crisis.

Terri*:

Truly, you get older and you have addressed these issues so many times that you just go bam, bam,bam and the thought process ends with very little if any emotional involvement. Someday, when you've "stopped the insanity", you might get married again and have children of your own. Your focas will shift alot at that point

Inspiring, but when? When, for gods sake? I am of the wont that my personality cannot change. I am so entirely set in my ways and memories from bygone years still make me grimace as I walk along the street. I'm tired of it.

Milan:

I was shocked when I read that you have had sex with men

Yes, twice, in the middle of an almighty drug-frenzy. During moments like that, flesh is flesh. Otherwise, I am entirely hetrosexual. Although I wish I wasn't. I might get laid more often.

Janine - you cut too close to the bone. I'll PM you when you've got some free time.

And last, but not least, Sebastian:

he didn't have sex with men, per se, but with male iguanas

Don't knock it till you've tried it. And don't tell me you never tried.

 

[person3]

dont' worry martin i'm just giving you a hard time

besides i'm kind of jealous...i thought MY year was wild. you stole my thunder.

 

[Martinelv]

It's OK, I understand. It's kind of like when girls pinch boys in the playground, when they secretly fancy them. Internet kiss-chase?