The Contradictory Feelings Thread

[Travis B.]

Despite having many troubling health issues over the past few months, I feel strangely unmotivated to address them. Fundamentally, my life just feels so hollow and crappy that the prospect of looming death has lost its impact. I have no friends, everyone from the ZBB to my workplace regards me with contempt, the Left soundly rejects me despite years of seeking their affiliation, and so forth. Given all that, the struggle to stay alive feels genuinely pointless.

To echo linguoboy, I would try to find something that you enjoy and value doing, not because of anyone else, but just because of yourself. Take myself - at the end of the day, aside from my family, what I get validation out of is developing software for my own purposes. zeptoforth for instance is something I work on simply because I like creating my own computing environment - I suspect it has absolutely zero users - but at the end of the day, as much as I would appreciate even one user, what matters to me is the act of creation because I want to do it.

[malloc]

I don't regard you with contempt, either, malloc. I don't know you too well, but you seem nice enough to me.

Then you're very much a minority here. Everyone else loathes me and I have been banned many times.

Longer term, it strikes me that everything you mention in your post--friends, the ZBB, your workplace, the Left--has to do with seeking validation from external sources. I don't mean to minimise the value of that--we all need some to survive--but it's far from the be-all end-all. If your external sources are failing you, you need to look at internal sources. What, fundamentally, gives your life meaning? What sources of joy do you have which aren't dependent on the approval of other people? For me, it's things like my passion for learning, which I engage in constantly whether or not others are impressed or even notice. You must have some of that in you, too, given the kinds of questions you've asked here before. Maybe you simply need some new sources of inspiration.

It feels somehow arrogant and dishonest to validate myself for internal reasons when literally everyone else considers me garbage. Imagine if someone presented a crude stick figure to you and proclaimed it their favorite masterpiece. Would you not consider them ridiculous and buffoonish for taking so much pride in obvious drivel?

[Travis B.]

It feels somehow arrogant and dishonest to validate myself for internal reasons when literally everyone else considers me garbage. Imagine if someone presented a crude stick figure to you and proclaimed it their favorite masterpiece. Would you not consider them ridiculous and buffoonish for taking so much pride in obvious drivel?

Validating oneself solely externally has the problem that for not just you, but for many people, there is little to validate themselves externally. Crappy, unrewarding jobs, little in the way of friends and family, what they do is unappreciated, and so on. That makes finding things by which one can validate oneself without requiring other people to give one validation a must.

[Vijay]

I have been banned many times.

I know, but like Ares Land says, I still don't think they view you with contempt. I think they're willing to give you another chance despite anything that happened in the past and let bygones be bygones.

[Ares Land]

Then you're very much a minority here. Everyone else loathes me and I have been banned many times.

Man, that was ages ago. And the ZBB was very much a very different place.

It feels somehow arrogant and dishonest to validate myself for internal reasons when literally everyone else considers me garbage. Imagine if someone presented a crude stick figure to you and proclaimed it their favorite masterpiece. Would you not consider them ridiculous and buffoonish for taking so much pride in obvious drivel?

Not everyone considers you garbage. I'm in fact pretty sure very few, if any, do. I'm in fact about 100% sure that's the depression talking here. From your posts here, you seem to be suffering from severe anxiety and depression and you know, I really feel for you because it ranks among the top shittiest thing anyone can go through.

I'm sad I can't do more, because most of your point can't really be addressed outside of therapy. But, on topics where I can offer an opinion:
- As far as the ZBB goes, I don't regard you with content and I'd be happy to see you posting more and share whatever creative work you'd feel ready to share. I very much doubt I'm alone in thinking that.
- The Left isn't the Freemasons or something; you don't have to do anything special to be 'affiliated' to the Left. You just have to think certain things. If you want to be an activist, you can too. You just need to do stuff, I mean you don't need any special approval or something. You shouldn't even expect any approval: many activist burn out evnetually because things get real nasty. (If you ever got attacked, or if you do in the future, even if it comes from your own camp, chances are this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the way people are.)

[MacAnDàil]

People aren't garbage as a general rule.

And Ares Land is right: if you want to be a left-winger, just go out and do left-wing activism and support left-wing causes. While you shouldn't bank on getting external validation, if there is one way to it, it's through doing things.

[Raphael]

I kinda think that, if you're really in a position where everyone else sees you as garbage (and I don't think you are), that makes it even more important to assert, at least internally, that you're not garbage.

[MacAnDàil]

You're right.

Also, about wealth and income, I felt rich when I got about 5000 euros in overtime pay. And I know vast swathes of humanity have never seen that kind of money.

[doctor shark]

Contradictory: I got reminded recently that this year is/would be my 10-year university reunion. On the one hand, it's cool to look back and realize how much has happened since then... but, on the other hand, the fact that it's been ten years is rather hard to believe.

[Travis B.]

Contradictory: I got reminded recently that this year is/would be my 10-year university reunion. On the one hand, it's cool to look back and realize how much has happened since then... but, on the other hand, the fact that it's been ten years is rather hard to believe.

The fact that it's been more than 15 years since I graduated college makes me feel old...

[Linguoboy]

The fact that it's been more than 15 years since I graduated college makes me feel old...

LOL. Next year is my 30th.

For a long time I was always the youngest among the olds. Now that my friends are increasingly my age or younger, I'm having to make some adjustments. Fortunately I have a lot of good models to follow (and some definite ones to ignore).

[Raphael]

In my case, it's an unspecific but large number of years since I would have graduated if my life had gone according to plan, which it hasn't.

[Ares Land]

Oh, sorry.to hear that, Raphael...

Memory is weird. I was thinking about something funny that happened this morning, and it felt like it happened last year... Except, well, it was 15 years ago.

My early 20s really sucked though, so I'm very happy they're ancient history at this point!

[Raphael]

Oh, sorry.to hear that, Raphael...

Thank you! Compared to many people, things are working fairly well for me. I guess I shouldn't have tried to study math-heavy subjects, but judging from my later attempts to study something else, things might not have worked out much better if I had tried to study something else from the start. Perhaps I'm simply not suited for academic environments.

[rotting bones]

No matter what you go into, you won't do okay unless you have a daily habit of doing those sorts of things, and you won't do really well unless you push yourself beyond ego death.

Got my second dose of Pfizer. I don't know if I'm coherent right now, but I have lots of studying to do.

[doctor shark]

In my case, it's an unspecific but large number of years since I would have graduated if my life had gone according to plan, which it hasn't.

Things going to plan, though, are often boring. And it's better in a way that you discover that things aren't meant for you earlier rather than far too late.

I remember that the "plan" I had around this time, when I finished up my Bachelor's degree 10 years ago: after I finished a year of teaching in France, start (and finish) my Ph.D.* in the U.S. and eventually go on to academic research, maybe in Europe but more likely still in North America. That plan had a major wrench thrown in it for about three reasons:

• I got to go to South Korea for a month in the first year of my Ph.D. That started a cascade of things that let to me applying for a grant to go to Luxembourg.
• I ended up getting the grant to move to Luxembourg, which then happened in October 2015.
• For a large number of personal reasons, I just didn't feel comfortable at Kent anymore. While I liked my coworkers and (mostly) liked the research I was doing, the funding situation was very shaky. I was also having issues with my boss, major family issues I didn't feel like I could talk about with people (my parents separated right before I got the Luxembourg grant), and a case of feeling a bit trapped. At the same time, I'm of the mind that, if I commit to something, I'm going to finish it, so getting the opportunity to finish my Ph.D. elsewhere was perfect.

*Typically, in scientific fields in the U.S., you enter the Ph.D. directly after the Bachelor's without a Master's degree. However, the standard length of a Ph.D. program in the U.S. is five years, with the first two years as a "Master's". That's the kind of Master's degree I ended up getting.

Memory is weird. I was thinking about something funny that happened this morning, and it felt like it happened last year... Except, well, it was 15 years ago.

Oh, about the same. It's a bit like "crap, has it really been that long ago?", though now for an increasing number of things. The older professors I work with, though, do get a kick out of my description that the last time I was in the Netherlands before moving here (not counting airport transit) was back when the Netherlands used the guilder.

More of the crazier things are getting the students to supervise and how young they are. I'm waiting for the first one to be born in the 2000's...

[Raphael]

Thank you for the perspective, doctor shark!




Now for something slightly different, on a lighter note: does anyone else know the feeling when you've been installing and configuring and fine-tuning stuff on your computer for a while, and then, you've installed and configured and fine-tuned everything you want to install or configure or fine-tune for now, and then, you don't know what to do with your spare time now that there's nothing to install or configure or fine-tune any more?

[Travis B.]

Now for something slightly different, on a lighter note: does anyone else know the feeling when you've been installing and configuring and fine-tuning stuff on your computer for a while, and then, you've installed and configured and fine-tuned everything you want to install or configure or fine-tune for now, and then, you don't know what to do with your spare time now that there's nothing to install or configure or fine-tune any more?

I am kind of like that with zeptoforth - oftentimes I have picked all the low-hanging fruit, and find myself wondering what to do next, since everything I can do is big and time-consuming, and I oftentimes do not want to devote the kind of time needed for such at the given moment in time.

[Ares Land]

Now for something slightly different, on a lighter note: does anyone else know the feeling when you've been installing and configuring and fine-tuning stuff on your computer for a while, and then, you've installed and configured and fine-tuned everything you want to install or configure or fine-tune for now, and then, you don't know what to do with your spare time now that there's nothing to install or configure or fine-tune any more?

Oh yes. I'm typing this on a perfectly good Linux system, but I've got my eyes on trying out SuSE now.

[Raholeun]

Coming back to this forum (the only medium remotely social I still cherish) after a long absence. A lot has happened in the past year or so. Landed my dream job, got a son, nearly died. Moreover, not worked on conlanging at all.

I hope to pick it up again, but Sataw feels like a language I need to re-learn from scratch. Its very daunting. Perhaps I should work on some prose on the Sataw folk, just to get 'the feeling' back. Perhaps I will just use this place to procrastinate every once in a while.