darkoshi

Sudden thought, based on a comment left on one of my dysthymia videos.

Does feeling a purpose in life make you feel a zest for living...
or does feeling a zest for living allow your mind to conjure up a "purpose"?

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/467670.html

Then there's the possibility that the people who made the music aren't horrible, but that they experienced horrible things themselves. The songs might even be about horrible things that they experienced, or which other people experienced.

I have one CD, Balkans without Borders, the profits of which were to benefit Doctors Without Borders. I've never been able to look at the CD cover without thinking about the Balkan wars and the atrocities that happened in those wars. Therefore I've never been able to enjoy the music on that CD much. Now that the songs are separate MP3 files mixed in with 4400 other songs from my collection, and where I might hear them play in shuffle mode without thinking about or realizing which CD it came from, I might be able to enjoy them.

I had another CD which I finally decided to get rid of. It had electronic music mixed with Jewish liturgical singing. But some of the songs also had voice overlays of people talking about the Holocaust. It's hard enough for me to hear traditional Jewish or Yiddish music (which I once enjoyed), without automatically thinking about the Holocaust. With that CD, there was no way I could enjoy the music.

When I was in high school, I sometimes listened to an Armenian radio show. I liked that music too. But they sometimes talked about the Armenian genocide, or maybe I read about that elsewhere, and later on it became hard for me to enjoy Armenian music, because it makes me think about genocide.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/463535.html

Reasons I post things online:

- to solicit answers/information on things I don't know
* to get answers

- to provide information to others
* to feel helpful & useful

- to entertain others
* to feel appreciated & useful

- to describe myself and/or my experiences
* to let similar people know that they are not alone & to thereby feel useful
* to get feedback from others; to feel less alone; to feel that others like me

- to express my emotions
* to understand them
* to remember them later
* writing about them helps the emotions to pass
(but why do I feel like posting those kinds of writings online?)
* to feel heard
(why do I want to feel heard? with emotional things, I often don't even want any feedback, so why?)
* to feel like I'm leaving a visible mark, no matter how small, on the world
(why do I want to leave a mark?)
* to transform emotional pain from something internal and transient into something external and permanent?
(buy why? what do I gain from it?)

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/460361.html

The Biggest Star Wars Plot Hole, Explained By Science

In regards to the dehumanization aspect of storm-trooper gear, I remember that when I first saw Star Wars as a child, it never occurred to me that storm-troopers were supposed to be humans in armor, even in spite of seeing Luke and Han putting on the gear. To me, stormtroopers were some kind of robot/monster. Even when I was introduced to the idea of there being real *people* inside those things, it did not compute... I could understand that to make the movies, there had to be people wearing costumes pretending to be stormtroopers, but I couldn't believe that in the actual story, they were supposed to be human, too. Even when I got a bit older, the subject was still murky for me, because I had heard that stormtroopers were clones, and it seemed that if clones were stormtroopers, they couldn't be regular people.

These are interesting articles linked from the one above, regarding human reluctance to kill:

Hope on the Battlefield

Hidden Wounds

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/437379.html

"The suffering itself is not so bad, it's the resentment against suffering that is the real pain." - Allen Ginsburg, from here

Strange.

I was reading an article on the benefits of nostalgia. Then I got to thinking that I remember feeling nostalgia when I was younger, in my teens or so. But I don't feel nostalgia anymore. I think it is part of my dysthymia. Most of my adult memories hold no joy for me. They are either emotionally neutral or emotionally negative, and hold no special meaning. That is probably because I've been depressed/dysthymic for most of my adult life.

In regards to my pre-adulthood memories, the ones some of which I think I used to feel nostalgic about.... it is difficult for me to remember what memories I used to feel nostalgic about. I can't think of any particularly happy memories, off the top of my head. I have to sit and think for a long time... most of the details that I recall are negative aspects of things. The experiences that used to seem meaningful and special now seem desolate and lonely and meaningless.

So anyway, I remembered a pleasant experience (sitting in a theater watching/listening to the opening music of Return of the Jedi for the first time, getting goosebumps...) so I focused on that memory. It doesn't make me feel good anymore; it feels neutral; Star Wars holds no special meaning for me anymore. I feel a slight yearning to recapture the magic of that moment. Then a Vangelis song (Chariots of Fire) that I had recorded on an audiotape back around that time started playing in my mind... It was an emotionally laden song, but good emotions - hopeful and majestic. But upon hearing a bit of it in my mind, I burst out crying, for no conscious reason. I don't know why it made me cry. Maybe feeling a glimmer of remembrance of a time when I didn't feel like I do now, makes me incredibly sad that I no longer feel that way.

I don't feel nostalgia. Even when I remember something good, it makes me sad.

Well, I found a work-around. When I connect the camera to the computer and download the files using a USB cable, then the files' last-modified dates are changed to the current date. (That did not happen when doing the same thing on an XP machine.) But if I take the memory card out of the camera, and use the laptop's memory card reader slot to transfer the files, then the files' last-modified dates aren't changed.

I checked the Canon website to see if maybe I needed an updated driver for the camera, but the website says that XP, Vista, and Vista 64 don't require a driver (Win7 wasn't even listed).

.

I shouldn't dwell on this issue anymore. I have a solution, or rather work-around, so I shall just use the memory card reader slot from now on.

Now, I may make brownies.

Or edit some photos.

Or search for a new color to put in my hair.

Or take Zorro for a walk in the rain.

Or search for a different shower fixture.

Ok now, do something and don't just think about doing them.

I've been noticing that complex instructions are putting me off more than they used to. If I'm trying to figure out how to do something, and if the instructions mention more than a few steps, each of which mentions other things which I don't understand and would have to read/learn more to make sense of, I start feeling a sense of dread*, and that it's not worth all the trouble to study so much just to figure out how to do what should be a simple thing. I get annoyed, thinking that surely there's an easier explanation; or a simpler way of getting the result I want; why can't they explain that, or why isn't it just intuitive to begin with?

It's as if I'm turning into one of those people who isn't willing to just RTFM. It always somewhat annoyed me when Forestfen would ask me how to use her new digital camera or digital navigator or what-have-you, when she had an instruction manual which she hadn't even bothered to take the time to read. But now it seems that I'm starting to become like her in that regard.

The dread seems to be related to a fear that even if I do read all the complex instructions, I still won't understand... a fear of not being smart enough to easily learn whatever it is that needs to be learned, as well as a laziness of not wanting to have to expend much mental effort. I don't remember feeling this way when I was younger; I had more confidence that I could understand anything, no matter how complex, as long as it was explained logically.

Online Cambridge Face Memory Test

I got 89% correct (64 out of 72), and it says the average is 80%. That surprises me. I still think I'm rather below average at recognizing people, though; maybe it is due to something other than facial detection skills. Obviously, real life isn't like a test where there are only 6 faces to remember. And remembering faces for a few minutes is different than remembering them over days, weeks, and years. And remembering names to go along with the faces is a whole 'nother issue. Part of my problem is probably that I don't feel comfortable staring at people (it doesn't seem polite or normal, even though I guess normal people do it more than me), so I don't get a good visualization of what someone looks like until I've interacted with them lots of times. That's why it helps me to try to pick out distinguishing features when I meet someone, and write them down as notes.

Famous Faces Test
I got 85% right on this one (23 out of 27 I was familiar with), and 85% is the average. I even remembered a lot of the names, maybe 3/4 of them.

From Colorado Springs' The Gazette,
Casualties of War
part 1, The hell of war comes home
part 2, Warning signs

Very long articles. Interesting, and saddening. I shouldn't have read them.

I did a search in Aetna's DocFind tool again, this time searching by distance from zip-code, and I found 3 psychiatrists, all at the same address. That's better than before (when I got *no* results), but it still is hard to believe that there would only be 3 psychiatrists in my urban area covered by Aetna. So I emailed Aetna about it.

I was thinking about meditation today. Maybe meditation feels good to people who are not depressed, but doesn't feel good to people are depressed or dysthymic. Maybe the default brain state for mentally healthy people when they let go of all thoughts, is a good feeling. But for people like me, the default brain state is neither good nor bad. It's just empty. So letting go of all thoughts just results in me feeling nothing. It can be relaxing, but it doesn't make me feel good.

Then again, there are many webpages that say meditation can be good against depression. Maybe if I envisioned feeling good while meditating, it would work better. Maybe it's just pessimism which makes it seem like a non-productive activity.

.

Who's my god?
Am I special enough for a god?
Everyone has potential.
What does a god get out of those who belong to it?
Pieces to play in a game?
What game is this?
What is fun about *this* game?
What is fun about *that* game, for that matter?

Gods are created
in order to have something to believe in.
There isn't anything I feel drawn to believing in anymore.
What was different, before?
What was it about light-sabers and Darth Vader?
What was it about ESP and magic?
What was different?
I was younger, less jaded, less experienced.
Is that all it was?

tickety tock
tickety tock
the mouse ran up the clock

I really don't deal so well with change, it seems. I used to think of myself as a rather creative and artistic person. But considering how rarely I change my computer's desktop background, or my website layout, or the look of my LJ page, one might conclude I'm not.

When first setting something up, I like to tinker around a lot and try out all the options. But once I find the options I like best, I tend to stick with them. I don't feel much need to waste time changing things again, just for the sake of change.

When I switched over to the S2 styles, instead of opting for a totally new look for my LJ, I tried to find one which was similar to my previous style, and then I customized the colors to be similar to how they were before. But I was bothered by the Tags section being shown at the top of the entries, which I was not used to.

So then I tried some different styles which had the Tags at the bottom of the entries.... but I still tried customizing those styles to make them look in all other respects like my previous style... and this did not work out. So I switched back to the first style I had selected, because it looks better to me. It's nice and centered, and has nice colorful borders, and has the dates in a nice format.

I've always centered my journal entries, ever since I've started doing online journal entries, way back in... 1998?. It looks good to me that way. Other ways look nice too, but they just don't seem *right* for my own journal. Why am that way? Why am I not able to choose a completely different look, and feel good about it?

I am that way in regards to other things too. Not all the time, but often. When I shop for a replacement for something that has broken, I think of all the good features that the broken item had, and try to find a new item with those same features. If I don't find an item with the same features, I feel disgruntled, even though the available items may have other additional good features.

I am picky about things.

I buy certain brands of tissues, toilet paper, and paper towels, because of the higher content of post-consumer recycled fibers in them.

I buy the unscented type of fabric detergent... Actually, I've only ever bought one of these, last year, but the bottle still isn't used up. Yet now I'm of the mindset, that I prefer unscented fabric detergents. (even though some of the scents which are advertised sound nice... I wonder if they are really nice, or if they'd make me sneeze?)

Most cold syrups contain artificial sweeteners. I don't buy those, because I feel that artificial sweeteners are unhealthy. Many non-prescription tablet-form drugs have lactose in them - I don't buy those because I am vegan. Most soft-gel types of drugs contain gelatin - I don't buy those because I am vegetarian. So it takes me a long time, when buying drugs, just to find the ones which are acceptable for me.

Pain relievers... I shy away from any except Tylenol / acetaminophen. I'm not sure why, exactly, except that I've only ever used acetaminophen, and I'm not sure whether the others are more unhealthy, or if they might affect me in a negative way. Logically, I should just try the others out and see how they work, but... I shy away from it.

Actually... when they first came out with other types of pain relievers, the first ones I remember were marketed as being good against PMS symptoms (including bloating) as well as menstrual pain. I never had problems with bloating, so I had no reason to try those brands. Also, the PMS-association was a negative one for me - I did not like having a period, and did not like being a woman, and therefore I did not want to take the medicines specifically made for women and periods (even though the only thing I used pain relievers for, was against menstrual pains back then.)

Food - I'm vegan, so that makes me pretty much picky about everything I eat. I also prefer organically-grown foods. I also prefer things with natural flavors and colors, instead of artificial.

Tick-tocking clocks. They drive my crazy! I used to have one in my room when I was a kid, and it didn't bother me then, but nowadays I can't stand them.

When it comes down to it, I'm pretty picky about everything that comes into my life. If there's going to be something which is going to take up space in my house, and which I'm going to utilize, I want to make sure that it is exactly the kind of thing that I want.

It sure does make it hard for other people to get me things, though.

.

When Qiao took me, FF, Bro, and Pard out to eat last week, I realized that I'm not the only picky one in my family.

FF does not like MSG - it makes her feel pressure in the sides of her head. Bro does not like MSG either - he talks about how unhealthy it is. He talks about how unhealthy a whole lot of things are. MSG however, does not bother me. It's a natural substance which has been used as a food additive for a long time, right? So, it doesn't bother me. I accept that some people like FF are sensitive to it, but I don't seem to be.

FF reacts badly to sucralose - it gives her headaches. I stay away from sucralose because it is one of those artificial sweeteners, and I think they are unhealthy.

Bro and Pard both felt that the water served by the restaurant (as well as the water at FF's house) tasted unpleasantly of chlorine, even though it tasted fine to me. I suppose I must be used to it. In Germany, they clean the water with ozone instead of chlorine, from what they said.

Sometimes when something does not make sense, I ponder it for a while, and then, not coming to a solution, I stop thinking about it and eventually forget about it. I wonder how often this happens.

Yesterday Q forwarded me an email, actually a joke written as if it were a real story, about an atheist. It was not a funny joke, and was basically implying that atheists are fools. I pondered for a while, as to why he would send me that email. He knows I am agnostic. Or at least, I was pretty sure he did... doesn't he know that agnostics aren't that different from atheists? Or did it really not occur to him that the email could seem offensive to a non-Christian? Anyway, after thinking about it for a few moments, I closed the email and, not having come to an explanation, stopped thinking about it.

Today though, after seeing it still in my inbox, I decided to reply to it, and so I did. I guess part of it, is that today I have time to do so, and yesterday, I did not. But it might also be related to hormones making me feel more argumentative, as it is pre-blood week.

Yesterday and today, I've also noticed myself being annoyingly indecisive. This seems related to hormones too. I can't say how long I spent in the pharmacy store yesterday, first browsing for an acceptable pseudo-ephedrine-containing decongestant, then browsing the cards, and then trying to decide which 2-for-$10 sweat-shirts I wanted to get for myself (which colors, which size, which style). I felt embarrassed at the thought of anyone watching me take so long to decide which things to get.

Today, it took me a long time to decide whether or not to wash the bed-sheets.

It seems odd how hormones could make me indecisive.... or is it not the indecision which is unusual, but my annoyance at the indecision? Perhaps I am always this slow, but it does not normally bother me?

.

While I had that cold, I determined that phenylephrine did not seem to clear up my congestion at all. That's why I was shopping for pseudo-ephedrine, so that I'll have it on hand next time. They no longer have the pseudo-ephedrine products out on the regular shelves, so I was browsing the little cards they have on the shelves instead. The cards show the same info as the actual product labels.

When I got to the check-out, I handed the cashier the 2 cards I had selected. It turns out one of them was out of stock. The other one, a children's cold syrup (I prefer sugar syrups to the artificial sweeteners which are in the adult syrups), was available, and the cashier held the bottle in his hands for several moments, turning it and seeming to study the label. That struck me as odd. I was embarrassed at how long it took me to choose my items, and then I felt uncomfortable too at the checkout, wondering if the cashier suspected me of buying the pseudo-ephedrine in order to make illegal drugs.

I was walking along, lost in thought. And I realized that I wasn't paying any attention to the world around me. And I thought, squirrels don't do that, scampering around lost in their thoughts, do they? My thoughts are in words - I hear words in my head. What would it be like, if I had never learned a language - if I had never heard any words? Would I still be able to think? What kinds of thoughts would I have? What would word-less thoughts be like? Is that how it is like, to be a squirrel?

I can stop thinking words for a while, while walking, and still *know* where I'm walking towards... a part of my brain is still directing me in which direction to walk, even if I don't consciously think words while doing it. When I drive home, I don't consciously think of which streets to turn on... it is automatic, while my mind thinks other thoughts. Whereas if I'm driving somewhere unfamiliar, then I do think words, like "I need to turn right on so-and-so street".

But what would it be like, to not have words in one's brain? What is it like for deaf people, who speak via sign-language, and who have never heard words? Do they think in sign? Do they see hands moving in their mind? Is their thought image-based as opposed to sound-based?

If my thoughts are sound-based, why is it easier for me to understand things when I read them, than when I hear them? And yet, when I read them, I hear the words in my head.

What is it like to be a squirrel, to not have words which let you plan for the future and think other abstract, distant thoughts? What is it like, to live in the present, all the time, only reacting to the things you see, hear, smell, feel?

My memories are not word-based, for the most part. I remember images, emotions, smells, not words.

Do squirrels sometimes sit around lost in thought... remembering experiences they have had? Day-dreaming about the perfect acorn?

It is interesting how one of my online groups handles discussions that generate lots of posts, especially discussions that involve some kind of controversy or difference in opinion. After a while, some people always start expressing sentiments such as "when will this thread die?", "beating a dead horse", "enough already", "can we move on to a different topic?". This happens even if there isn't flaming going on, and even if the posts continue to be intelligent and thought-worthy. It's like there's a limit to how much input people can take on a certain subject, without losing interest and becoming irritable by repeated exposure to it.

I notice this tendency with myself too, at work. When emails on a particular topic keep going back and forth, even though progress is being made with what is being discussed, after a certain point, I almost cringe whenever another email in the thread arrives in my inbox. By the time we've decided exactly how the thing we are discussing should be implemented or handled, I don't care enough anymore to follow up and make sure that it actually gets implemented like we decided on (unless I'm assigned to work on it).

I turned the wrong burner on, and ended up blistering the handle on one of my new pots :(
I feel a bit dyslexic when it comes to the stove controls in this house... every once in a while I turn the wrong one on. The layout/design of the knobs is not intuitive and I have to peer at them each time to determine which is the right one to use. And yet still get it wrong sometimes.

Oh please please, let me never start a fire.

Current Mood: scared

Weeping is an anomaly.
If I am weeping, that means that everything I am thinking about while weeping is likewise suspect.

Even though it seems that the complexity of curtains and the difficulty of mis-sized quilts shouldn't be enough to make me weep. It's hard to sew when my eyes keep tearing up. I've got to get this *** thing sewn so I can make the bed so I can go back to figuring out the *** curtains.

It's suspect. Yet it's all true, in its own way.

I responded to a thread on masochism in one of my groups, and about whether one can really experience pleasure and suffering at the same time, by citing some examples of where one can feel conflicting things at the same time. Such as....

One's head may be burning with a fever, yet one can feel chilled
at the same time. Or one can eat hot chili, and wince from
the spiciness, yet enjoy the flavor and/or the knowledge
that one is "tough" enough to handle the heat. Or one can be
outside in the winter, and shivering from extreme cold,
while enjoying the scenery.

Sometimes, whether one interprets something as mainly pleasurable or a form of suffering may depend on what one's mind is more focused on. Or on which stimuli seems more prominent.

So maybe that's all there is to it. That to me, the unpleasantness of overt D/s has outweighed the pleasantness of it, at least with the people I've interacted with so far. And in one case, the unpleasantness of a different aspect of the relationship outweighed the pleasantness of the D/s aspect.

Why does it bother me so much when someone whom I have an otherwise favorable opinion of, expresses something which gives me a clue as to their being a conservative/Republican/having different opinions and beliefs than mine? They've lived their life, and I've lived mine, and for whatever reasons, they've ended up with a different outlook and/or set of beliefs than me. Surely they're not a horrible person just because of that. So why does it make me cringe so much inside, and make me feel like there's a divide between us... they've revealed themself as a stranger to me... and that I could never really be comfortable with them?

Does it make me realize how insubstantial my own world-view is, that someone else, a seemingly reasonable person, can have a different world-view... is my sense of reality threatened? Does my mind fight against that threat?

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Darkoshi

Darkoshi's Enchantment

May 2025

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Page generated Monday, June 9th, 2025 05:55 am

Entries tagged with psychology

glistening purple porpoises

music and mental associations

reasons

war and being able to kill

something for me to think about

lack of nostalgia

more on the file last-modified problem

RTFM

face memory test

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aversion to change

pickyness

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thinking without words

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politics

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May 2025

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