The Psychology Thread, I Guess...

[sisforawesome]

had a dream the other day. it was narrative driven and i want to remember so i'll leave it here

 

 

first thing i remember was driving through a vast exaggeratedly hilly landscape. each hill was topped with some kind of biological/mechanical device for the extraction of oil or some other resource. pumpjacks, smokestacks, endless configurations of self-contained & intricately woven steel tubes working harmoniously with clockwork gears, gnarled tree branches, vividly colored megaflora, etc.. each one was slowly 'breathing', expanding, and contorting itself slowly in a very organic and natural fashion, like watching a time lapse of the growth of some kind of biomechatronic organism.

 

eventually (we?) get to a steep winding road full of hairpin turns leading up to a research facility. we were going to investigate a rare & precious resource that was being manufactured and stored there. we get to this ancient looking cement bunker on top of the mountain, and everything is covered/shrouded in leaves. they're growing all over the walls, the ceiling, and the ground is covered in the fallen ones. as we approach the entrance there's a stone altar with a vial of mercurial/ferrofluid-esque liquid suspended in an impenetrable translucent box. there are tons of glowing glyphs all over the altar that appear to be some sort of puzzle / locking mechanism. we decide this is what we're looking for, and start trying to figure out how to open the box to get to the vial and at some point during this process there's a realization that what's in the vial is actually being extracted and harvested from the leaves that are growing all over this place.

 

as soon as we realize this two g-men looking dudes come bursting out of the main entrance and start chasing us. we run back to the vehicle and, without anytime to turn around, start driving back down the mountain in reverse. they start chasing us down the mountain in an 18 wheeler with one of those massive cylindrical tanks for transporting chemicals. somehow we're able to perfectly navigate the impossible hairpin turns in reverse at completely unreasonable speeds. the 18 wheeler, on the other hand, is far too cumbersome and is unable to keep up. it jackknives and comes crashing down the mountain getting totally consumed in an explosion of its own hellfire literally inches away from our vehicle. we narrowly escape with a handful of leaves.

 

 

not really sure what it means but it was definitely one of the more fun / memorable ones

[LimpyLoo]

 

 

why do you format your posts that way?

So they're easier to read because personally I don't enjoy straining my eyes left to right and reading undifferentiated strings of dependent clauses and I think form should serve function and not vice versa also I'm just an all-around annoying person

 

But I like how you ignored the actual meaning of my post and focused/commented solely on what you disliked about it: the presentation

 

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

it isn't easier to read. also i didn't read your previous post, because it wasn't easy to read. also i tend to dismiss things that aren't presented clearly, because communication depends on not obfuscating what you're trying to say behind a wall of bullshit. btw your whole condescending enlightened guru italicize random words tone in every post you make is the main reason myself and many others think of you as a kind of cancer on this board. there's always at least one though, always has been.

Well judging by your post history*, you seem to like to dismiss a lot of things...in fact, that almost seems to be your default mode,

 

But look, I'm sure my posts warrant dismissal (like most everything else you talk about)

 

 

*and by 'post history' I mean when you go to a member's profile, and go to 'posts', then 'replies', and see their post history laid out plainly, and you can asses the ratio of dismissal/approval laid out on a single page...but again, that's a good way to orient yourself, so you're probably right and I'm probably wrong

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

[LimpyLoo]

so what about the doll, the breakfast apotheosis and the speech?

:)

Oh sorry g/f ordered pizza takeout and I got distracted by that

 

So yeah...

 

The Doll

 

The doll is a microcosm/embodiment of his selfishness

Instead of buying a cool toy his son might like

He buys a (used?) sex doll he personally wants to fuck*

It's literally filled with semen, which seeps out when the son goes to play with it

(Whether it's 'pre-owned' semen or Michael fucked the thing offscreen, either way the results are the same)

 

 

*keeping in mind the doll has a facial scar in the same place that Lisa does

I've heard people suggest this means the whole Lisa encounter was just a fantasy he had while fucking the doll

And I think that's an interesting reading

But if that's literally true within the reality of the film, it doesn't leave much elbow-room for (what I think are) the more interesting things Charlie Kaufman tends to do

 

The Breakfast Scene

 

So in comparative mythology

(And mostly in Greek and Roman myths, though it pops up elsewhere because it's not at all an arbitrary concept)

Dawn/morning is when all is revealed

(Sometimes to the protagonist, though sometimes only to the audience)

Why?

Because morning is when light is poured over everything

Making visible the things that were hidden at night

(And since abstract concepts grow out of concrete situations)

 

Charlie Kaufman knows this

His work is riddled with references to Greek drama

And he knows it way-the-fuck better than I do

So if I noticed it after a handful of watches, he certainly knows it...

 

a) So first let's look at the blinding light shining through the window

(Keeping in mind this is meticulous stop-motion animation, not a live-action film where you can't necessarily control these things, so blinding light only shines through tiny plastic puppet windows if you spend like 3 weeks meticulously putting it there):

 

So I watched the 4 scenes in question again a couple hours ago

And I noticed this: there are multiple perspective shifts throughout the scene, and (as with everything else in the film) I don't at all think they are arbitrary choices made to prevent perspective fatigue

 

So, when the blinding light is pouring in, it is coming from Michael's perspective

[Now, as a sidenote: when I was watching this scene, me and g/f had a disagreement about who the light/revelation/apotheosis was for: Michael, or the person watching the film...she thought Michael gains zero self-insight in the scene--and she partially convinced me--but as I said about Greenberg, I think genius writers do subtle things like give characters only-partial revelations/self-insights like "I hurt people...hurt people" (the implication of course being that Greenberg doesn't yet understand that the reason he *does* hurt people is because he *is* hurt people)]

 

Edit: one of the blinding light perspectives is from over Michael's shoulder

Which--were this some live-action verite thing (e.g. an early Harmony Korine flick)--might mean nothing,nand just be the whim of whoever is holding the camera while they point it at the action

But for *my* money, canonically this over-the-shoulder perspective means roughly:

You should consider yourself the protagonist for a moment and assume this shit is relevant to your situation

 

So blinding-light revelation-sauce is poured over everything

What kinda revelation-sauce we talkin' here?

 

b) Well, like Baumbach, Kaufman loves psychoanalytic shit

(They both drop psych references like they get paid whenever they make a psych reference)

And so, like Baumbach, his films seem to be healing tools to un-hurt hurt people (hurt people = neurotic people = me, you, and nearly everyone you've ever met or will ever meet)

 

Why is a Michael a neurotic person who doesn't enjoy anything

Because everything he encounters in a (perceived) obstacle

And (perceived) obstacles come from poorly-tuned goals/motivations/expectancy models/orientations-to-the-world

You know the actor cliche: "what's my motivation?"

Characters are motivations being played out in situations, across time

They are good-or-bad strategies for this whole 'being-in-the-world' situation that we're all blessed-with/stuck-in (depending on one's strategy, of course)

 

And the reason characters change/grow is because they gain a crucial self-insight that helps them re-tune their goal/motivation/strategy/etc

(Or they change for the worse if they are wounded in a way they don't understand, and thus can't repair them-self, e.g. the whole fishing part of the 'wounded fisher king' myth)

 

So when does the blinding light shine forth?

Well it happens when Michael and Lisa are planning their great escape from the hum-drum monotone obstacle world, and Lisa starts discussing the required concrete logistical details of the escape, and Michael fucking hates that shit, because it sounds so hum-drum

 

Now, I actually think what Michael is learning as Lisa's voice is morphing into the monotonous hum-drum voice of everyone else in the world...is not what we should be learning (and I tend to assume Charlie Kaufman is infinitely smarter than I am, and so I can't imagine this wasn't the intention

 

Either way: here is the Big Clue about how to re-tune yourself:

Maybe whatever motivation/expectancy model is causing nearly everything to look like an obstacle (are you reading this, Keanu?) to be dismissed (including 'Lawrence Gill', the Ultimate Strategy that literally fucking runs the "hotel", whom Michael arrogantly dismisses because he looks like some hum-drum regular asshole from Michael's perspective)...

 

...is a *maladaptive* motivation/expectancy model, and should be carefully re-tuned using information from ourselves and our respective environment(s).

 

 

(I'm happy to expand on that as much as needed

But I'll break there and go have a smoke and be back in a sec)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

[LimpyLoo]

 

 

why do you format your posts that way?

So they're easier to read because personally I don't enjoy straining my eyes left to right and reading undifferentiated strings of dependent clauses and I think form should serve function and not vice versa also I'm just an all-around annoying person

 

But I like how you ignored the actual meaning of my post and focused/commented solely on what you disliked about it: the presentation

 

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

it isn't easier to read. also i didn't read your previous post, because it wasn't easy to read. also i tend to dismiss things that aren't presented clearly, because communication depends on not obfuscating what you're trying to say behind a wall of bullshit. btw your whole condescending enlightened guru italicize random words tone in every post you make is the main reason myself and many others think of you as a kind of cancer on this board. there's always at least one though, always has been.

1) If you don't read *my* posts, then why should I read *your* posts and listen to what *you* say?

 

2) last I checked:

LimpyLoo is allowed to "limpyloo" the LimpyLoo Thread

 

3) you are the most negative/dismissive person on this entire forum

(i.e. you are the anti-A/D, the anti-ZoeB, you are the anti-Buddha, your way is the anti-Wu Wei; you are basically everything I don't want to become)

So forgive me if I don't take your criticisms to heart and change myself to accommodate them

 

 

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

[LimpyLoo]

The Speech

 

I'm an annoying asshole, so I constantly and arbitrarily like to say annoying-asshole words like 'Gnosticism'

The Gnostics were a secular naturalist sect who interpreted ancient religious texts as abstract situations that admit of abstract strategies for alleviating suffering in oneself and others

So when I talk about the Tower of Babel text

it's because

I'm trying

to annoy

Usagi

and

Keanu,

But also, it's because I like Chaos Theory and Alchemy and I think every possible situation offers (hidden) solutions for every other possible situation

 

Why don't we always understand each other?

Why do we get frustrated when talking to each other?

Why do we get frustrated by not being understood and start yelling at the person we're talking to (e.g. "the president is a war criminal! the world is falling apart!")

 

Well, maybe the Tower bridging between Here and Understanding crumbles down

And maybe it crumbles down because the two parties involved (e.g. Michael, audience) can't see through their respective hubris to understand each other's inner lives

 

 

So tell me if this scenario sounds familiar:

Person A angrily yells "The world is falling apart!"

Person B yells "Boo"

(/that particular dialog i guess lol)

 

 

 

But...on the whole, I think the speech indicates some rather important (if only partial) self-insight

I think by the end of the film, Michael half-understands what the/his actual flaw is

But he doesn't have quite enough information to piece together and implement a solution

What information is Michael still blind to?

 

 

Well, I also like to say the words 'Jung' and 'Jungian'

And Carl Jung liked to say the words 'persona', 'true self', and 'shadow'

And he thought that, to the exact degree that your 'persona' runs contrary to your 'true self', your 'shadow' will pull you down into:

-Suffering

-the Underworld

-Full Metal Jacket's 'world of shit''Hell'

-the place where Pinhead punishes you for employing a bad aboveworld-strateg

-the pond where the Fisher King fishes in quiet desperation

-wherever "Michael/Caden/Adapation protagonist/Being John Cusack at the end, stuck in a place where he (a puppeteer) has zero control over anything as the result of bad strategy" also happens to be

-take your pick because it's all the same fucking place, because archetypes and myths aren't arbitrary, because different strategies yield different outcomes and there's no getting around that (at least for now)

 

So if you mindlessly employ a 'persona' that doesn't resemble your inner life

It will twist you inside

If you are write books and offer lectures on Customer Support, and you tell other people things you don't actually deep-down believe

even if you offer good advice ('thing X is important' and it *is* actually important)

Well why are you offering advice you don't take yourself?

If I hear you suggest 'zig', but you yourself 'zag', then not only is your advice not grounded in Understanding, but you are a jerk for giving me advice you don't actually think is important

You are a cynical asshole selling books and appearances

 

 

 

But it's promising that Michael strays from his script/false persona at all

He may not know how best to represent his true self, but I guess I will pull a Charlie Kaufman and refer back to my opening Tower of Babel rant

(The snake-eating-its-own-tail, as referenced in Adaptation, is a comparative mythology/Jungian concept btw)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

[LimpyLoo]

P.S.

 

Persona = what you say and do

True Self = (roughly) what sort of world you *actually* wanna create/live-in

Shadow = resentment, anger, frustration, anxiety, sorrow, physical pain (yes, your amygdala modulates your perception of pain), etc etc etc

 

Shadow = difference between Persona and True Self

 

(Any of you formal math/logic folks know the Propositional Logic symbols for 'difference between A and B'?...because 'absolute value' of [A - B] is as close as I can think right now)

 

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

[KovalainenFanBoy]

[LimpyLoo]

1) Get off my case, Span

 

(Step one: get outta my personal space

Step two...)

 

2) Originally my sig said:

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

Also: (genuinely) tryna make a change

 

But I thought folks would get on my case for having too long a sig

 

 

 

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

[Real Human Bean]

"If you're not interested in LimpyLoo's meanderings on psychology then LimpyLoo's Psychology thread probably isn't for you.
Please find another topic on this forum which is more aligned with your interests."
-Jules Cotard, 1996

[LimpyLoo]

Tower of Babel, Wittgenstein, How to Fix the World (perhaps)

 

I've been stumbling to translate the metaphor of Babel

[because I think language is actually messy and difficult, but also because I'm personally still trying to learn these stories in 'multiple languages' (so to speak) to effortlessly translate between the two; also I haven't begun to read the individual gnostic commentaries on individual stories...basically I'm finite and flawed but I'm working towards 'anamnesis' (I *think* that's the gnostic word for perfect knowledge, which basically means 'un-amnesia')

 

So here's where I stumble with the metaphors:

-There's the city itself,

-There's the tower the people decide to build 'upward' (and whatever 'bricks'*** it's made of)

-There's whatever is 'upward'

[take your pick; but my thoughts are that gravity-defying metaphors are not-even-slightly arbitrary; we aspire (even in our dreams) to defy gravity like a bird, and we run from things that 'pull us down', e.g. 6-feet down, the monster under your bed that you fear when you're a kid that grabs your feet and pulls you down into the Underworld and fuck you Howie Mandel you fucking weirdo for fucking with Fred Savage like that]

 

-There's the 'one language' everyone speaks at the beginning

-There's whatever topples the tower and causes everyone to 'scatter' and thus not understand each other anymore

[take your pick; but it looks to me like the natural laws of the Universe punish/reward some human attitudes/strategies more than others, so if you *also* think that's true and you wanna name that phenomenon, do it up...

BUT be forewarned: whatever name you give that phenomenon will gather cultural-stigma over time and eventually many people will assume it's a meaningless word]

 

-and there's whatever strategy would re-unite 'the city' again so that everyone understands each other

 

 

 

Again. I constantly fail with the 1:1 metaphor/translation

So here I am trying to sort it out

(aka 'solve et caugula', i.e. take it apart, see how it works, put it back together)

 

 

***if it's worth anything, the word-game example Wittgenstein uses most often in Philosophical Investigations involves one builder saying 'brick!' and another builder instantly knowing that he means '(pass me another) brick!', even though there's no indication of that in the word 'brick' itself

And so a third-party passerby might not necessarily be able to 'connect the dots' that merely from seeing one builder say 'brick!' and the other pass him a brick

 

And I think the implications of that are...well, fucking massive and slightly horrifying

And very Tower of Babel-y

Because if the passerby has never seen a brick or a builder before (maybe he's from a culture where buildings aren't made of bricks, and they're not made by that particular *sort* of two-person builder-game), then he won't necessarily

 

So *anytime* we hear anyone say anything:

if we instantly assume we know more about what the person is saying than the person saying, then we will probably fail to see the hidden '(pass me the)' part of '(pass me the) brick.....so to speak.

We will probably never understand they might have something meaningful to say, because hey I know what 'brick' means so this person is clearly delusional because that's not what *they* mean!

 

The solution?

I think we should always assume the person talking knows more than we do

(i.e. humility, not hubris)

At least until we actually *assess* the information they're offering and figure that out

 

(Not to be autistically obvious, but clearly a lot of huge civilization-level decisions fall apart because of across-the-isle scattering/misunderstanding/hubris...and perhaps *that's* why we have President Tony Clifton)

 

Maybe that's how to re-unite the "city of Babel (where everyone understands each other [because they haven't yet become hubristic])"****

 

****the recursive hidden meaning of language goes on forever, I think, or at least until it refers to something innate within us that everyone shares...maybe *that innate thing we all share* is "the city of Babel"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

[KovalainenFanBoy]

It's supposed to be a Radiohead reference right? For some reason it reminds me of Byrne going "I'm a government man"

[LimpyLoo]

Yeah, first jam on Amnesiac I think

I'll probably remove it tonight or tomorrow

I just wanted to put it into people's brains so maybe we could all readjust our approaches with each other

(both great choons btw)

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

[LimpyLoo]

Coda, Language as Biological Theme and Variation, Boards of Canada

 

I'm beginning to suspect that there are only a small handful of meanings

(And perhaps ONLY ONE underlying meaning)

And they all point to our simple biological safety

or as Neil Stephenson thought in Snow Crash: our brain stem

(but that's kinda gross lol)

 

So For instance I think:

"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case"

"Step one: keep out of my personal space, step two..."

"Leave me where I am, I'm only sleeping"

"Kid For Today"

Etc etc etc

 

 

All mean the exact-same underlying biological thing to the people saying them

But we are not naturally tuned to see that, and so "Babel scatters" and civilization plunges in and out of darkness throughout history (as per Hegel)

And who the fuck knows what will come of *our* civilization

But our inability to understand each other might pull us all off a fucking cliff

Why do we not understand each other?

(i.e, Why is civilization flirting with the apocalypse?)

Because:

 

a) Person A says (e.g.) 'brick!' but implicitly means '(pass me that) brick!"

b) Person B hears 'brick!' and understands 'brick!' but not '(pass me that) brick!'

c) Person A assumes Person B must be an idiot because (allegedly) they both "speak the same language" ('English'...but again, does it look like all English-speakers 'speak the same language'? Or does it look more like we only *think* we do?)

d) Person A gets frustrated/angry and yells (e.g.) "The president is a war criminal! The world is falling apart!"

e) Person B (e.g.) literally *boos*

 

/scene

/civilization

/life on Earth? (Tomorrow's Harvest, anyone?)

 

 

 

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

[LimpyLoo]

and for whatever it's worth:

I am genuinely trying to offer this community (what I think is) the most important information civilization/culture has yet generated

(Not to mention I spend many many many hours putting my mind to these matters and sharing my original thoughts here and *only* here...save for a maybe-once-a-month submission to a specialized-discipline community like LessWrong or email some accredited-smarty-pants like a lunatic stalker lol...but mostly I 'think aloud' and transcribe it here and only here)

If anyone wants to look for excuses to prod/punish me for that, then I think the burden-of-proof is on you as to why I deserve mockery for (e.g.) formatting choices or decorum violations

I *do* however listen to 'reasonable' and sincere 'cases' about decorum and formatting

(and sincerity is in short supply in this world, so you better believe I take it seriously)

 

 

I'm an unreasonable man, get on my case

[LimpyLoo]

re: Pull Us All Off a Cliff

 

The Existential Humanists/Phenomenologists had a fucking awesome way to think about the World and how to act in it:

-If the World dies, You die***

-Therefor, the World is an extension of You (and/or vice versa)

-Therefor, You should think/act like the World is a precious organ/limb that You don't want to wither and die (because if It dies, You die)

 

And so to the extent that we DON'T already act like the World is a precious organ/limb/brain-module, we should FIX ourselves and our strategies such that we DO

 

***if you're looking for justifications for compassion/empathy with your fellow man, consider that this applies to every matter-based creature who has ever lived or will ever live (depending of course on how you define 'The World')

[dingformung]

I wonder why intellectual (or - depending on perception - pseudo-intellectual) comments are so much hated while simple bragging or cynic arrogance seems to be okay to the same people. I might be perceived as dumb and naive because I can't see though all the evil pretentious self-aggrandizement and narcissistic demeanour of LimpyLoo's and fall for his egocentric posts that only aim to make him seem smart and other people seem less smart - but I actually find his posts interesting and intelligent sometimes.

So I like the fact that you go on with your thread without being put off.

[chenGOD]

I am genuinely trying to offer this community (what I think is) the most important information civilization/culture has yet generated

 

If anyone wants to look for excuses to prod/punish me for that, then I think the burden-of-proof is on you as to why I deserve mockery for (e.g.) formatting choices

Can you honestly not see the gap here?

[LimpyLoo]

 

I am genuinely trying to offer this community (what I think is) the most important information civilization/culture has yet generated

 

If anyone wants to look for excuses to prod/punish me for that, then I think the burden-of-proof is on you as to why I deserve mockery for (e.g.) formatting choices

Can you honestly not see the gap here?

I talked almost exclusively about sarcasm/condescension tit-for-tat on pp 11-13 of this thread

(In fact, if you wanna read all the way through, you can watch in real time as I fumble through different approaches to the stream of criticisms I received...I actually learned quite a lot about what approaches fail and why)

 

 

 

But TL;DR = I've decided nuclear sarcasm is poison, it's never a good counter-move ever ever ever, it just creates infinite 'defect/defect', and the solution is always sincerity jujitsu, and so that's where I'm at now

 

I am sorry/embarassed I was so sarcastic in our last exchange, I'm primed for paranoid false positives so you probably weren't being sarcastic to me, and I feel bad for throwing poison your way, and lemme know if there's anything I can do to un-poison things

 

Cheers

[LimpyLoo]

Edit: oops hit 'return' by accident

[LimpyLoo]

A Case For Eternal Optimism (in a Deeply-Cynical World)

 

1) Kid for Today....and Tomorrow....and Forever After That

 

Alan Watts had some interesting ideas about why most curious philosopher-children grow up to be cynical, angry, uncurious adults.

[And in fact the whole 1960's American New Left had a bunch of ideas about it. And (fortunately for us!) this entire line of inquiry was born long ago and far away, and so it's had some time to mature...]

Now, one possible answer would be that at some they have to learn the harsh realities and responsibilities of the no-net adult world, and so of course they have to shed all of their unpractical and naive ideas about the world.

Well, here's two counterfactuals about why that doesn't seem (imo) to be the case:

-we already know that responsible-adults can be (and occasionally are) neurosis-free (i.e. the one does not necessitate the other)

-this cynical 'shedding' process starts way earlier

 

Remember Brian Wilson and his bizarre 'LSD and sandboxes' period?

Why the hell was he so obsessed with this naive concept album about writing children's songs for adults, Smile?

Well, here's two possible answers:

-latent (genetic) mental illness + stress + drugs

-he was taught adulthood by an adult like Murray Wilson

 

I watched Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale with the g/f last night, and we talked about shitty adults spreading their neuroses to their kids, and doing it with perfect certainty that they're improving them.

Well, that's currently what my alcoholic, neuroses-infested father is trying to do to my 9-year-old joyous, polymathic sister.

He discourages her when she violates his rigid (yet common) expectations about what activities should and shouldn't be done in the/any environment.

 

[Fun fact: What do OCD, PTSD, anxiety disorders, depression, etc all seem to have in common? The sufferer cannot handle *uncertainty* in the environment, and so priority #1 becomes to configure their habits/routines/environments around avoiding and reducing it]

 

And because his thinking is driven by anxiety and hubris--and because he learned to think/act from a long tradition of neurotic, self-defeating thoughts and actions--he never once considered that *he* should be trying to emulate *her*.

 

"Child (child child) is the father of the..."

 

 

 

 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Wzsgnv1J6o

 

 

 

[next stop: Self-diagnostics, Carl Rogers, and some thoughts (old and new) about how to heal the people around us]

 

P.S.

 

 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Wzsgnv1J6o

 

(Maybe I'll start integrating music into these bad boys...)

 

 

 

P.P.S. Thx span cheers

[KovalainenFanBoy]

that was about ten times more readable and understandable than your usual posts just by virtue of it not being formatted as a haiku

[doublename]

^For real though.

 

Limbic Clue?

Lin P. Loux

Lamb Pilau

[zlemflolia]

A Case For Eternal Optimism (in a Deeply-Cynical World)

 

1) Kid for Today....and Tomorrow....and Forever After That

 

Alan Watts had some interesting ideas about why most curious philosopher-children grow up to be cynical, angry, uncurious adults.

[And in fact the whole 1960's American New Left had a bunch of ideas about it. And (fortunately for us!) this entire line of inquiry was born long ago and far away, and so it's had some time to mature...]

Now, one possible answer would be that at some they have to learn the harsh realities and responsibilities of the no-net adult world, and so of course they have to shed all of their unpractical and naive ideas about the world.

Well, here's two counterfactuals about why that doesn't seem (imo) to be the case:

-we already know that responsible-adults can be (and occasionally are) neurosis-free (i.e. the one does not necessitate the other)

-this cynical 'shedding' process starts way earlier

 

Remember Brian Wilson and his bizarre 'LSD and sandboxes' period?

Why the hell was he so obsessed with this naive concept album about writing children's songs for adults, Smile?

Well, here's two possible answers:

-latent (genetic) mental illness + stress + drugs

-he was taught adulthood by an adult like Murray Wilson

 

I watched Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale with the g/f last night, and we talked about shitty adults spreading their neuroses to their kids, and doing it with perfect certainty that they're improving them.

Well, that's currently what my alcoholic, neuroses-infested father is trying to do to my 9-year-old joyous, polymathic sister.

He discourages her when she violates his rigid (yet common) expectations about what activities should and shouldn't be done in the/any environment.

 

[Fun fact: What do OCD, PTSD, anxiety disorders, depression, etc all seem to have in common? The sufferer cannot handle *uncertainty* in the environment, and so priority #1 becomes to configure their habits/routines/environments around avoiding and reducing it]

 

And because his thinking is driven by anxiety and hubris--and because he learned to think/act from a long tradition of neurotic, self-defeating thoughts and actions--he never once considered that *he* should be trying to emulate *her*.

 

"Child (child child) is the father of the..."

 

 

 

 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Wzsgnv1J6o

 

 

 

[next stop: Self-diagnostics, Carl Rogers, and some thoughts (old and new) about how to heal the people around us]

 

P.S.

 

 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Wzsgnv1J6o

 

(Maybe I'll start integrating music into these bad boys...)

 

 

 

P.P.S. Thx span cheers

 

Excellent post, just ignore trolls.  Many people are incapable of having real discussions despite their ability to meta-discuss

 

When real discussions are at hand, sarcasm and irony are toxic abominations of language which are inherently non-constructive and often harmful.  

 

I think parents definitely pass on neuroses through their parenting methods.  Often parents try to sculpt the children to be manageable to their own neuroses.  For instance let's say a parent has OCD.  They will try to make the child behave in a way that doesn't perturb their OCD.  Which is understandable but irresponsible and a shame.  They may also believe, due to their flawed mindset, that this is legitimately superior behavior since it causes them less mental perturbations, but they don't realize that they themselves are simply easily perturbed and are sculpting the child to develop these neuroses again and maybe pass them on more

 

This kind of goes along with Lamarckian which is definitely somewhat at play among intelligent species through language and culture.  The nature of the behavior and abilities of the species are not solely genetic, but based on the combination of all memories of all members of that species, and passed on within the local geographically accessible social group.  Often shared across larger groups through migration, and in our case mass communication

 

Just stating the obvious now probably though so

[zlemflolia]

Lamarckianism*

[LimpyLoo]

^dude totally

 

P.S.

I have so many thoughts on epigenetics. (Or actually: it's really just one big thought.) All the empirical findings I've ever seen all point in one specific direction, but (what Kuhn and Fayerbend call) Normal Science never sees the heterodoxic trends in the data, which is why we always need contrarian troublemakers like Newton, Galileo, Einstein, etc to figure shit out for us...