I marvel at those who wake up and say amazing positive stuff on Facebook. It’s usually a lot of gratefulness “for caring about and accepting who I am today,” or it’s all “humans try…only God perfects,” or getting “my Sunday nap on before my workout,” or something. There’s always a coping strategy–a self-care tool.
Music was that for me. As a teen, especially. But as I got older, music became a chore and a job, so I couldn’t really feel good after doing it. Anything I try to do to rejuvenate myself just feels like a temporary escape, and it makes it all the more painful to know it will end.
It feels like the more I try to make my life positive, the more painful it is when things go wrong. I just try not to feel anything toward anything; that way I won’t feel so bad when I’m struggling.
I wonder if this is because my mind doesn’t think it deserves to feel good. Almost like… there’s some guilt about unfinished business, and until I resolve it, my mind won’t let the positive feelings carry over into my regular life.
I don’t know. I just want to handle the rough parts with less pain. I can’t seem to do that.
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Facebook is a wondrous magical tool that turns ordinary, pessimistic or even hateful people into lovey-dovey jewels in the rough. Just google some self-help quotes and post those on facebook enough and everyone will think you’re a happy camper. The reality is sometimes very different.
You can’t change how you feel; that’s what happens in the moment when you encounter certain situations. You can change your expectations, and your way of interpreting life events, though, and that can sometimes help. What I find helps the most is burning stuff in my back yard and dancing around the flames naked while chanting a war song. Helps if you have a lot of liquor.
“What I find helps the most is burning stuff in my back yard and dancing around the flames naked while chanting a war song. Helps if you have a lot of liquor.”
I did that once (half naked, wearing what you could call a loin cloth) but there was nowhere near enough liquor. Had a good time though, doing the haka with the All Blacks (Rugby team, don’t jump to conclusions) and waking up in the neighbours vege garden the next day. Have a good time, not a long time… I suppose.
Also:
*visually acquires Facebook*
TACTICAL ASSESSMENT – INADEQUATE
I got off Facebook nearly four years ago and I don’t miss it one bit. It’s basically a place where people list their achievements, talk about how great their life is, and share information that’s usually not that interesting. It’s amazing how pointless gossip can be considered “worthwhile, newsworthy events”.
Welcome to the age of unsolicited information.
Even though the Facebook crowd might be disingenuous about the level of fulfillment they get from these activities, my friends seem to look at me with weird expressions when I say that I don’t have any “goals” or “dreams” or “coping mechanisms” that help me through. Dancing around a fire half naked and getting drunk is fine, but what happens when nothing conventional or unconventional makes any difference? It’s not even a temporary high or a quick burst of happiness… it’s just a slight numbness that the hobbies and activities give me. And that numbness is seductive. It doesn’t rejuvenate. It just distracts me, and even my hobbies stress me out. I just have a lot of anxiety, and I don’t know what to do.
If you’re alive, you have coping mechanisms. Those tricky bastard things are hard to pin down sometimes. As for hopes and dreams, I’m not really sure what they are or why people these days seem so fond of them. Maybe it’s like my goal of one day throwing a shoe at a president. My life won’t be complete after I do that, but I’ll have a wicked cool story to tell drunk people at bars.
If the goal is to be happy, it’s going to constantly vaporize as soon as you come near it. That’s how transient goals work. I think the key is to find a way to enjoy throwing a shoe at a president, rather than just throwing a shoe at a president. The act itself won’t make you happy, but how you do it might. Like, peg him square in the face with a shoe you stepped in dog shit with. Something like that.
what do you guys think would happen if, say, someone like me, with all my resentful bitterness and radical ideas about the world, just started putting all of them up on facebook, in everyone’s face?(book)
People who can predict how potentially detrimental such things could be, tend to opt for socially acceptable, standardized, normalized over-positivity.
That’s why facebook is so full of shit: it makes people act like they’re in public, or like a high-school cafeteria, instead of being “real,” because they’re so afraid of being “judged.” But can we even blame them? Are they wrong to fear that? It’s not uncommon for people to have their lives and reputations ruined due to public disgrace, more based on “images” than whether any particular thing is ACTUALLY disgraceful.
Facebook is full of bs, if it’s not people acting out like clevername points out, it’s people venting in childish ways or trying to harm others with their so called “insight”. Had an ex gf pull several of those moments on fb for all out mutual friends to see, and eventually that turned on “here, look at my new found happiness”.
So i think that facebook is a source of stress and conflict more than an actual useful tool (i’ve thought that for a while tho, not just due to those events). Try not to pay much attention to it, since most of it is people bragging… so it should be called fakebook, lol. And people being happy because of getting drunk? that’s just a temporary fix for a lasting problem, so in that sense if it’s not your thing, you do good by staying away from it.
I have to ask tho, why did music turn into a chore? solely because it turned into a job? i am curious, as i love music and it turned into a painful thing for me (due to many reasons), and your nickname is “music” in japanese. I love japanese music so it just caught my attention, no problem if you don’t want to reply.
By saying you feel like you don’t deserve to be happy because of guilt due to some unfinished business… why not finishing it if you can? i mean, if you say that might be it… then you might just do it.
I am starting to think that people are getting caught up with the facebook aspect. it really doesn’t matter where I hear these things. All I know is that everyone seems to have a reason to soldier on. I don’t see much of a point except to avoid making people grieve. that’s not really a good reason to be alive. You can’t just spend your life trying not to hurt someone. You have to actually be something, clearly and distinctly.
Does one need a good reason to be alive? A lot of this kind of thinking is trying to make sense of how you feel – loss of interest in trying new things, lack of energy, maybe a fog of depression that doesn’t really lift except in rare moments. It’s all about feeling a certain way and trying to make sense of it. Those people on FB and elsewhere have a different agenda – many of them are trying to gussy up their image for prospective employers, or possible romance opportunities (which will no doubt end in failure due to the facile nature of the interaction). I doubt they think much about why they carry on; they just do because it’s what they’ve always done, and they haven’t bothered to think about it in any depth.
You say, “You have to actually be something, clearly and distinctly.” What do you mean by that?
no one pays anyone to be nothing, and just exist.
and without income, you can’t subsist.
if existence is effortless and unimpeded, then sure, why not just keep milking it…
but for most people, that’s not the case; existence is instead only facilitated and perpetuated by physically demanding, painful, relentless effort. And in such cases, there must be a driving reason to produce the endless excess motivation to continue striving so hard, for so little.
It’s like gently parking a car facing a concrete wall… no matter how hard you push the engine, or how long you’re able to keep the tank filled with fuel, you’re not going anywhere, and will eventually blow your tires after spinning them so much. You’re not moving that wall unless you hit it with momentum, and in so doing, you damage the vehicle to the point where it’s only really useful for ramming another few walls, before it’s parked forever and subsequently relegated to the compactor.
in other words: existence requires self-destruction in the name of futility… while so many people go around acting like life is just easy for everyone, and if it’s not, they must be doing it wrong… because for them, it is easy, which means they have no way of understanding what it’s like for those who have only the option to submit to the requirement of pointless self-destruction, as a means of sustaining their own unsustainable existence.
I meant to say that a person defines him/herself not based on what s/he isn’t, but what s/he is. What do I desire? What am I to the people around me?