Prs to be making me less broke? Financial Follies

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Your ideas are intriguing.

However, in a step for the sort of fearless self-exposure to mockery for which I am surely famous above all else, I will say this:

The idea of driving around in my car (see? CD player. I need it) listening to someone on permanent loop telling me to feel good about myself strikes me as very, very silly and ridiculous.

That said, I do know exactly what you're talking about, as you well know.

It's a killing fog. It stifles cognition, creativity, will, clever ideas, pleasant memories, good feelings and avenues of escape almost as fast as they appear.

It's a [censored] glutton. It wants your whole life if it can get it. And it is so [censored] hard to rally from under. I can only do it for a few hours at a time, and every time it comes back it washes away everything you came up with. The Waters of Lethe. Those of you who've never experienced it have no idea how much it makes you forget.

Drags you baaaaaaack. To motionlessness.

Fear? I'unno. Maybe. Phobias regarding incompetence and missing data and looking foolish have always played a powerful role in my inner life. I don't think that's the proximate cause, though. I got here as a direct result of walking straight into the teeth of paralyzing terror. Probably the bravest thing I've ever done.

Anyway. I've sought treatment. I believe I've mentioned that. Spent last winter checking out psychiatrists as I'd been urged to do. Settled on a guy, didn't think much of him, seemed like your standard cynic's shrink - just an oblivious dope-pusher. Took what he prescribed me, and headed out to LA. Couple months later my hands shook all the time, I couldn't get my nut, I spent most of my day in a mental coma and I was trying to decide whether or not to jump off my balcony, so I wrote an emofied thread and quit taking the stuff. Temporary relief ensued, like a sick man turning over in bed.

"Ruled by your habits." [censored] yeah. Ruled by your imagination? Hell yeah you are. I still don't understand quite why it follows to just imagine fluffy bunnies 'n' [censored], but that's just as likely as not to be the death fog talking.

I mean - catch me at another time and I would drop a vociferous arguebomb. It would prolly go something like this - "The whole idea of deliberately trying to alter your thoughts & emotions is ludicrous, indeed sickening. Even if it works I want no part of it, because if it does, then there is no such thing as authentic experience - only 'what you make of it.' And if that's the case then who gives a [censored] about anything, it's all fake.'

Now, I still believe in the core of this sentiment. On the other hand, I can't imagine that having your mind sucked away by the Noonday Demon is a particularly 'authentic' way to have your perceptions filtered, either. So as I said to begin with - your ideas are intriguing.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're not as alone as you think in these feelings, if it's any comfort.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of acting, not just thinking more and more. You already know where your thinking is going to go. If you get yourself involved in positive activity -- it could be anything, it hardly matters -- you can begin to have your mind conform to your new reality, not the other way around. Which is what is killing you.

Burlap is right about incrementality. Life is not ever "solved," and certainly not in one fell swoop. There will never be an end to worry and doubt; there's only learning to live with it and bring other things into your life. Those things can gather terrific cumulative force. But cumulative means being built up in increments. A song isn't a single note, a novel isn't a single word. To be on the receiving end of any large amount of goodness, you have to create at least one small good thing, and then another.

To bring in a metaphor from martial arts, as you are a fencer and can probably relate, didn't you have long periods where you felt your abilities lay fallow somehow, even though you were testing them to their limits? Where you piled on earnest spirit, time, and physical sacrifice and got nowhere, week after week, month after month? And then suddenly found yourself, seemingly without reason, able to do something you never could before? Sometimes progress is invisible. It even seems negative, because you try and try and get no result, only fatigue and disappointment. Then things change and you don't know why. It's as if it's all random. Or, for the religious perhaps, god-ordained? But it's not. It's the natural unfolding of the result of cumulative effort, on a schedule you could not possibly predict. It's as real as anything, because there you are doing it. But though it feels sudden, it wasn't. Though it feels incomprehensible, it was quite ordinary. And when you understand and admit how these things work, it was actually to be expected. You may have put the work in and thought it all came to nothing, and was perhaps foolish, hopeless, and deluded. Surely your limits were written all over this endless stasis, fatigue and disappointment its only accompaniment. But your limits were being exceeded on a schedule unknown to you and that would brook no interference from your ego and its expectations. The work paid off, in its own way. The proper type of work has a way of doing that. A whole life can have a way of doing that. But it can be invisible when you're in the middle of it, and all you might feel in taking those initial steps, and building up that momentum, could be negative. Yet things take their time to build and unfold. That can't be changed. But at least the result is near inevitable.

Given the alternatives of not trying, or mulling over what and how to try living anything forever so as to avoid fear, uncertainty, or simply to avoid work and moral courage, and taking small humble steps one at a time, isn't the more authentic, fully human response to give whatever life you have your best shot? Instead of trying to outsmart God, or life, or fate, or reason, by saying the game is rigged and refusing to play? You can build up one chip at a time. That's how most people do it. It's not because they're dumb or hopelessly unimaginative. It's because it's quite do-able, and that, largely is how it's done. Lay your foundation one stone at a time. You may be able to make the most beautiful, dreamy parapets in the land, caressing the clouds and piercing the heavens. Because of your intelligence, chances are good you can build up a life worth a second glance. But you might have to go down on your knees to lay a few bricks. Don't mope and don't make that any more of a big deal than it really is. You've got better tools than most, but they're useless if you keep them in the box of your own overheated noggin. You can only miss your success by perversity. Do you want something that limited to your definition?

[sledghammer]

Cardo,

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this article: (linked from Paul Phillips' blog) How not to talk to your kids. It shed some light on my own life, and why I have been lazy and unmotivated, and I'd bet that you can relate to it as well.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Cardo,

LOL, I didn’t expect it to work right away.

Do this wouldya;

Tomorrow morning, after you’ve had your coffee, and you’re not yet in the state of mind of needing to prove to the world what a pathetic loser you are, reread what I wrote.

And the next day do the same thing. And the next day, and the next day. Keep doing this until you say to yourself “ah what the hell, I’ll take his advice and give it a listen.”

If after two weeks you still haven’t done it, keep rereading it until you do. You have to understand that for every moment you think positively, that’s one less moment you allow yourself to wallow in self pity. These moments add up, until you literally forget how to be depressed. Don’t wait to do it until you believe what I’m telling you. Doing it will make you believe it.

…Hmmmm… driving in my car listening to something that may very well change my life, but if any 2+2er found out, I would be embarrassed for a moment….or….playing it cool, depressing an entire forum in one fell swoop every other week…

Tough decision indeed.

I promise you that you will enjoy the process immensely.

[/ QUOTE ]

This kind of thinking is what got me from a super skinny, very slow, weak, uncoordinated, frightened, terribly untalented kid with scoliosis and strabismus who was worse than pretty much every kid he knew at every physical activity he had ever encountered to someone with multiple black belts in completely different styles.

The results of keeping on trying, no matter how pathetic you are and how small your chances, no matter what anybody says or believes about you, are astounding. You just need to want it bad enough and expand your time horizons. And, you have to start.

[Anacardo]

So how do you explain everybody you surpass? Just didn't have the same talk with themselves?

[tpir]

Great post.

[ QUOTE ]
But this is all just your own false estimate of the future based on your current state of mind.

[/ QUOTE ]
For the record, like half of #sstakes has said this exact sentence to 'Cardo 50 beedogs times. He seems to prefer telling us how awful our advice is and that we don't care/understand. Quite the opposite obv. since I have never even met 99% of you.

[Anacardo]

But what's an accurate estimate of the future?

[kyleb]

[ QUOTE ]
So how do you explain everybody you surpass? Just didn't have the same talk with themselves?

[/ QUOTE ]

They don't want it as badly as you.

I went from pathetic, weak, and uncoordinated hitter in baseball to a legitimate power threat with independent league scouts giving me their business cards based on a few games this season in just one year.

It took hellish conditioning, accepting that I needed to learn the basic concepts of baseball on a level that is normally reserved for 10 year olds, and constant work in both the gym and the cages, but I'm there - and yet so far away from the real goal.

What Burlap and Blarg are basically saying to you is that you need to:

1) Stop thinking you are smarter than people, and;
2) Stop thinking you can't do things outside of your comfort zone.

You may think #1 and #2 cannot co-exist, but they can. You aren't smarter than most people, but you can overcome a lot of things by sheer willpower and utilizing what awareness you have left.

Let's face it - if you were smart, you wouldn't need to make this post.

[MuresanForMVP]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This guy failed at poker after posting 5000 times on this site. He's doomed to fail at just about anything probably because of a lack of intelligence or possibly a lack of maturity.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you have, in your life, met five people more intelligent or self-aware than I am, you have led an unusual life.

You are human poison.

[/ QUOTE ]

WTF? So is there any backup to your claims of being someone on the level of Einstein, or are we supposed to believe you just because you said so?

[Blarg]

Didn't have to. They are different people. I've often wished I were them. Who wouldn't?

The surpassing of more talented people doesn't come until a long way down the road. Natural talent can take a person extremely far. But not all the way. After a while, effort is required. Untalented people are past masters of effort. That's where they come into their own and shine and keep things moving forward. That's where far too many people with natural gifts completely fall apart. They've had to do little work to get to where they are, and when they suddenly hit the wall of their own limitations, they're forced to go from doing comparatively little work to working very hard. It's too big and too sudden a leap for most of them. It's pressure and disappointment they're not used to handling.

The less talented or gifted have struggled with and gotten past that long, long ago. Everybody eventually hits the wall. A whole lot of people haven't seen walls and maybe don't think they exist. They're pretty comfortable until they face ego disaster. With no emotional wherewithall, they quit.

There are a lot of high school athletes and intellects who hit this wall very, very hard. You can go a long way on natural gifts. Eventually, for most things and for almost all levels of gifts, your competition becomes at least as gifted as you. Or maybe better situated in life so they are able to easily bring the maximum of their talents to bear. And that's when you have to either quit or begin to distinguish yourself by work, or judgment, or creativity. You might even screw up, and in public, and when everyone is assuming it will be a walk in the park for you and is even counting on you to succeed. Terrifying prospect, that. One could fall apart in an instant. Join the human race, even.

[tpir]

[ QUOTE ]
Welp -

I just read Burlap's entire posting history.

In conclusion, I don't know who this guy is, but I don't think he's someone I can afford to ignore.

[/ QUOTE ]
Edited because I read Cardo's response wrong. I thought he was making a case *for* ignoring him. It's late.