Finding Balance

[Verbal Mike]

Been thinking about this. Is obsession always necessarily a bad thing?
I read a biography of Jimi Hendrix once. That guy was obsessed, that's how he got so good. He practiced nonstop. There's stories that he slept with his guitar in his paratrooper days. Footage I've seen shows him smiling a lot, when he wasn't in rapt concentration. That's not a bad way to live.

Umm, didn't that guy OD and die young?

Yep, on sleeping pills that he took to go to sleep.  Not as a suicide or even as an accident with recreational drugs.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/18/newsid_3528000/3528692.stm

Not really related to his passion and his approach to guitar playing.

Ah. Didn't realize that.
Anyway, the point was that his lifestyle wasn't necessarily something to envy or imitate... And I personally consider sleeping pills a big glaring no-no (and I've had sleep issues for as long as I can remember myself), but I guess I don't really know much about how he died and shouldn't judge him by it.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Been thinking about this. Is obsession always necessarily a bad thing?
I read a biography of Jimi Hendrix once. That guy was obsessed, that's how he got so good. He practiced nonstop. There's stories that he slept with his guitar in his paratrooper days. Footage I've seen shows him smiling a lot, when he wasn't in rapt concentration. That's not a bad way to live.

Umm, didn't that guy OD and die young?

Yep, on sleeping pills that he took to go to sleep.  Not as a suicide or even as an accident with recreational drugs.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/18/newsid_3528000/3528692.stm

Not really related to his passion and his approach to guitar playing.

Ah. Didn't realize that.
Anyway, the point was that his lifestyle wasn't necessarily something to envy or imitate... And I personally consider sleeping pills a big glaring no-no (and I've had sleep issues for as long as I can remember myself), but I guess I don't really know much about how he died and shouldn't judge him by it.

It was 1970. Sleeping pills, tranquilizers, amphetamines, etc. were a lot more widely prescribed. It was a matter or going to the doctor and saying "I can't sleep/I'm a nervous wreck/I want to lose weight/whatever". Virtually everybody had that stuff in the house.

I don't try to emulate Hendrix because I know I can never BE Hendrix, not because he OD'ed.

[AFK]

Been thinking about this. Is obsession always necessarily a bad thing?
I read a biography of Jimi Hendrix once. That guy was obsessed, that's how he got so good. He practiced nonstop. There's stories that he slept with his guitar in his paratrooper days. Footage I've seen shows him smiling a lot, when he wasn't in rapt concentration. That's not a bad way to live.

Umm, didn't that guy OD and die young?

Yep, one of the founding members of the 27 Club.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Been thinking about this. Is obsession always necessarily a bad thing?
I read a biography of Jimi Hendrix once. That guy was obsessed, that's how he got so good. He practiced nonstop. There's stories that he slept with his guitar in his paratrooper days. Footage I've seen shows him smiling a lot, when he wasn't in rapt concentration. That's not a bad way to live.

Umm, didn't that guy OD and die young?

Yep, one of the founding members of the 27 Club.

"The 27 Club" is a concept equalled in retardation only by "IF YUO PLAY RECORDS BACKWARDS YUO CAN HEAR SATAN"

[AFK]

It isn't a concept, it's an observation.  And obviously there were very unique circumstances in the lives and deaths of the members, but there are some commonalities too. 

[Kai]

It isn't a concept, it's an observation.  And obviously there were very unique circumstances in the lives and deaths of the members, but there are some commonalities too.

Reverend, I think your opinion of drugs has colored everything to such a degree that it is the rose tinted glasses through which you view the universe.

It's almost as if you are a conspiracy theorist.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

It isn't a concept, it's an observation.  And obviously there were very unique circumstances in the lives and deaths of the members, but there are some commonalities too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club

Hendrix isn't a "founding member":

Alexandre Levy
January 17, 1892
Unknown
Composer, pianist and conductor
27 years, 98 days

Louis Chauvin
March 26, 1908
Neurosyphilitic sclerosis
Ragtime musician
27 years, 13 days

Robert Johnson
August 16, 1938
Unknown, but typically attributed to strychnine poisoning
Blues singer and musician who recorded a very famous and influential set of 29 songs.
27 years, 100 days

Nat Jaffe
August 5, 1945
Complications from high blood pressure
Swing jazz pianist
27 years, 216 days


&c., &c. with varying causes of death.

SO: There's no common cause of death for all these people

AND: There are who knows how many musicians who died at ages other than 27, or have passed 27 and are still living, or who will live beyond 27

SO: "27 Club" is retarded. It's along the lines of all those "clues" on Beatles albums that people interpreted as Paul McCartney being dead and replaced by a lookalike. Connections where there are no connections.

Idiot.

[Don Coyote]

So it's just the fucking laws of five.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

It isn't a concept, it's an observation.  And obviously there were very unique circumstances in the lives and deaths of the members, but there are some commonalities too.

Reverend, I think your opinion of drugs has colored everything to such a degree that it is the rose tinted glasses through which you view the universe.

It's almost as if you are a conspiracy theorist.

"Almost?" 

So it's just the fucking laws of five.

Precisely.

[AFK]

It isn't a concept, it's an observation.  And obviously there were very unique circumstances in the lives and deaths of the members, but there are some commonalities too.

Reverend, I think your opinion of drugs has colored everything to such a degree that it is the rose tinted glasses through which you view the universe.

It's almost as if you are a conspiracy theorist.

You've made a bit of a leap with that assumption.  Need I remind folks that Cobain died of a shotgun blast to the head, not drugs.  The commonalities I speak of are not drugs, it is issues of emotional well being, at least with some of the more infamous " members"


And, yes of course it is Law of Fives. 

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

It isn't a concept, it's an observation.  And obviously there were very unique circumstances in the lives and deaths of the members, but there are some commonalities too.

Reverend, I think your opinion of drugs has colored everything to such a degree that it is the rose tinted glasses through which you view the universe.

It's almost as if you are a conspiracy theorist.

You've made a bit of a leap with that assumption.  Need I remind folks that Cobain died of a shotgun blast to the head, not drugs.  The commonalities I speak of are not drugs, it is issues of emotional well being, at least with some of the more infamous " members"


And, yes of course it is Law of Fives.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

It isn't a concept, it's an observation.  And obviously there were very unique circumstances in the lives and deaths of the members, but there are some commonalities too.

Reverend, I think your opinion of drugs has colored everything to such a degree that it is the rose tinted glasses through which you view the universe.

It's almost as if you are a conspiracy theorist.

You've made a bit of a leap with that assumption.  Need I remind folks that Cobain died of a shotgun blast to the head, not drugs.  The commonalities I speak of are not drugs, it is issues of emotional well being, at least with some of the more infamous " members"


And, yes of course it is Law of Fives.

[Kai]

It isn't a concept, it's an observation.  And obviously there were very unique circumstances in the lives and deaths of the members, but there are some commonalities too.

Reverend, I think your opinion of drugs has colored everything to such a degree that it is the rose tinted glasses through which you view the universe.

It's almost as if you are a conspiracy theorist.

You've made a bit of a leap with that assumption.  Need I remind folks that Cobain died of a shotgun blast to the head, not drugs.  The commonalities I speak of are not drugs, it is issues of emotional well being, at least with some of the more infamous " members"


And, yes of course it is Law of Fives.

Reverend, law of fives is another name for cognitive bias. If you are not familiar, this is the concept that people choose the observations that fit their particular worldview, and discard observations which would dismiss such a worldview.

For a person to understand what they are thinking and saying is ruled by cognitive bias, to even voice it as such, and then not actually change their attitudes and behavior, this is hypocrisy.

The follow up to discovering cognitive bias isn't continuing in it, but rather /stopping/.

[Verbal Mike]

I dunno, Kai. Now that I can see the Fnords, I kinda like 'em.

Shoot me if I'm missing something, but escaping cognitive bias completely is impossible, and when it comes to something basically insignificant like the "27 club" stuff, who the hell cares?

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I dunno, Kai. Now that I can see the Fnords, I kinda like 'em.

Shoot me if I'm missing something, but escaping cognitive bias completely is impossible, and when it comes to something basically insignificant like the "27 club" stuff, who the hell cares?

The idea, when you discover cognitive bias, is to make an effort to weed it out. Even if it's just some stupid shit like "The 27 Club".

"Musicians (or people with what RWHN considers to be "issues") often die at 27" is the same thinking style as "(insert group here) often steal".