Principia Discordia

Principia Discordia => Two vast and trunkless legs of stone => Topic started by: The Wizard Joseph on October 04, 2014, 08:35:27 PM

Title: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 04, 2014, 08:35:27 PM
When I first showed up here at PD I had basically just decided to dive in and see what would come of it. I had a head full of preconceived ideas about Discordianism, that mainly proved WRONG, and a heart full of agendas that have since proven unworkable or that I need much greater maturity to enact. And some few that I realized were BAD IDEAS, thanks to this place and it's denizens, even if I could get them off the ground. 

Moreover I was in the throes. The Goddess Eris had really worked me over good. My head was quite firmly wedged twixt my butt cheeks but not totally up my ass. She's such a peach. These days I feel I've extricated myself, but still stand as a bit of a shithead.

I portrayed myself as what I imagined myself or hoped to be, not what I am. I won't call this a mistake anymore than I would call puking at a wild party a mistake.  I had the poison in me, did it to myself.  Had I missed the metaphorical bucket THAT could have been tragic. For me. Just another day at the bus stop for the regulars here.

There's a lot that I've learned about the folks here just by reading what's been shared. I have not truly reciprocated much to date and have no wish to just be some creeper that pops in and out.
So here's who I am.
I'm a dude from Wisconsin. I'm the product of multiple improbable circumstances wrapped up in a plain paper bag.

My mom descended from a long line of  mostly Irish trash and suffered a shattered home, several tragic deaths, and much abuse before being taken in by very loving, if somewhat ignorant, Iowa Baptist foster parents. I have many scattered cousins and half or full aunts and uncles all over the country on her side. I'm not very close with most.

My dad was born to a Roman Protestant Mason father (figure THAT one out)  and a nondenominational Sicilian mother(a match ONLY in America) that had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church for marrying a sonofabitch and shortly after deciding to divorce him to save herself. She moved from Jersey to Wisconsin where they met. My dad's parents stayed together until Death kept his appointments. It was not peaceful or easy, but it was familia. A big one, boomer generation style.

My folks raised me and my 2 younger brothers, 18 months and 3.5 years younger, as well as they could. It is said that parenting is the last great profession left exclusively to amateurs. They did their best to keep up with the Joneses in boomer fashion and raise nice little super babies. It didn't last long, but in our early years my brothers and I got better education than most by far.

I was weaned on classical music, baby books on anatomy and science, the B.I.B.L.E. and also folklore from around the world read to me as a child by my dad. My folks had purchased a huge encyclopedic set for the purpose long since lost. I got as much Childe Roland, Jack the Giant Killer, and Japanese or African fables as I did David and Goliath etc.

I could identify what season from Vivaldi's Four Seasons was playing in kindergarten. I knew my larynx from my esophagus, and that skin was called a dermis. I knew not to run widdershins around a church three times unless you really meant it. I knew God loved me and everyone and that He was down for some serious giant slaying.
My parents had lovingly built a freak and I had trouble as soon as I had to mix with the genpop in public school.

More later... as I can.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on October 04, 2014, 10:43:56 PM
Nice to meet you, Joe. Welcome to the journey! I have no idea where any of us are going, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be a hell of a trip.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 05, 2014, 10:08:24 AM
Quote from: Doktor Skinsaw on October 04, 2014, 10:43:56 PM
Nice to meet you, Joe. Welcome to the journey! I have no idea where any of us are going, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be a hell of a trip.

Happy to be here! Life could have served up far worse, that's a fact.

Guess we shall see where things go, but I'm gonna learn stuff and lend what talents I may.
I sincerely believe this thing some call Discordia has a very long way to go yet.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on October 06, 2014, 12:59:28 AM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 05, 2014, 10:08:24 AM

I sincerely believe this thing some call Discordia has a very long way to go yet.

It has a lot in common with Systems Science, it seems.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: LMNO on October 06, 2014, 11:55:42 AM
Your writing style is quite readable, which is more rare than one would think.  Liking it so far.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 06, 2014, 03:55:21 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 06, 2014, 11:55:42 AM
Your writing style is quite readable, which is more rare than one would think.  Liking it so far.

Thanks!  It's a slow process, but I'm getting better at using the Android interface on my phone. I never was a fast typist. I also tend to self edit a lot as I go. It slows me some, but helps me be concise.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 06, 2014, 03:56:34 PM
Quote from: Your Mom on October 06, 2014, 12:59:28 AM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 05, 2014, 10:08:24 AM

I sincerely believe this thing some call Discordia has a very long way to go yet.

It has a lot in common with Systems Science, it seems.

Not sure what that is. Will look into it. Is it a form of information science?
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on October 06, 2014, 04:02:10 PM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 06, 2014, 03:56:34 PM
Quote from: Your Mom on October 06, 2014, 12:59:28 AM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 05, 2014, 10:08:24 AM

I sincerely believe this thing some call Discordia has a very long way to go yet.

It has a lot in common with Systems Science, it seems.

Not sure what that is. Will look into it. Is it a form of information science?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_science
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 06, 2014, 04:10:09 PM
Quote from: Your Mom on October 06, 2014, 04:02:10 PM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 06, 2014, 03:56:34 PM
Quote from: Your Mom on October 06, 2014, 12:59:28 AM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 05, 2014, 10:08:24 AM

I sincerely believe this thing some call Discordia has a very long way to go yet.

It has a lot in common with Systems Science, it seems.

Not sure what that is. Will look into it. Is it a form of information science?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_science
:lol: thanks! I'll bookmark it and look into when I get a break here.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 06, 2014, 06:32:48 PM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 06, 2014, 04:10:09 PM
Quote from: Your Mom on October 06, 2014, 04:02:10 PM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 06, 2014, 03:56:34 PM
Quote from: Your Mom on October 06, 2014, 12:59:28 AM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 05, 2014, 10:08:24 AM

I sincerely believe this thing some call Discordia has a very long way to go yet.

It has a lot in common with Systems Science, it seems.

Not sure what that is. Will look into it. Is it a form of information science?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_science
:lol: thanks! I'll bookmark it and look into when I get a break here.

Sounds like a sort of science MMA. All the interdisciplinary stuff appeals to me quite a bit.

Also seems to have sprouted around the time the PD was getting put together IIRC.

"The founders of the systems movement likeLudwig von Bertalanffy, Kenneth Boulding, Ralph Gerard,James Grier Miller, George J. Klir,and Anatol Rapoportwere all born between 1900 and 1920. They all came from different natural and social science disciplines and joined forces in the 1950s to establish the general systems theory paradigm."
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on October 07, 2014, 12:34:06 AM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 06, 2014, 06:32:48 PM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 06, 2014, 04:10:09 PM
Quote from: Your Mom on October 06, 2014, 04:02:10 PM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 06, 2014, 03:56:34 PM
Quote from: Your Mom on October 06, 2014, 12:59:28 AM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 05, 2014, 10:08:24 AM

I sincerely believe this thing some call Discordia has a very long way to go yet.

It has a lot in common with Systems Science, it seems.

Not sure what that is. Will look into it. Is it a form of information science?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_science
:lol: thanks! I'll bookmark it and look into when I get a break here.

Sounds like a sort of science MMA. All the interdisciplinary stuff appeals to me quite a bit.

Also seems to have sprouted around the time the PD was getting put together IIRC.

"The founders of the systems movement likeLudwig von Bertalanffy, Kenneth Boulding, Ralph Gerard,James Grier Miller, George J. Klir,and Anatol Rapoportwere all born between 1900 and 1920. They all came from different natural and social science disciplines and joined forces in the 1950s to establish the general systems theory paradigm."

It's kind of nice because it provides the sort of ecological perspective that it seems like non-biological sciences tend to omit, which is particularly unfortunate when it comes to social sciences.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: LMNO on October 07, 2014, 12:12:03 PM
I'm a little bit pissed that I didn't realize this was a thing when I was in school.  I have a feeling I would have been good at it.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on October 07, 2014, 02:11:39 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on October 07, 2014, 12:12:03 PM
I'm a little bit pissed that I didn't realize this was a thing when I was in school.  I have a feeling I would have been good at it.

Yeah, I could definitely see it being something you would get into.

Also, hilariously, the systems science graduate program here is housed in the Harder House.

:lmnuendo:
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: LMNO on October 07, 2014, 02:12:32 PM
 :lulz:
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: trix on October 10, 2014, 12:29:57 PM
Well, if I had a lawn, I'd welcome you to trample all over that shit.

Since I do not, I instead welcome you to trample all over my Discordia.

Yes, MY Discordia.  I own it.  All of it.  And you fuckers still owe me royalties.

I should probably read the OP, or really any of the posts in this thread, rather than just replying to the title, but I'm overtired and if I was to give a fuck it would have to be to my SO, even though I'm sure you are hot stuff.

Whatever I'm going to bed.  I'll read this thread tomorrow and then realize how stupid I am, yet again.  Gotta have something to look forward to, ya know.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 21, 2014, 01:36:49 PM
Ah trix.. iirc you got here about the same time I first did. I have paid my royalties in interpretive dance. Sorry you were not here to observe, but I assure you the dance is valid currency in several dimensions of consciousness. You need only cash in your new assets. Debt handled.
Now if you require help polydimensionally cashing in.. why I would be happy to assist for a reasonable fee!
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 21, 2014, 01:37:12 PM
I'd like to switch over to a bit of "What The Hell I'm Doing On your Lawn" and then get back to a not quite linear narrative about my life.

The truth is I'm not doing much. As yet.

I have some difficulty adjusting to new modes of communication and some hesitancy about interacting with PD at all. The difficulty of changing my daily habits to regularly communicate will be overcome with persistence, time, and repetition. This I can do, but it will take a bit of intentional effort. The hesitation is a stickier creature and deserves it's own paragraph. (Ok maybe two)

I hesitate on two points. One is that I was taught 'better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open up your boca and remove all doubt'. I tend to be quite taciturn IRL. I am open, even outgoing, with friends.  The rest of the public gets a mask and performance, or silence, all just a calculated play in the Game. I don't want to play that game here. I wish to make friends and learn. I know this will take some time and earnesty.

The other point is an odd obsession that this place, or thing, or (m)emetic construct (sic)... or whatever PD is brings on me. What I mostly mean is that I become preoccupied by the terrible, marvelous doings here, on occasion, to the point where it could cause... say, a traffic accident.
"I swear to Gawd Officer, he just came right on through the stop sign grinning like a ninny!  Ya shoulda seen his eyes..."
Mahap I'll just get things thrown at me by friends trying to bring me back to the conversation here in meatspace while my brain is vigorously trying to chew down some gristly, tasty bit from here@PD.COM. This distraction brings some modest risks, but I think I can handle it. I definitely think it's worth while to try.

For now I intend to work on  getting into the habit of writing things on my phone. I have an acceptable writing app and can edit or add pizzazz in your forum's neato utility box as needed. I already lost one write up for here to an app or, more likely, user glitch and have no intention of repeating the mistake. Hope to get into reading the threads more as well, though I know this is what brings on the fits..

Sure as hell beats the morning newspaper!
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 22, 2014, 08:56:24 PM

  I sometimes think that I might have been quite a little computer hacker had my early exposure to the information age gone differently.  I was in maybe 3rd grade and reading well above my age when my parents brought home a Macintosh.  It had screen and computer all in one and basic color, one button mouse,  and a very nice keyboard.  Mom had pushed Dad to get it so she could write. I was truly enchanted by it.

I spent all the time I could playing with the paint program (Macpaint) and playing what games I could find. I remember Dark Castle particularly well. My brothers were also fascinated, especially by the games, but had been deemed too young to touch it by Mom Inc. This did not exactly stop them.

One day Mom went into a rage because her Macwrite program had apparently been locked out. She blamed me. I have no explicit memory of doing it, but admit to much monkeying with the things. She banned me and my brothers from touching it, locked it away, and eventually lost interest in the thing herself. There was never so much passion in my heart for computers themselves again, just an appreciation for their utility.  During this time in my life there was a lot of other tribulation that I hope to touch upon later ITT.

Other than a Nintendo some years later that was about all the computer exposure I got until high school. I had well and truly burnt out on several levels by then. But that tale would require getting well ahead of myself. Suffice to say my formative years went by isolated from the world of infotech.

More later, must go on
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Reginald Ret on October 22, 2014, 09:08:21 PM
Quote from: trix on October 10, 2014, 12:29:57 PM
Well, if I had a lawn, I'd welcome you to trample all over that shit.

Since I do not, I instead welcome you to trample all over my Discordia.

Yes, MY Discordia.  I own it.  All of it.  And you fuckers still owe me royalties.

I should probably read the OP, or really any of the posts in this thread, rather than just replying to the title, but I'm overtired and if I was to give a fuck it would have to be to my SO, even though I'm sure you are hot stuff.

Whatever I'm going to bed.  I'll read this thread tomorrow and then realize how stupid I am, yet again.  Gotta have something to look forward to, ya know.
:lol:
I found it entertaining. So there's that.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 25, 2014, 11:57:48 PM

I think I like the idea of swapping over to an analysis of my Discordia experience every now and then in the present tense. Maybe now and again I'll inject these 'what I'm doing on your lawn' bits.  I do want to mostly focus on relating my past to the folks here, but in fact who I am is not that.

I'm a mildly frustrated super primate poking out text with his bare hands on a magic rock the functions of which he barely comprehends. The poor bastard with a head full of Discordia among Other Things that he has no clue what to do with and sometimes only barely manages to keep together is me.

I'm not sure if the Discordia is helping or not. I'm not sure I need help even if it is.  I only know that I DISAGREE with what I was taught about the cosmos and yet not in toto. I disagree enough to find myself wandering for more than answers but also so I can have some peace.
Sometimes home is where the hell is.

I see here a small group of exceptional minds that seem to me more or less in the same boat. Too bright to believe the lie... and yet what else have ya got? This particular tiny little piece of the thing called Discordianism here at PD represents to me a whole bunch of replys to the question.  Replys I will surely find agreement and disagreement over.

Guess this means I'm just standing on the front lawn of the temple of Discordia and just disagreeing my little heart out. Fist high in the air, but not pointed at God. Not really pointed at anything really, but mad as hell.

Eris must think I'm just adorable,
not that that's what will save me.
Not convinced I need to be.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on October 26, 2014, 05:05:28 PM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 25, 2014, 11:57:48 PM
I see here a small group of exceptional minds that seem to me more or less in the same boat. Too bright to believe the lie... and yet what else have ya got?

I've got science.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 26, 2014, 07:59:45 PM
Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on October 26, 2014, 05:05:28 PM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 25, 2014, 11:57:48 PM
I see here a small group of exceptional minds that seem to me more or less in the same boat. Too bright to believe the lie... and yet what else have ya got?

I've got science.

:) What like all of it? That's not very sporting.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 15, 2015, 05:05:45 PM
In third grade a bitter old woman named Hansen became my math teacher. Noting that I was both gifted and disruptive she assigned me EXTREME amounts of extra rote arithmetic homework and talked my trusting parents into letting her do it. Said it would make me even better at math and of course teacher knows best right? All the same basic functions. No new math to be had, just a desperately busy and quiet boy. My folks eventually figured out what she had done, but by then I had already come to hate it and had taken a few punitive licks from my misguided father for my complaints and 'laziness'. This greatly reinforced the negative association about homework and math in particular I was developing.

In high school I remember a detention teacher tried to buy time one day with the old "add all the integers from 1 through 100" trick. 5,050 derived by 101*50. I let bastard sit down before I asked him (I think teach was male) to please come check my answer. He said I was wrong and to do it again. He was either an idiot or presumed I was, probably both.  I told everyone the answer. I somewhat remember getting in trouble for this and being sent home. I was probably already in detention for truancy anyway, but it could have been for 'student conflict'.

That evil bitch Hansen simultaneously sharpened my talent and ensured my hate of it's use. Public school is freaking diabolical.

Third grade was the same year I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and both lost faith in movie monsters and realized I had trouble fitting in because I was like the creature that thought and felt and was not a real threat to people but was also not one of them because I had been made different. I was not yet bitter enough to hate God over it, just hurting from all sorts of things, and wondering why the movies made the creature out to be a dangerous dullard.

After I attempted suicide halfway through fourth grade and my parents got me on antidepressants and put me in a Christianazi private 'Christian' school I began to hate God.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Doktor Howl on February 15, 2015, 11:45:23 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 15, 2015, 05:05:45 PM
In third grade a bitter old woman named Hansen became my math teacher. Noting that I was both gifted and disruptive she assigned me EXTREME amounts of extra rote arithmetic homework and talked my trusting parents into letting her do it. Said it would make me even better at math and of course teacher knows best right? All the same basic functions. No new math to be had, just a desperately busy and quiet boy. My folks eventually figured out what she had done, but by then I had already come to hate it and had taken a few punitive licks from my misguided father for my complaints and 'laziness'. This greatly reinforced the negative association about homework and math in particular I was developing.

In high school I remember a detention teacher tried to buy time one day with the old "add all the integers from 1 through 100" trick. 5,050 derived by 101*50. I let bastard sit down before I asked him (I think teach was male) to please come check my answer. He said I was wrong and to do it again. He was either an idiot or presumed I was, probably both.  I told everyone the answer. I somewhat remember getting in trouble for this and being sent home. I was probably already in detention for truancy anyway, but it could have been for 'student conflict'.

That evil bitch Hansen simultaneously sharpened my talent and ensured my hate of it's use. Public school is freaking diabolical.

Third grade was the same year I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and both lost faith in movie monsters and realized I had trouble fitting in because I was like the creature that thought and felt and was not a real threat to people but was also not one of them because I had been made different. I was not yet bitter enough to hate God over it, just hurting from all sorts of things, and wondering why the movies made the creature out to be a dangerous dullard.

After I attempted suicide halfway through fourth grade and my parents got me on antidepressants and put me in a Christianazi private 'Christian' school I began to hate God.

I had a teacher in 4th grade, Mrs Conway.  All the parents loved her.  Aged teacher, loads of experience, grandmotherly look.

When the parents weren't around she was a sadist that took particular pleasure in humiliating 4th grade kids.  I did a little jig 20 years ago, when I discovered she had died.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 16, 2015, 12:11:46 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 15, 2015, 11:45:23 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 15, 2015, 05:05:45 PM
In third grade a bitter old woman named Hansen became my math teacher. Noting that I was both gifted and disruptive she assigned me EXTREME amounts of extra rote arithmetic homework and talked my trusting parents into letting her do it. Said it would make me even better at math and of course teacher knows best right? All the same basic functions. No new math to be had, just a desperately busy and quiet boy. My folks eventually figured out what she had done, but by then I had already come to hate it and had taken a few punitive licks from my misguided father for my complaints and 'laziness'. This greatly reinforced the negative association about homework and math in particular I was developing.

In high school I remember a detention teacher tried to buy time one day with the old "add all the integers from 1 through 100" trick. 5,050 derived by 101*50. I let bastard sit down before I asked him (I think teach was male) to please come check my answer. He said I was wrong and to do it again. He was either an idiot or presumed I was, probably both.  I told everyone the answer. I somewhat remember getting in trouble for this and being sent home. I was probably already in detention for truancy anyway, but it could have been for 'student conflict'.

That evil bitch Hansen simultaneously sharpened my talent and ensured my hate of it's use. Public school is freaking diabolical.

Third grade was the same year I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and both lost faith in movie monsters and realized I had trouble fitting in because I was like the creature that thought and felt and was not a real threat to people but was also not one of them because I had been made different. I was not yet bitter enough to hate God over it, just hurting from all sorts of things, and wondering why the movies made the creature out to be a dangerous dullard.

After I attempted suicide halfway through fourth grade and my parents got me on antidepressants and put me in a Christianazi private 'Christian' school I began to hate God.

I had a teacher in 4th grade, Mrs Conway.  All the parents loved her.  Aged teacher, loads of experience, grandmotherly look.

When the parents weren't around she was a sadist that took particular pleasure in humiliating 4th grade kids.  I did a little jig 20 years ago, when I discovered she had died.

There are far too many of those.

People who for some reason, somehow, get some kind of sense of power and validation out of making children feel small and powerless. Which is particularly pathetic considering that children ARE small and powerless.

There's this myth that low pay for demanding hours means that only people who love teaching children will become teachers. While there are some teachers who are teaching because they love children, the reality is that the lack of competitive pay has generated a lack of competition for the job, and a resulting lack of competition for getting into teaching programs, and a resulting lack of quality in some of the people who are accepted into them, some of whom only applied to a teaching program because they were rejected from all of their first-choice programs. I've seen it happen. I don't know how often it happens, but I know that it does.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Doktor Howl on February 16, 2015, 12:56:57 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 16, 2015, 12:11:46 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 15, 2015, 11:45:23 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 15, 2015, 05:05:45 PM
In third grade a bitter old woman named Hansen became my math teacher. Noting that I was both gifted and disruptive she assigned me EXTREME amounts of extra rote arithmetic homework and talked my trusting parents into letting her do it. Said it would make me even better at math and of course teacher knows best right? All the same basic functions. No new math to be had, just a desperately busy and quiet boy. My folks eventually figured out what she had done, but by then I had already come to hate it and had taken a few punitive licks from my misguided father for my complaints and 'laziness'. This greatly reinforced the negative association about homework and math in particular I was developing.

In high school I remember a detention teacher tried to buy time one day with the old "add all the integers from 1 through 100" trick. 5,050 derived by 101*50. I let bastard sit down before I asked him (I think teach was male) to please come check my answer. He said I was wrong and to do it again. He was either an idiot or presumed I was, probably both.  I told everyone the answer. I somewhat remember getting in trouble for this and being sent home. I was probably already in detention for truancy anyway, but it could have been for 'student conflict'.

That evil bitch Hansen simultaneously sharpened my talent and ensured my hate of it's use. Public school is freaking diabolical.

Third grade was the same year I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and both lost faith in movie monsters and realized I had trouble fitting in because I was like the creature that thought and felt and was not a real threat to people but was also not one of them because I had been made different. I was not yet bitter enough to hate God over it, just hurting from all sorts of things, and wondering why the movies made the creature out to be a dangerous dullard.

After I attempted suicide halfway through fourth grade and my parents got me on antidepressants and put me in a Christianazi private 'Christian' school I began to hate God.

I had a teacher in 4th grade, Mrs Conway.  All the parents loved her.  Aged teacher, loads of experience, grandmotherly look.

When the parents weren't around she was a sadist that took particular pleasure in humiliating 4th grade kids.  I did a little jig 20 years ago, when I discovered she had died.

There are far too many of those.

People who for some reason, somehow, get some kind of sense of power and validation out of making children feel small and powerless. Which is particularly pathetic considering that children ARE small and powerless.

There's this myth that low pay for demanding hours means that only people who love teaching children will become teachers. While there are some teachers who are teaching because they love children, the reality is that the lack of competitive pay has generated a lack of competition for the job, and a resulting lack of competition for getting into teaching programs, and a resulting lack of quality in some of the people who are accepted into them, some of whom only applied to a teaching program because they were rejected from all of their first-choice programs. I've seen it happen. I don't know how often it happens, but I know that it does.

This was back in 77/78, but yeah.

And I was just perceptive enough to know that I would never be believed.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 16, 2015, 04:19:03 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 15, 2015, 11:45:23 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 15, 2015, 05:05:45 PM
In third grade a bitter old woman named Hansen became my math teacher. Noting that I was both gifted and disruptive she assigned me EXTREME amounts of extra rote arithmetic homework and talked my trusting parents into letting her do it. Said it would make me even better at math and of course teacher knows best right? All the same basic functions. No new math to be had, just a desperately busy and quiet boy. My folks eventually figured out what she had done, but by then I had already come to hate it and had taken a few punitive licks from my misguided father for my complaints and 'laziness'. This greatly reinforced the negative association about homework and math in particular I was developing.

In high school I remember a detention teacher tried to buy time one day with the old "add all the integers from 1 through 100" trick. 5,050 derived by 101*50. I let bastard sit down before I asked him (I think teach was male) to please come check my answer. He said I was wrong and to do it again. He was either an idiot or presumed I was, probably both.  I told everyone the answer. I somewhat remember getting in trouble for this and being sent home. I was probably already in detention for truancy anyway, but it could have been for 'student conflict'.

That evil bitch Hansen simultaneously sharpened my talent and ensured my hate of it's use. Public school is freaking diabolical.

Third grade was the same year I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and both lost faith in movie monsters and realized I had trouble fitting in because I was like the creature that thought and felt and was not a real threat to people but was also not one of them because I had been made different. I was not yet bitter enough to hate God over it, just hurting from all sorts of things, and wondering why the movies made the creature out to be a dangerous dullard.

After I attempted suicide halfway through fourth grade and my parents got me on antidepressants and put me in a Christianazi private 'Christian' school I began to hate God.

I had a teacher in 4th grade, Mrs Conway.  All the parents loved her.  Aged teacher, loads of experience, grandmotherly look.

When the parents weren't around she was a sadist that took particular pleasure in humiliating 4th grade kids.  I did a little jig 20 years ago, when I discovered she had died.

I don't have confirmation on her demise, but she was similar to what you described. More of a 'tough but fair' reputational veneer over a spirit more dried out than her then probably mid 70s shamble of flesh. Like goiter sized neck folds that made her look like an evil turkey. In some twisted sense I think she justified her cruelty as actually good teaching, bought her own hype maybe and 'it ain't done right anymore' attitude. Just picking at the memory to describe her has me physiologically responding with tension and short breaths.

Quote from:  Mister NigelThere are far too many of those.

People who for some reason, somehow, get some kind of sense of power and validation out of making children feel small and powerless. Which is particularly pathetic considering that children ARE small and powerless.

There's this myth that low pay for demanding hours means that only people who love teaching children will become teachers. While there are some teachers who are teaching because they love children, the reality is that the lack of competitive pay has generated a lack of competition for the job, and a resulting lack of competition for getting into teaching programs, and a resulting lack of quality in some of the people who are accepted into them, some of whom only applied to a teaching program because they were rejected from all of their first-choice programs. I've seen it happen. I don't know how often it happens, but I know that it does.   

The school was called Red Apple Elementary. It was public but prestigious for what my hometown had available. The sort competitive parents would spend a night in to ensure a place in registration. The school apparently had a tradition of this. They did have some marvelous teachers and I got a very good education for an American public school before I crashed from violence, stress, and a growing sense that the world was horribly WRONG.

LOL! I remember very good one named Gutenberg of all things, 2nd grade maybe and English teacher for sure, who ironically taught me to write in print. Cursive was the domain of the third grade elite.

I definitely ran into the LCD sort of teachers you describe later in junior high and highschool. The stint in the private Jesus camp was the beginning of a fall from grace in a bunch of ways for me but from the rest of 4th grade through 5th I got a REALLY good education in terms of learning skills but it was filled with bloatware of the worst nose-in-air elitism and head-in-arse faith I've ever seen to this day as I can recall ATM. Lots of the kids were from rich families and mine was lower middle class with three kids and lots of medical bills, no small number mine.

The rich kids hated me and feared me. Smarter. Funnier when in an OK mood. Much bigger and some few mean little bitch boys discovered MUCH stronger.  I was by this time suffering bad childhood obesity and a special acne God reserved in a little jar next to the grapes of wrath for the Italian-Irish.

It wasn't all bad. Several kids from my childhood church went there and my brothers also got pulled and sent to keep us together. Dad has been almost miraculously successful in making us stick together. More on that later.

Half way through 6th grade my folks were asked to withdraw me. Too disruptive again I guess.

Must have been the apple
I threw one day
or the way kids all spoke
behind my back.

They said hit the road please.
Thanks for the memories.

And you jerks can go hang with your Lord.
Maybe He'll forgive you for me.
But that's historically
a 50\50 bet.

Not just a reply to your posts guys but a bit of story progression too. When I post here again soon I'll bring it back to my current experience here as relates to PD.

And to be clear I love the tiny bit I know of historical Jesus and most things I 'know' of 'biblical' Jesus. Will even go so far as to say centuries of prophecy were fulfilled by chance or design in his life and by his obedient and willful sacrifice

Quote
Way ahead of you guys! Let me just get that for you.  This is not sarcasm. I have my doubts holstered but I can play devil's advocate for either team.
:jebus:
:cn:

BUT apocryphal Jesus is where they really hid the bodies ontologically.  :fnord:

And these fucknozzles worship
*ahem*

Big Papa Boom Boom,
Skyking of the Uberflock,
and Giver of Unlimited Easy
Plastic Jesus.

A quite recent and horrifically parasitic lloigor that feeds on pride, greed, and stupidity.

Label says it's the real thing. Religious institutions are not subject to false advertising suits. I'm not saying there's a connection but the dots are right next to each other as some say.

Then there's real Jesus. His name was Joshua and his peeps called him the Logos way before logos were even a thing.  8)  I believe that the Hebrew brand name was Yeshua. Be careful of brethren that call him this though, some of em are totally nuts.

And the rest are merely kind of nuts  :)
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 17, 2015, 10:05:59 PM
My youngest had a very, very, very good 5th grade teacher. One of the few. She and her classmates talk about him with great fondness and regret that he is no longer at their school, because he inspired them to want to work hard and do well.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Cainad (dec.) on February 17, 2015, 11:07:42 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on October 22, 2014, 08:56:24 PM

I spent all the time I could playing with the paint program (Macpaint) and playing what games I could find. I remember Dark Castle particularly well. My brothers were also fascinated, especially by the games, but had been deemed too young to touch it by Mom Inc. This did not exactly stop them.

Macpaint and Dark Castle were the bomb-diggity. Sometimes the color would stop working on the Mac I had but the programs still worked.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 18, 2015, 02:15:57 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 17, 2015, 10:05:59 PM
My youngest had a very, very, very good 5th grade teacher. One of the few. She and her classmates talk about him with great fondness and regret that he is no longer at their school, because he inspired them to want to work hard and do well.

Some of the few classes that I actually did homework in were out of respect for a teacher that either called me out on my shitty attitude or earned my respect by otherwise giving a shit. I wasn't many. I'm really glad your daughter has had at least one good one so far, and yeah they don't tend to last long.

The one I remember best was a science teacher named Dilly.  If you slept in his class he'd quietly walk over to a lab table, pull a support rod, drop it next to your desk to wake you and ask a question relevant to what he was teaching that day.

We bonded when I answered and promised to stop napping. He was good shit.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 18, 2015, 02:19:51 AM
Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on February 17, 2015, 11:07:42 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on October 22, 2014, 08:56:24 PM

I spent all the time I could playing with the paint program (Macpaint) and playing what games I could find. I remember Dark Castle particularly well. My brothers were also fascinated, especially by the games, but had been deemed too young to touch it by Mom Inc. This did not exactly stop them.

Macpaint and Dark Castle were the bomb-diggity. Sometimes the color would stop working on the Mac I had but the programs still worked.

The first pc comp I got around 8th grade or freshmen year was a hand me down from an aunt. Monochrome amber screen, dos, Lotus books. I found games. The thing was magic to me!
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: axod on February 18, 2015, 02:41:26 AM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 18, 2015, 02:15:57 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 17, 2015, 10:05:59 PM
My youngest had a very, very, very good 5th grade teacher. One of the few. She and her classmates talk about him with great fondness and regret that he is no longer at their school, because he inspired them to want to work hard and do well.

Some of the few classes that I actually did homework in were out of respect for a teacher that either called me out on my shitty attitude or earned my respect by otherwise giving a shit. I wasn't many. I'm really glad your daughter has had at least one good one so far, and yeah they don't tend to last long.

The one I remember best was a science teacher named Dilly.  If you slept in his class he'd quietly walk over to a lab table, pull a support rod, drop it next to your desk to wake you and ask a question relevant to what he was teaching that day.

We bonded when I answered and promised to stop napping. He was good shit.

Just wanted to share how it was also due to some awesome science teachers that I eventually started engaging my education, round about 9th grade.  Made all the difference for me.  I recoil at thinking about where I would still be now were it not for their interest and encouragement.  And I still relish the moment I got them to admit that they were, like me, ultimately unaware of the fundemental nature and workings of "reality".
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 18, 2015, 03:36:16 PM
Quote from: axod on February 18, 2015, 02:41:26 AM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 18, 2015, 02:15:57 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 17, 2015, 10:05:59 PM
My youngest had a very, very, very good 5th grade teacher. One of the few. She and her classmates talk about him with great fondness and regret that he is no longer at their school, because he inspired them to want to work hard and do well.

Some of the few classes that I actually did homework in were out of respect for a teacher that either called me out on my shitty attitude or earned my respect by otherwise giving a shit. I wasn't many. I'm really glad your daughter has had at least one good one so far, and yeah they don't tend to last long.

The one I remember best was a science teacher named Dilly.  If you slept in his class he'd quietly walk over to a lab table, pull a support rod, drop it next to your desk to wake you and ask a question relevant to what he was teaching that day.

We bonded when I answered and promised to stop napping. He was good shit.

Just wanted to share how it was also due to some awesome science teachers that I eventually started engaging my education, round about 9th grade.  Made all the difference for me.  I recoil at thinking about where I would still be now were it not for their interest and encouragement.  And I still relish the moment I got them to admit that they were, like me, ultimately unaware of the fundemental nature and workings of "reality".

If anything Mr. Dilly showed me how little I really knew. Not just about science but about how normal people SEE reality in a social and personal context. Helped me understand science and the art of living. And part of my rationale for continuing to. I can earnestly say I doubt I really taught him much or brought him to doubt reason, but he already understood that the thing was a construct. So is a microscope. You use a microscope for microscoping not to listen to a Symphony or fix a broken heart. Same with reason, you can get by without it but it lets you see what you otherwise will surely miss and THAT helps you live.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: axod on February 19, 2015, 08:51:50 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 18, 2015, 03:36:16 PM
Quote from: axod on February 18, 2015, 02:41:26 AM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 18, 2015, 02:15:57 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 17, 2015, 10:05:59 PM
My youngest had a very, very, very good 5th grade teacher. One of the few. She and her classmates talk about him with great fondness and regret that he is no longer at their school, because he inspired them to want to work hard and do well.

Some of the few classes that I actually did homework in were out of respect for a teacher that either called me out on my shitty attitude or earned my respect by otherwise giving a shit. I wasn't many. I'm really glad your daughter has had at least one good one so far, and yeah they don't tend to last long.

The one I remember best was a science teacher named Dilly.  If you slept in his class he'd quietly walk over to a lab table, pull a support rod, drop it next to your desk to wake you and ask a question relevant to what he was teaching that day.

We bonded when I answered and promised to stop napping. He was good shit.

Just wanted to share how it was also due to some awesome science teachers that I eventually started engaging my education, round about 9th grade.  Made all the difference for me.  I recoil at thinking about where I would still be now were it not for their interest and encouragement.  And I still relish the moment I got them to admit that they were, like me, ultimately unaware of the fundemental nature and workings of "reality".

If anything Mr. Dilly showed me how little I really knew. Not just about science but about how normal people SEE reality in a social and personal context. Helped me understand science and the art of living. And part of my rationale for continuing to. I can earnestly say I doubt I really taught him much or brought him to doubt reason, but he already understood that the thing was a construct. So is a microscope. You use a microscope for microscoping not to listen to a Symphony or fix a broken heart. Same with reason, you can get by without it but it lets you see what you otherwise will surely miss and THAT helps you live.
My Mr. Dilly helped me set-up SLIP for Spry's Mosaic and only professed knowledge of answers to the extent nescesary for my sustained interest in education, with skillfull means.  That, and he banged all the hot moms and grew pot at home.  So much cooler :p
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Johannes on February 20, 2015, 01:07:14 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on October 06, 2014, 04:02:10 PM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 06, 2014, 03:56:34 PM
Quote from: Your Mom on October 06, 2014, 12:59:28 AM
Quote from: a somewhat wiser Joe. on October 05, 2014, 10:08:24 AM

I sincerely believe this thing some call Discordia has a very long way to go yet.

It has a lot in common with Systems Science, it seems.

Not sure what that is. Will look into it. Is it a form of information science?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_science

Hello,

Any recommended links or books regarding the subject?



J
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: LMNO on February 20, 2015, 01:12:09 PM
Per some of Nigel's recommendations, I'm currently reading "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows, and after that, I'll be reading "Leadership and the New Science" by Margaret Wheatley.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Johannes on February 20, 2015, 01:31:14 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on February 20, 2015, 01:12:09 PM
Per some of Nigel's recommendations, I'm currently reading "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows, and after that, I'll be reading "Leadership and the New Science" by Margaret Wheatley.

Thank you very much.  8)
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 20, 2015, 03:04:13 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on February 20, 2015, 01:12:09 PM
Per some of Nigel's recommendations, I'm currently reading "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows, and after that, I'll be reading "Leadership and the New Science" by Margaret Wheatley.

Oooooh I'm glad you're reading those! They seemed up your alley.  :)
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 20, 2015, 03:05:55 PM
For the record, the entire field of Ecology arose from Systems Science. I didn't know that until I took that Systems Science class last  term.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 20, 2015, 03:31:18 PM
Funny you guys should bring up the systems science again. Was just thinking about investigating it more thoroughly last night. Maybe even taking it up if I really feel it's right. We shall see. I WILL get a higher education, but the subjects I take up I'm not clear on just yet. I might go for technical school on media production.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 21, 2015, 03:33:27 AM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 20, 2015, 03:31:18 PM
Funny you guys should bring up the systems science again. Was just thinking about investigating it more thoroughly last night. Maybe even taking it up if I really feel it's right. We shall see. I WILL get a higher education, but the subjects I take up I'm not clear on just yet. I might go for technical school on media production.

Best way  to figure out what subject to study in college is to start college and take a bunch of classes.

Seriously, it really is.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Demolition Squid on February 21, 2015, 11:05:48 AM
You can't do that in the UK unfortunately. (Are you UK, Joe? For some reason I got it in my head you are...)

ETA: Or I could reread the OP and not be a dork. I blame sleep deprivation. Yes! Nigel's advice sounds very sound to me.  :oops:
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 21, 2015, 04:26:20 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 21, 2015, 03:33:27 AM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 20, 2015, 03:31:18 PM
Funny you guys should bring up the systems science again. Was just thinking about investigating it more thoroughly last night. Maybe even taking it up if I really feel it's right. We shall see. I WILL get a higher education, but the subjects I take up I'm not clear on just yet. I might go for technical school on media production.

Best way  to figure out what subject to study in college is to start college and take a bunch of classes.

Seriously, it really is.

Well jumping in with no real plan as such has worked out for me so far. :)

Think you're correct. Might be best to start getting the leg work in for general admission.  UWLaX and a Tec school are each like a mile away.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 21, 2015, 04:32:40 PM
Quote from: Demolition Squid on February 21, 2015, 11:05:48 AM
You can't do that in the UK unfortunately. (Are you UK, Joe? For some reason I got it in my head you are...)

ETA: Or I could reread the OP and not be a dork. I blame sleep deprivation. Yes! Nigel's advice sounds very sound to me.  :oops:

I'll take it as complimentary to my English skillz that you would believe this without other info. :)

I'm a Midwestern American born and raised in Wisconsin. Also probably have the potential to be a polyglot, but never have buckled down to fluency in anything but English and it's various American dialects. Cheers!
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 02:31:01 AM
Quote from: Demolition Squid on February 21, 2015, 11:05:48 AM
You can't do that in the UK unfortunately. (Are you UK, Joe? For some reason I got it in my head you are...)

ETA: Or I could reread the OP and not be a dork. I blame sleep deprivation. Yes! Nigel's advice sounds very sound to me.  :oops:

You guys don't have any flexibility the first two years? That's only the second thing I've ever heard about the UK college system that isn't superior to the US college system.

Here, the undergraduate electives are such that you can take a fairly wide variety of classes before choosing a major.

Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: axod on February 22, 2015, 05:08:09 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 02:31:01 AM
Quote from: Demolition Squid on February 21, 2015, 11:05:48 AM
You can't do that in the UK unfortunately. (Are you UK, Joe? For some reason I got it in my head you are...)

ETA: Or I could reread the OP and not be a dork. I blame sleep deprivation. Yes! Nigel's advice sounds very sound to me.  :oops:

You guys don't have any flexibility the first two years? That's only the second thing I've ever heard about the UK college system that isn't superior to the US college system.

Here, the undergraduate electives are such that you can take a fairly wide variety of classes before choosing a major.

The British system pushes specialization starting in high-school.  First two years you got 4 out of eight classes being elective 'GCSE's'.  The last two years are "A-levels", typically divided into six classes, three higher level and three lower.  All of them are ellective however only the top-three higher-level courses really matter; the lower level classes being considered remedial- to give the impression of a round curriculum.  In order to be competitive, students need their three higher A-levels to complement what they intend to study at uni, essentially having to decide your entire future at 16 years of age.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 05:31:40 AM
Quote from: axod on February 22, 2015, 05:08:09 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 02:31:01 AM
Quote from: Demolition Squid on February 21, 2015, 11:05:48 AM
You can't do that in the UK unfortunately. (Are you UK, Joe? For some reason I got it in my head you are...)

ETA: Or I could reread the OP and not be a dork. I blame sleep deprivation. Yes! Nigel's advice sounds very sound to me.  :oops:

You guys don't have any flexibility the first two years? That's only the second thing I've ever heard about the UK college system that isn't superior to the US college system.

Here, the undergraduate electives are such that you can take a fairly wide variety of classes before choosing a major.

The British system pushes specialization starting in high-school.  First two years you got 4 out of eight classes being elective 'GCSE's'.  The last two years are "A-levels", typically divided into six classes, three higher level and three lower.  All of them are ellective however only the top-three higher-level courses really matter; the lower level classes being considered remedial- to give the impression of a round curriculum.  In order to be competitive, students need their three higher A-levels to complement what they intend to study at uni, essentially having to decide your entire future at 16 years of age.

That's horrible.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Demolition Squid on February 22, 2015, 06:52:20 AM
Nope. You can take a few things directly related to your primary subject in the first year, but you can't take a lot of them and you might not be able to switch over if you decide that's what you want to focus on instead.

I did intro to media studies and intro to sociology in my first year but if I'd decided I wanted to focus on them instead of political science in the second/third I'd have needed to make my case to the university. A friend of mine went in to study Oriental Culture and wanted to swap over to a pure Japanese language degree after the first year - he was denied because... well, I'm not sure they actually gave him a reason.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 03:10:52 PM
Here, because AMERICA!, your freedom is essentially restricted only by your ability to pay for school and how long you want to be in it. Which is, granted, horrifyingly prohibitive in itself for a great many people, and is also why when people are like "you should really take X or Y elective because enrichment" I'm like LOL.

But within those restrictions, at least here in Oregon (it varies from state to state), the core degree requirements have a broad enough scope that every student not only can but is required to take a broad variety in classes in the first two years, and it kind of doesn't make that much difference what they settle on for a major until the third year. It really helps to know by the second year so you can be taking foundational classes, but if you change at the beginning of the third year it's not that big of a deal. And you can still switch in your fourth year but at that point it might take you longer to graduate, depending what you switch to. Totally up to the student though. You might run out of financial aid assistance (technically my scholarship funders don't extend the scholarship to cover double majors, but I have good reason to think they will in my case) but the school isn't going to stop you.

In my first two years, I took sociology, anthropology, math, psychology, art, philosophy, writing, health, biology, chemistry, and geology classes. All of them applied to my core degree requirements, and it was a broad enough taste of available options to help me settle on a major I really love. Although the financial support system for students here in the States SUCKS DONKEY BALLS, the system itself provides a very diverse foundational breadth of knowledge that avoids streamlining students onto tracks and allows them to seek their own strengths and interests.



Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 03:12:11 PM
Oh plus at my University you can design your own major, if none of the available majors really appeal to you. You just have to design a curriculum, present it to the University, and successfully defend it.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 22, 2015, 06:10:02 PM
Guess I just need to get my foot in the door and see where it leads me. Pretty much going to have to start at the bottom no matter what I want to ultimately do.

As a side note just for the lulz I'd love to major in some nonsense like 'Eldrich Humanities' and defend it before a panel.

:magick:  <-- I really love this little guy!
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Demolition Squid on February 22, 2015, 06:18:57 PM
That sounds fantastic, and is probably far more sensible than our system. There's limited flexibility, but you essentially have a list of approved modules you can pick from, and it can become a real hassle - as my poor friend discovered - ÂŁ9000 of debt already accrued and then he had to stick with a degree programme some of his professors knew he didn't want to do. He actually wound up dropping out of that university entirely and picking up again at a different one two years later, IIRC.

Admittedly, our financial support is awesome, even with the scarily large numbers attached (although I think they're also smaller than American numbers anyway?). My debt has risen to ÂŁ30,000 and interest is rising faster than the payments but... as it is taken automatically from my pay and will eventually run itself out with no penalty for not having paid it off, I don't feel it is a real pressure.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 07:23:28 PM
Wow, yeah, that sounds terrible on every front except financially. I mean, what if, like happened with my friend, someone thinks they want to be an art major until  they take a chemistry class, and find out they love it? Now she's a PhD malaria vaccine researcher. It seems like it would have been a real loss for everyone if she'd been forced to stay in art.

On the other hand, an undergraduate degree costs about $100k.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 22, 2015, 07:28:41 PM
I think that's the part I least like about the idea of going back to school. I don't want to accept placing myself in debt. It feels like asking for help that I don't actually need in order to learn.

Good news is I recognize that I DO need help to learn and that being a prideful jackass will only get one just so far in life. 
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 07:43:25 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 22, 2015, 07:28:41 PM
I think that's the part I least like about the idea of going back to school. I don't want to accept placing myself in debt. It feels like asking for help that I don't actually need in order to learn.

Good news is I recognize that I DO need help to learn and that being a prideful jackass will only get one just so far in life.

My one biggest tip is APPLY FOR EVERYTHING. Get really good at cranking out essays and apply for every scholarship, every internship, every inclusion program you can find. I have talked to so many people who are shy about applying for scholarships/programs because they think they should be spending that time studying. Don't. Make time for it. And volunteer for shit. Getting into one program makes it more likely that you'll get into others, so just keep at it. ALL that shit looks good on your CV and makes it more likely that you'll get into grad school later on, or get a good job, or whatever it is you want to do.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 22, 2015, 07:58:37 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 07:43:25 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 22, 2015, 07:28:41 PM
I think that's the part I least like about the idea of going back to school. I don't want to accept placing myself in debt. It feels like asking for help that I don't actually need in order to learn.

Good news is I recognize that I DO need help to learn and that being a prideful jackass will only get one just so far in life.

My one biggest tip is APPLY FOR EVERYTHING. Get really good at cranking out essays and apply for every scholarship, every internship, every inclusion program you can find. I have talked to so many people who are shy about applying for scholarships/programs because they think they should be spending that time studying. Don't. Make time for it. And volunteer for shit. Getting into one program makes it more likely that you'll get into others, so just keep at it. ALL that shit looks good on your CV and makes it more likely that you'll get into grad school later on, or get a good job, or whatever it is you want to do.

Like really digging into the system huh? That sounds like the hardest thing to do ever, so I'm game! Should start cultivating some contacts in the school systems here and see what directions my friends may be able to point me in.

I've spent the last three years just getting dug into LaCrosse and focusing on my work and social life. I want a higher education for it's intrinsic value as a buff to my competency, but also must pay in lifestyle changes as much as any financial concerns.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 08:15:19 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 22, 2015, 07:58:37 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 07:43:25 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 22, 2015, 07:28:41 PM
I think that's the part I least like about the idea of going back to school. I don't want to accept placing myself in debt. It feels like asking for help that I don't actually need in order to learn.

Good news is I recognize that I DO need help to learn and that being a prideful jackass will only get one just so far in life.

My one biggest tip is APPLY FOR EVERYTHING. Get really good at cranking out essays and apply for every scholarship, every internship, every inclusion program you can find. I have talked to so many people who are shy about applying for scholarships/programs because they think they should be spending that time studying. Don't. Make time for it. And volunteer for shit. Getting into one program makes it more likely that you'll get into others, so just keep at it. ALL that shit looks good on your CV and makes it more likely that you'll get into grad school later on, or get a good job, or whatever it is you want to do.

Like really digging into the system huh? That sounds like the hardest thing to do ever, so I'm game! Should start cultivating some contacts in the school systems here and see what directions my friends may be able to point me in.

I've spent the last three years just getting dug into LaCrosse and focusing on my work and social life. I want a higher education for it's intrinsic value as a buff to my competency, but also must pay in lifestyle changes as much as any financial concerns.

Yep.

The people I know who couldn't get jobs after graduation are the people who just went through school taking classes, and didn't engage in extracurriculars, internships, volunteering, networking, etc.

Plus, say you apply for some little program where you work on a jobsite part time over the summer. Other programs will see that as proof that you are motivated and engaged, and are more likely to offer you funding/other opportunities. For me, a small summer internship program that didn't even place me in my field of study has led to being sent to conferences, a full-ride scholarship, acceptance to the University Honors College, two weeks in Borneo, two weeks in Peru, (all of which someone else is paying for) and a volunteer spot in a neuroimaging lab that probably won't be volunteer for long because I now have two different lines on grants to fund me.

A lot of people I know were like "nah I don't have time for that" when I tried to talk them into doing that rinkydink little community college internship program. The people I did it with, though... it opened doors for all of us, bigtime. Being in the right place at the right time to hear about it was luck, but actually pursuing it is the part that makes future financial supporters go "hey, this one has initiative, let's fund her".
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 22, 2015, 08:51:50 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 08:15:19 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 22, 2015, 07:58:37 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 22, 2015, 07:43:25 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 22, 2015, 07:28:41 PM
I think that's the part I least like about the idea of going back to school. I don't want to accept placing myself in debt. It feels like asking for help that I don't actually need in order to learn.

Good news is I recognize that I DO need help to learn and that being a prideful jackass will only get one just so far in life.

My one biggest tip is APPLY FOR EVERYTHING. Get really good at cranking out essays and apply for every scholarship, every internship, every inclusion program you can find. I have talked to so many people who are shy about applying for scholarships/programs because they think they should be spending that time studying. Don't. Make time for it. And volunteer for shit. Getting into one program makes it more likely that you'll get into others, so just keep at it. ALL that shit looks good on your CV and makes it more likely that you'll get into grad school later on, or get a good job, or whatever it is you want to do.

Like really digging into the system huh? That sounds like the hardest thing to do ever, so I'm game! Should start cultivating some contacts in the school systems here and see what directions my friends may be able to point me in.

I've spent the last three years just getting dug into LaCrosse and focusing on my work and social life. I want a higher education for it's intrinsic value as a buff to my competency, but also must pay in lifestyle changes as much as any financial concerns.

Yep.

The people I know who couldn't get jobs after graduation are the people who just went through school taking classes, and didn't engage in extracurriculars, internships, volunteering, networking, etc.

Plus, say you apply for some little program where you work on a jobsite part time over the summer. Other programs will see that as proof that you are motivated and engaged, and are more likely to offer you funding/other opportunities. For me, a small summer internship program that didn't even place me in my field of study has led to being sent to conferences, a full-ride scholarship, acceptance to the University Honors College, two weeks in Borneo, two weeks in Peru, (all of which someone else is paying for) and a volunteer spot in a neuroimaging lab that probably won't be volunteer for long because I now have two different lines on grants to fund me.

A lot of people I know were like "nah I don't have time for that" when I tried to talk them into doing that rinkydink little community college internship program. The people I did it with, though... it opened doors for all of us, bigtime. Being in the right place at the right time to hear about it was luck, but actually pursuing it is the part that makes future financial supporters go "hey, this one has initiative, let's fund her".

This is all great to hear and I'm very glad fortune has brought you such excellent things!  To me the concept of fortune differs from luck in that any old fool can get lucky here and there, but fortune is the compound effect of opportunity and one's character. When I wish someone good fortune I am essentially saying "I hope circumstances favor you" & "Do the best you're able" and prefer it greatly as a blessing over good old 'luck'.

Hearing that was encouraging Nigel. I really don't know what's behind all the doors I haven't opened yet.  :)
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Q. G. Pennyworth on February 22, 2015, 09:33:03 PM
Hey Wizard Joe: cursory googling implies that your sig is the only instance of that Ayn Rand comment out there. Is it yours and may I steal?
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on February 23, 2015, 01:07:12 PM
The one in my sig? Sure! Just made that one up to try and encapsulate the essence I got from the book in one sentence. If you have a use for it go ahead and thanks for asking.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on March 07, 2015, 04:09:45 PM
After some considerable time thinking on the reason why I'm sort of slow and not easily motivated to write I've hit on at least a major contributing factor.

I remember that the Christian school particularly liked to use the act as a punishment. Early punitive writing spoiled my perception and desire.

I'm not talking about something reasonable like a few verses from the Bible, say, 12 times each. Or a rational sentence explaining your wrongdoing in the first person maybe 50 times. Those to me seem harsh but not unreasonable as a reinforcement of concept.

These fuckers would assign hundreds of reps, on occasion paragraph length 'sentences'. One of my boyhood heroes was a guy about 5 years older than I that also went to my childhood church whom I shall call Gipster.  Gipster once was assigned about a 3/4 page sentence by our bus driver/'pastor'/administrative fucker. ANY teacher or administrative person person could assign such and failure to complete them in the time allowed would result in a conference with the family about continuing on with the school.

Gipster accomplished the task and was assigned some hundreds more IIRC for not handing it to the bastard with a humble enough demeanor or some shit.
My memory is hazy here and I have no recollection of what had set the driver off.

I will if not balance at least give ballast to the above with the simple fact that the finest English teacher of my life helped me to gain skill with the grammar and spelling aspects of the language during the fifth grade that have held me in good fairly stead to this day.

I still love run-on sentences! She helped keep my love of reading alive as well. Her name was Ziebell. I owe her one, and you now know who to blame as I Englishize.

Englate? Anglicize? Try Englation?

There's more, but I'm going to work on better things for a bit.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on September 09, 2015, 09:36:26 PM
I have an awful tendency to divert myself from expression to  introspection. There was a time in my life when I used to constantly berate myself for laziness. I've come to understand that it has more to do with fear and long established behavioral trends. When I agree to do something, like working or assisting somebody that asks me to, I put just about everything I can into it. This often results in notable success because I am actually very hard working and very far from untalented. The problem seems to lie in my unwillingness to commit myself to a course of action when I'm the only one I'd disappoint. It seems like maybe I distrust myself. My mood disorder plays a role there, but I also do not well trust my judgment.

There's a quote from Full Metal Jacket that comes to mind.
"SIR, I have realized that whatever decision I make will be the wrong one, and so I have decided to stick to my guns SIR!"
And then the character gets promoted, but that's just a movie. I'm not in training for anything.

I'm well able to conjure that mentality when the situation calls for it. In an emergency I am freakishly fast acting and even more swift of thought, but when I am in stillness and alone I seem to just barely be able to take care of myself and seek passive diversion or literally just sit and stare, for hours sometimes, at whatever is passing through my head and heart at the moment. The more extreme my mood (up or down) the more likely I am to do this until some duty or another calls or a person disrupts me. The only thing that seems to change is the nature of the crazy show in my head.

There's a part of me that even now wants to run screaming from PD, my friends, acquaintances, and groups on FB, and even Internet (or any) news outlets. It's a massive urge to stick my head in the ground and a long recognized and hard-fought enemy. I'm not sure I'm "winning", but I haven't given up. What makes this enemy powerful is that "I know" how shitty things are and that they WILL get much more shitty over time, not less, before there's even a hope of getting better.

The good news is that I also know that I don't really know that and recognize all too well the very real danger of choosing a comfortable denial over the "truth" I think I know. The latter is treatable.  I might learn something true that overthrows my ideas about reality or at least helps me fight better. The former is equivalent to choosing NOT to ever get better. In effect it puts me in hospice before I'm even really dying.

I may be
Many things,
But refuse
To pretend
That I'm done
Because I'm
Not Dead Yet.

So fuck it.
I'll go on.





Edit because capitalisation matters
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Q. G. Pennyworth on September 09, 2015, 09:45:33 PM
NOT DEAD YET
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on September 09, 2015, 11:09:23 PM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on September 09, 2015, 09:45:33 PM
NOT DEAD YET

And not going to go willingly or gently!
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: LMNO on September 10, 2015, 02:04:45 PM
(http://38.media.tumblr.com/6a1a0e078d76c7c9cf0d0d5dda69448e/tumblr_nru7cyUuRS1tit364o10_400.gif)
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 11, 2015, 06:49:16 PM
Quote from: LMNO on September 10, 2015, 02:04:45 PM
(http://38.media.tumblr.com/6a1a0e078d76c7c9cf0d0d5dda69448e/tumblr_nru7cyUuRS1tit364o10_400.gif)

:lulz:
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 11, 2015, 06:53:00 PM
So the whole thing about me being a "wizard" goes way back to my childhood. I remember the first moment that the idea stuck. I was in the kid's fiction section of the local library around the time I was in 3rd grade I think. By this age I was reading extremely well indeed. I had a strong grasp, if somewhat outsized and childlike perspective, of various mythologies. My favorites were Bible, Greek, and what were then to me  various, undifferentiated "tribal" fables.

I stood at the end of a row and asked God what He thought I might like to read next. I don't know where I got the idea, but I just closed my eyes and set my finger on the shelf and started walking until my finger seemed to catch. I pulled the book and discovered that it's title was "So You Want To Be A Wizard", a fiction with a title that played off of a popular occupational series. I haven't read it in ages, and it's not like the story forever changed my world, but it WAS the first time I got the idea in my head. I had very little idea of what a wizard was, just Merlin from the Disney movie. I didn't get to read the Hobbit & LOTR until well into public middle school, after my eventual expulsion from the Jesusnazi school.

Part of understanding me is understanding that the environment I grew up in was thoroughly and well, but of course not perfectly or totally, controlled by my parents until early into my freshman year of high school. I wasn't allowed to watch He-Man or anything that was otherwise "satanic". I got to play video games, NES was my first, but the game choices were strictly subject to approval. I grew up on the choices of classical, Christian proto-pop, and Weird Al for musical exposure. I guess my parents figured that parody was ok, suckerz!! :)

Dungeons & Dragons was THE DEVIL. Anything magical or even just extremely weird or ugly was THE DEVIL. I remember once having an aunt tell me and my brothers that some "Alien" xenomorph toy figurines that we had purchased with money given to buy toys had to go back because "Demons hide in ugly things". For real.

Eventually my parents totally succumbed to the incessant push back from the 3 of us, but this was not until well after we had all grown up enough to realize that ignoring the rule and doing what we want anyway worked quite well as long as we kept it to ourselves as much as possible. We became a highly coordinated 3 little-wiseguy Mafia. I'm sure that this unification was part of my dad's intent in how he raised us, and it definitely worked, but I can't condone his methods.

As oldest I was both enforcer and usually face man in dealing with our parents. If someone wanted to sneak out to the living room early on a Sat morning to watch forbidden cartoons, we all usually did. Acting as a bloc didn't save our bacon very often, but punishing 3 kids at 5:30am over and over is MUCH more tiring than just 1 at a time, and we were persistent little shits to be sure. My parents finally stopped even pretending to be able to enforce their cultural bans right around when I hit 8th grade, but let us just say I missed out on most of MTv.

I really was fascinated by D&D, storytelling, and the concept of the RPG as soon as I was exposed to them. I got into "choose your own adventure" books after I discovered that my folks didn't care as long as it wasn't an obviously "magical" story. Eventually I discovered GURPS, the Generic Universal Role Playing System, by SJ Games. It was just normal seeming enough to get past my parents once I pointed out that the "magic" systems were totally optional and that it was designed to do a historical or sci fi story as well as any other. It was a great starting system to learn storytelling from as it turned out.

Just some random musings and recollections to get me back into the swing of updating this thread. Hope to get up the guts to talk about more meaningful stuff soon, but for now I'm just going with whatever works to get my ass in gear and STAY THERE.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on September 30, 2016, 08:19:50 AM
Fuck it's been a year since I last wrote for this. Life's changed unbelievably since then. Going back over this has been an interesting experience as I try to re-order my thoughts some. This last year has been truly unbelievable, but I remain here. It's strange to think of a thing like this Discordia we are all here for as a supportive constant in one's life. Stranger still to find one day that it's a sane island paradise by comparison to the events unfolding worldwide and ALSO all too personally. Something told me not too long ago "2016 is just the tip", both in the sense of getting fucked and as a tipping point, also the tip of a deadly iceberg. Seems about right.

As for "what I'm doing on your lawn" these days... I feel like I'm an accepted resident in this sort of digital House of Eris now, looking out at the world as the world does EXACTLY what the writing all over the walls here indicates. The Beth Discordia clinic for the incurably lucid, an asylum from a world madder than I by far, it would seem, and this is truly saying something. Sometimes I scratch at the walls with the others. I occasionally wander the grounds. Mostly, lately, I watch the sky turn orange as the dawn and dusk are one and the same here, never touching daylight. I sometimes think it's the world burning... I'm not sure if that makes me crazy for thinking so or for ever thinking otherwise. Nero sang about Troy, you know. Fiddles weren't actually a thing back then, when Discordia was still a... notedly public force you could say. I shudder sometimes, still, at the feeling of her rough-hewn hand on my back. I think she's been shoulder-surfing me more than I know sometimes. But THIS piece of scratch is about me, and I just have to swallow my pills and get this out. She's got plenty of room to wander... I just have to let the pills settle in.. it's ok. It's just my turn to stand and speak in group-hour now.
Find a spot in the circle and listen, if you like.


My father is a strict disciplinarian raised by an even more strict pair of disciplinarian parents. My mother a narcissistic psycho that was most fond of using my father as her violence-proxy against us when we weren't up to her impossible, profoundly hypocritical, standards. This is my perspective now as an adult after much healing and better knowledge as such. To say this was all that they were would be very wrong. To say my father doesn't love me and my brothers would be wrong. Mom, so much as she's able to actually love, also did, but her delusional image of herself as "a good mother", among others, was the only thing that was really important to her, not anything else. She'd play shocked and wounded PERFECTLY were she to be so accused in public, but in private she was a very different person, even more so in private with my pop, as it turned out. We don't talk anymore by my choice for both our sakes. After my parents went through a messy divorce I don't intend to detail here anytime soon her true colors were on display for everyone who knew her to see. She lives far from where I grew up now, and dad remains in the house he built with one of my brothers and my brother's fiancé. That house has many, many patched walls and other signs of 30 odd years of violent intra-family strife, and a love I only still hold for my father. He did the best he could for us, being who he is and just a man after all. I'll get to the part where I realized this eventually.

Dad taught us boys a simple philosophy about violence growing up. It might be summed up as, "Always be the one who walks away, no matter what that may take." By this he meant that needing to attack people was a sort of weakness, but if you had to fight commit totally to being the only one still walking if that's what's necessary. He was not a man given to violence, and certainly not criminality, and it wasn't a glorious thing to him. He raised us in this perspective from a very young age indeed while in many ways preparing us to be very able as needed, and most importantly to have each other's backs as brothers, as family.
So much for that shit, but I'll get to that later.

By many folk's standards my dad would be called abusive because of his use of corporal punishment in discipline of his children. This is a matter of philosophy and perspective.  I would call him abusive for other reasons. When as little kids my brothers and or I did something against the rules set by my dad it COULD mean a very sound spanking after he sat you down and explained why, asked you if you understood, made sure, then informed you that it hurt him more than you and meant it by his eyes, and proceeded with a moderate hand to ass cheeks only. I have met many who were raised by sadists and criminals and true madmen. My father was not like them, but a man doing what he knew, the ONLY thing he knew from his own upbringing. That doesn't mean it was ok, just that I was fortunate to also be loved by at least one my abusers.

You see as we grew a bit older and found more and more ways to buck the system the punishments became harsher and fighting, verbally at great volume and physically at even greater volume, became standard by the time I was in junior high. As a child I had no idea how much influence my mom had in this, but I still blame dad for letting her push him for her insane sense of control and then play the "good cop" so she could continue seeing herself as a good mother. Violence and anger became steadily more and more central to my life as a little fucking kid in gradeschool AND at home. Being bigger and smarter gets you picked on. Being known as the strongest scrapper in school, like it or not, makes you target number 1.

I was both, and it got really bad. I learned to make kids fear me even more, thinking this would get me peace, but it did exactly the opposite. I remember particularly well an incident not very long, I think, before I tried to hang myself with a jump rope in the detention corner stairs of the playground at school. I was quite literally mobbed by probably about a dozen kids throwing rocks and spitting on me as they cheered on some popular shit who's name I don't remember, and whose face I'll probably never forget ruining after I realized my younger brother was in the crowd throwing stones too. I wanted them all to see what a real monster was, since that's what I was to them, clearly. It was the first time I think I ever experienced berserk, psychotic rage, and would prove to be very far from the last time. Fuck, it was my very best friend for... too many years.

All of this because of my father's intention to raise us as he had been, and his inability, and later I think conscious refusal, to see past his love for my mother and see her for what she is, and what it was doing to us. At some point I think the cognitive dissonance caught up to him and he began to vent his anger on us as often as giving out structued "punishment", perhaps rightly deserved on occasion. She'd piss him off and turn him loose on us whenever she felt her "authority" was threatened, which was in fact quite frequent by the time I was getting into high school. But by then I was quite a bit bigger physically than dear old dad and mom and the game had changed entirely. My father was never, never had to be, a fighter in the way that I had learned to be and I think he sensed this in my eyes more than once going into high school. He began to lay off me as I got steadily meaner and developed a taste for the politics of violence widely available in high school.

I was never a part of any serious gang, but I was at least as feared as any pack of thugs from freshman year onwards. This is not me bragging, just the facts. I had learned that the threat of force is more effective than it's actual demonstration and that even those in "authority", like gangbangers and poorly paid hall monitors, not cops, feared the unknown of what someone MAY do more than any actual deed itself. Once the shit actually hits the fan everyone commits to their rolls, but if you can instill uncertainty in someone and leave them afraid of an unknown badness then they leave you fucking alone like "the crazy-whiteboy" should be. I had learned the value of coercion over force and took to it like a fish to water. I mostly used it to fuckoff in the computer lab and otherwise do as I pleased. The small hallway outside the lab was MY turf. The labrats and nerds were MY nerds. The lab teacher was quietly complicit in this so long as I kept the real wolves off "her kids" and maintained her deniability.

This I did very well. It was the state of things until my truancy record and GPA under 0.5 caught up with me about halfway through junior year and I was given the option by THE SYSTEM to fuckoff at a tech school instead, so I did. I didn't need to be terrible to do as I pleased there and it was rather refreshing, but I still gave no shits for my classwork and graduated with a full diploma a semester late by testing out entirety in December of 2K. By then I was quite a different person on several levels and not long after had a sort of final encounter with my dad that sealed my new perspective permanently. I'll tell that part then get this posted and some badly needed shut-eye, but there's a sort of spiritual turning point/mental breakdown in my life that preceeds this story that I'll dig into another time. For now it'll suffice to say I no longer blamed God as I previously had by the time this happened.

I was 18, and I had changed greatly, but my family life was as loud and violent as ever. One evening I heard the usual shouting, but this time it was unusually sharp. I instinctively knew dad was beyond reason by his voice, and heard the youngest, then about 15ish bolting down the hallway to his room at the end of the hall near mine. There was no way I was going to let this happen. I took up all of the doorway to his room before dad got to the hallway, my brother's terror was real and I expected dad to be furious, but he was out of his mind angry as he walked up and tried to push me aside, and failed. He shouted at me to move. I looked him dead in the eye and calmly said no. That did it.

For the first and last time in my life dad truly assaulted me in full rage and fury, beating on my chest as I soaked and dodged blows that could very easily have broken a less experienced combatant's ribs, face, and things, shouting for me to move over and over. Dad was a machine repairman and STRONG beyond what might seem likely in his arms and chest, but old and fat and NOT fighting so much as beating on an intractable obstacle. Time gets hazy when adrenaline gets involved, but I'd guess about a minute or so of this went by, an eternity in combat time. Not once did I strike back, just "chose full defense" as my maneuver round after round. Dad devolved into a blubbering wreck, still landing blows but faltering and shouting at ME to stop. I realized that he wasn't shouting at me at all. He didn't even know I was there anymore in a very real sense.  All in a horrible second I SAW the violence handed to him in his childhood, and generations before, pouring out of him AT me, but not finding anywhere to go but back into him.

Now, sweet Discordia, here's a secret I need out for myself. For a moment I was beyond tempted to kill him as a weak thing, unworthy. For a moment that without God, as I had come to understand God, would have gone uncontested. Had that moment come even a few months earlier I just might have. He finally wore down entirely and was forced to lean forward, rope-a-doped and off balance. I could have done it "accidentally" in self defense, easy as pie. Instead I turned on that part of myself that still hated him and killed that. It was the hardest thing I ever did do, but I had to choose or die. My choice from then on was to leave all violence and coercive behavior behind me as well as I could. The course that choice ultimately set me on brought me here one day.

There's more, shit about my brothers mostly, but I can only bleed just so much in one go.

I'll carry On,
as I can
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: P3nT4gR4m on September 30, 2016, 11:36:09 AM
That moment in a young boys life where it's made clear the balance of force has changed and a new father-son paradigm is in play. I remember it like it was yesterday. Often wonder what the fuck it must be like for kids who never got to experience it. Strength is not nurtured - it's forged. Every slap, every punch, every kick in the ribs. "You made a monster, daddy and from now on you watch your step or the fucker is going to eat you." :evil:
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Vanadium Gryllz on September 30, 2016, 12:06:54 PM
QuoteThe Beth Discordia clinic for the incurably lucid, an asylum from a world madder than I by far,

Cool sentence.

Interesting read, Joe. I feel like your writing skills have improved a lot in terms of sentence/paragraph structure recently. Keep it coming!  :)
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Junkenstein on September 30, 2016, 06:54:51 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 30, 2016, 11:36:09 AM
That moment in a young boys life where it's made clear the balance of force has changed and a new father-son paradigm is in play. I remember it like it was yesterday. Often wonder what the fuck it must be like for kids who never got to experience it. Strength is not nurtured - it's forged. Every slap, every punch, every kick in the ribs. "You made a monster, daddy and from now on you watch your step or the fucker is going to eat you." :evil:

I've been looking at a few of my scars lately and I've been pleasantly surprised about how I feel about most of them now. There's a few lessons in every one and said teachings have been pretty useful.

Joe, that was quite a read. Glad to see you picked the right path.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 01, 2016, 12:53:50 AM
Quote from: Xaz on September 30, 2016, 12:06:54 PM
QuoteThe Beth Discordia clinic for the incurably lucid, an asylum from a world madder than I by far,

Cool sentence.

Interesting read, Joe. I feel like your writing skills have improved a lot in terms of sentence/paragraph structure recently. Keep it coming!  :)

Thanks! I'll do my best. I'm still slow, but I'm steadily getting more comfortable with writing. Believe it or not that took more than 4 solid hours including several editorial passes to write.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 01, 2016, 01:13:24 AM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 30, 2016, 11:36:09 AM
That moment in a young boys life where it's made clear the balance of force has changed and a new father-son paradigm is in play. I remember it like it was yesterday. Often wonder what the fuck it must be like for kids who never got to experience it. Strength is not nurtured - it's forged. Every slap, every punch, every kick in the ribs. "You made a monster, daddy and from now on you watch your step or the fucker is going to eat you." :evil:

I've been confided in by LOTS of monsters raised by monsters. This reversal of power is never a truly strengthening moment, but exhilarating to be sure. The truth is that the ability to overpower violently is absolutely nothing compared to the ability to endure and understand, in life and actual combat. Many who cling to their rage never gain mastery of themselves and are weaker for it in every way, but they almost never see it that way. They can't! They fought SO HARD for that reversal. IT HAS TO have been worth it right? RIGHT!? But it wasn't. One day they always see this different, scarless strength in someone else. Sometimes the underlying damage never heals and everything "wholesome" is rejected because this subconscious reminder HURTS LIKE HELL for the rest of your life.

How'd it go for you P3nt?
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 01, 2016, 01:20:10 AM
Quote from: Junkenstein on September 30, 2016, 06:54:51 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 30, 2016, 11:36:09 AM
That moment in a young boys life where it's made clear the balance of force has changed and a new father-son paradigm is in play. I remember it like it was yesterday. Often wonder what the fuck it must be like for kids who never got to experience it. Strength is not nurtured - it's forged. Every slap, every punch, every kick in the ribs. "You made a monster, daddy and from now on you watch your step or the fucker is going to eat you." :evil:

I've been looking at a few of my scars lately and I've been pleasantly surprised about how I feel about most of them now. There's a few lessons in every one and said teachings have been pretty useful.

Joe, that was quite a read. Glad to see you picked the right path.

I'm glad too. I'm convinced that the choice made for me a path few get to walk out of that situation. I had also renounced all ties of authority from my parents on a spiritual level by that point. This a more meaningful act than most folks would likely believe on the face of it.

I'm really glad you found the read enjoyable! I'm working really hard on stretching my own scars and regaining my former potential.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: P3nT4gR4m on October 04, 2016, 08:10:15 AM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on October 01, 2016, 01:13:24 AM
How'd it go for you P3nt?

It's been interesting. Gave me a good solid place to start from. An attitude that can laugh off most hurdles and a desire to push this monkey as far as it'll go. That might have come later, tho, after the depression and anxiety and bipolar and all that shit that had to be purged and stripped out. That shit was an adventure in itself. No regrets.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 05, 2016, 02:07:15 AM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on October 04, 2016, 08:10:15 AM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on October 01, 2016, 01:13:24 AM
How'd it go for you P3nt?

It's been interesting. Gave me a good solid place to start from. An attitude that can laugh off most hurdles and a desire to push this monkey as far as it'll go. That might have come later, tho, after the depression and anxiety and bipolar and all that shit that had to be purged and stripped out. That shit was an adventure in itself. No regrets.

Me neither, though I pay the toll daily. I've got to give Nietzsche credit where due on the "whatever doesn't kill you..." bit. See the ones that such reversals don't turn truly rotten, which isn't as common as one might think, often become the very much needed lesson in the life of some young punk about to implode on hate.

In the words of Q.G.
Herein used previously
WE'RE NOT DEAD YET!!
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: P3nT4gR4m on October 05, 2016, 02:48:54 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on October 05, 2016, 02:07:15 AMthe ones that such reversals don't turn truly rotten, which isn't as common as one might think

It's fucking hard. Why in the hell would anyone think a human accomplishing something hard was common? Most of the fuckers seem to have a bad enough time with the easy shit.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on October 05, 2016, 05:48:30 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on October 05, 2016, 02:48:54 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on October 05, 2016, 02:07:15 AMthe ones that such reversals don't turn truly rotten, which isn't as common as one might think

It's fucking hard. Why in the hell would anyone think a human accomplishing something hard was common? Most of the fuckers seem to have a bad enough time with the easy shit.

It's been my experience that a lot of folks sort of have a poor impression of what violence and it's consequences are like. It's a TV land mentality. Every one who ever had it rough goes "bad" and of course the fantastic "good guys" are always well and wholesome.

There is a detective drama called Luther on Netflix from the UK that takes a more realistic look at violently psychotic behavior and doesn't spare the protagonist from the very opening. They don't do it that way over here much.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on November 17, 2016, 01:17:52 PM
There's no rational way to express my feelings as I look at where we are now compared to the last time I wrote for this. For several reasons I will refrain from the attempt to at all do so here for the time being. What I now hope to write out is my personal needs and shortcomings as I see them. I'm trying to build myself up again, this time better than what I was made by circumstances of my birth and choices stemming through childhood. I'm trying most of all to dispell my complacency in both body and mind, my slovenly and often outright slothful habits of living, my impoverished educational and financial status, and in all ways to bring strength to myself where before I have been apathetic or even spiteful about life.

I have almost nothing really. My health is shit in body and mind right now. Even trying to write or meaningfully express here or in social media is upsetting, PAINFUL, and difficult, but I do it and will persist because I have to now. My conscience won't just let me walk away at this point. I don't know what else to do really. Slowly I'm going to have to understand that I don't have to do certain things that I do or in the ways that I have always done them. Somehow somehow I have to find a way more effective for myself than what I have attempted so far to date.

It's hard enough for me to do this, that is to say to write at all. Even as I attempt to use the voice software on my phone to do writing I find myself inhibited and annoyed by the frequency of the errors and the fact that it can't keep up with me in speech very well. I am going to keep trying later, but for now it's slowing my momentum more than helping.

In point of fact I'm kinda burnt from just trying to write this out. I keep stopping and staring at the screen unable to force myself to get what I hoped to out for now. It's been a couple hours of this just to get this out,  so I'm posting it as something at least as my roommates begin running around and fucking up my concentration through no fault of theirs.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on July 09, 2017, 06:56:07 AM
Once again it's been a long time since I last wrote for this thread. My world took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and now I admit I am pretty lost. My mental state is pretty shot. I haven't experienced a suicidal depression as strong as the one I'm not entirely unsuccessfully fighting off. I was attempting to reboot my life after having found myself living on my Dad's couch for a few months from the holidays through to tax time mostly unemployed and suppressing the already growing sense that death was preferable to what I was feeling day after day. My stubborn ass wouldn't ask for help or even acknowledge that there was a problem, and that there had been one for quite some time now. I let myself believe that getting back to where I had been and independent again would "fix" things. I was of course wrong.

I took my tax return and made arrangements to live in the rooms for rent above a dojo operated by a couple of close friends. The landlord is a horrible negligent dick. The place is infested with insects and mold. The dojo below it is not and they allow me to use their bathroom, wifi, and a fridge and microwave in the back office in exchange for doing the cleaning and performing other minor tasks as needed. I had gotten a  job and due to my mental state was unable to work it for more than a couple of days. I won't go into detail, but due to several factors the urge to violence of self and others became unmanageable and I walked out. About three days later I was ready to give suicide the first real try since grade school.

One of the owners of the dojo is a very close friend of mine for nearly 20 years now. He saw that something was wrong and insisted that I go to the county for crisis triage. I figured what the fuck. Worst case scenario they can't do shit and I'm back where I'm at and ready to go... away. Somehow despite showing up a bit too late to the thing I was selected to be taken in. The county can only handle 5 new cases a week. It was between me and another guy that had arrived at the same time. I suggested a coin flip still not really sure I wanted to be there. He lost and I'm now in therapy and on medicare. I'm unable to hold a job and have applied for disability and better housing. Both are pending and I've been profoundly impoverished materially since March, but a little bit at a time my spirit has been healing. The pills help. My councilors help. I'm getting helped and am grateful. I'm also still a wreck, just a somewhat more stable one.

My room costs $300 per month and my father has been paying it and giving me 100 per month for necessities like phone and gas. Disability will pay back pay and if I'm approved, which is very likely, will repay him. I get $198 per month in food stamps and had to get a medical waiver because Wisconsin otherwise requires you to work or volunteer 20 hrs a week to receive them for more than 3 months.  It's sufficient, my accommodation is not. I literally just killed yet another bed bug while writing this. My legs and hands are scabbed and scarred, itchy with new bites most nights. There's mites and tiny little ticks too. I sleep in my clothes and it is still only just so helpful. Some of the tenants are horrible literally rotten hoarders. No amount of spraying has proven permanently effective. On occasion I sleep on the mats in the dojo when I can't stand it any longer. It's not comfortable but neither is slowly getting eaten.

In all this I have found myself managing to get by somehow and it's been nearly a week since I felt a strong suicidal urge. The thoughts aren't entirely gone, but they aren't center stage in my mind any longer. The last time I had a breakdown severe enough to wind up getting help was a manic episode about 13 years ago when I split from my ex-wife... on bad terms. This depression is a different creature entirely and has been building for a few years now... the underlying problems are lifelong as detailed earlier ITT.

Going to stop and sleep now. Think I'll sleep in the dojo tonight.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Good Reverend Roger on July 09, 2017, 07:02:18 AM
I hope things improve.

If you can scrape $10 together, go get a 5 pound bucket of diatomaceous earth at the hardware store and spread it around the room.  It kills anything with an exoskeleton stone dead.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: P3nT4gR4m on July 09, 2017, 10:44:46 AM
Hang in there Joseph. I notice you say you're living above a dojo? If I was living above a dojo and in the grip of an almighty downer, I've no doubt I'd have a million and one excuses not to go downstairs and train like a fucking wild animal.

Just thought it might be worth posting that in case you got a few depression-spawned excuses of your own going on. Might not be a cure all but in my experience depression has a much harder time keeping a grip on a tough exercise regime.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Q. G. Pennyworth on July 09, 2017, 06:17:05 PM
It's good to hear from you again. Roger's right about the diatomaceous earth trick, it won't clear the rest of the building but it'll help with the crawly things. Keep not being dead as long as you can.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Faust on July 09, 2017, 09:21:52 PM
I'm not good at, or rather never know what to say but take care of yourself man, it doesn't sound like an easy situation, but I'm glad you have support and having the dojo nearby sounds like it takes some of the edge off.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Junkenstein on July 09, 2017, 10:40:21 PM
Obligatory mention of sapolskys lecture on depression and  reminder that it's required watching.

Stay safe man.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on July 09, 2017, 11:33:43 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on July 09, 2017, 07:02:18 AM
I hope things improve.

If you can scrape $10 together, go get a 5 pound bucket of diatomaceous earth at the hardware store and spread it around the room.  It kills anything with an exoskeleton stone dead.

I'll see what I can do. Thanks! If I can seal the walls and baseboards I should be ok. I don't intend to be here after my lease is up end of August if possible.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on July 09, 2017, 11:42:29 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on July 09, 2017, 10:44:46 AM
Hang in there Joseph. I notice you say you're living above a dojo? If I was living above a dojo and in the grip of an almighty downer, I've no doubt I'd have a million and one excuses not to go downstairs and train like a fucking wild animal.

Just thought it might be worth posting that in case you got a few depression-spawned excuses of your own going on. Might not be a cure all but in my experience depression has a much harder time keeping a grip on a tough exercise regime.

When I can I intend to join at only $100 per month. I'll need to sign a waiver to use the "equipment", but I take walks when I can for now. Getting myself motivated has been hugely difficult but I'm on a new medicine that seems to be fixing that as it works in. It's called wellbutrin. Makes your brain delay reuptake of adrenaline and dopamine so although I'm a bit jumpy I've had an easier time actually doing things this last week, including writing that last post.

I have a long way to go to get back into decent condition, but now at about 35 is the time or never. I could be trim in a few years if I can get into the right dietary and exercise habits.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on July 09, 2017, 11:43:21 PM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on July 09, 2017, 06:17:05 PM
It's good to hear from you again. Roger's right about the diatomaceous earth trick, it won't clear the rest of the building but it'll help with the crawly things. Keep not being dead as long as you can.

Will do!  :)
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on July 09, 2017, 11:47:12 PM
Quote from: Faust on July 09, 2017, 09:21:52 PM
I'm not good at, or rather never know what to say but take care of yourself man, it doesn't sound like an easy situation, but I'm glad you have support and having the dojo nearby sounds like it takes some of the edge off.

It does. I meditate frequently. It's not a cure, but the space here is very peaceful and I keep it fairly tidy and clean. If I only had my shitty room I'd be in much worse shape by now. PD helps too for the record.

Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on July 09, 2017, 11:50:12 PM
Quote from: Junkenstein on July 09, 2017, 10:40:21 PM
Obligatory mention of sapolskys lecture on depression and  reminder that it's required watching.

Stay safe man.

Thanks!

Found the lecture and will watch in a bit. I leave a link here in case someone stumbles upon this thread in a bad condition.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc)
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on July 20, 2017, 07:04:21 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on July 09, 2017, 11:33:43 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on July 09, 2017, 07:02:18 AM
I hope things improve.

If you can scrape $10 together, go get a 5 pound bucket of diatomaceous earth at the hardware store and spread it around the room.  It kills anything with an exoskeleton stone dead.

I'll see what I can do. Thanks! If I can seal the walls and baseboards I should be ok. I don't intend to be here after my lease is up end of August if possible.

After helping a friend of mine out with his leather business he went and bought me a bigass bag of this diatomaceous earth! It's a tan-white powder almost the consistency of baby powder or talc. It's now in a ring around my bed and along the baseboards. Fortunately my cell has a linoleum floor so I won't have to do the whole floor as long as my barrier holds. I also salted the earth  (:p) on my box spring.

Thanks for the tip! I still have a shit ton of the stuff and will be sharing some out to my neighbors. The more dead bugs the better!
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: Brother Mythos on July 21, 2017, 02:00:57 AM
Take care of yourself, Joseph.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on March 07, 2019, 02:03:38 PM
Quote from: Brother Mythos on July 21, 2017, 02:00:57 AM
Take care of yourself, Joseph.

I have been doing my best, and I'm proud to say it's working!

It's been over a year since I wrote for this again. In that time there have been some very serious changes. For starters I no longer live in a hell hole. In November of 2017 I moved to a public housing facility that the city runs. I have a nice warm one-bedroom apartment and my rent is very low indeed. Not long after I first moved in despite my good fortune I was overwhelmed with suicidal impulses and checked myself into a psych ward.

My experiences there were not very dramatic or meaningful, the facility was very nice and the staff mostly helpful. After some medicine adjustments over the next couple of weeks I was finally able to compose myself well enough to leave.

That Christmas season I connected to old friends and my family in a way that was profound and helpful. I was still wrestling with the demon, but finally had a leg up on it. The bastard.

Over the following year of 2018 I continued to improve slowly but surely. Even took up part-time work here and there. I just did my taxes and I made about $8,000 last year from three different companies working as a temp mostly. At one point I was making too much money to continue receiving Medicare and food stamps. From July onward I managed to get by without Medicare and the county still provides me with Psychiatric Services. My medicines are inexpensive and I've been paying for them out of pocket. I still receive occasional Help From My Father, but for the most part have been able to sustain myself. I'm still not permanently employed, but my living costs are rather low and I'm used to going without a lot of things. I must count my blessings, for they are many.

My most notable Good Fortune is that I've had a steady girlfriend for nearly a year. She's a nurse and like me also has bipolar disorder. She understands that I have a sickness and has been very helpful and tolerant of my troubles. We love each other very much. It's actually kind of gross.

From my relationship I have received two more major blessings. I wrecked my car in October of 2017. One of my girlfriends co-workers had a spare car that they just gave me. I finally said my goodbyes to my old 1998 Toyota Camry and hello to a nice 2004 Dodge Intrepid in good condition. I was literally given a $1,500 car. This is helping me to do more temp work. More recently I just received a laptop computer from my girlfriend's brother. As soon as I have a permanent job I will get internet access and be able to do more advanced word processing and get back into making memes and doing research for my various other ambitious projects.

These things are not what has drug me out of depression, I did that with much help And medication, but they sure didn't hurt. I seem to keep falling upstairs. My good fortune has coincided with many low-key synchronistic events that I will not detail here because I Know and therefore generally do not speak about such things. Perhaps one day I will open up a new thread for such discussions. But I can sympathize with Cramulus as he experiments with expanding his consciousness through the Gurdjieff foundation. I'm not sure I spelled that right and not going to check right now.

In the thread of what I'm doing on your lawn, I'm biding my time and watching things here and elsewhere develop. I have over the years gotten to know many of you through Facebook. I admin a Facebook group called The International Discordian Society est 2015. I have also liked a fair number of the relevant discordian pages. I estimate that I have upwards of 30 discordian friends on Facebook. Most probably have no idea who I am here, but some of you've gotten to know me very well in that FB kind of sense. I curate my friends list very closely, and if you're on my Facebook I consider you genuinely a friend. Maybe we're not besties but I like you and respect you all. I also help admin for Holy Nonsense. It's QG's baby, but I've tried to be a helpful hand to hold while she labors.

What I'm doing here now is participating where I can and keeping myself connected to this particular group. My third eye sees something... Special here. Where the Good Ship PD is going I do not know, but I count myself amongst her crew. There is a reason this forum is still intact when all others have fallen apart. It's not down to any one spag, but I think this site serves as a beacon of sorts. It's a rallying point for those who are tired of the alt-right shit and want to learn about a more genuine form of discordian enlightenment. I have no idea how many lurkers and unsubscribed readers there are here, but I suspect that is not an insignificant number.

To sum up I intend to continue being here, both at PD and in an existential sense. I expect I will continue to develop and slowly grow stronger. I am steadily and surely coming back to life, and I'm starting to get ideas about what to do with it. They may not all be good ideas, but damn it I'm going to try to drag some of my dreams Kicking and Screaming into reality!

Hail Eris!!!
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: P3nT4gR4m on March 08, 2019, 06:54:44 AM
I'm rooting for you buddy. If you're bipolar then that puts you on my team. Yeah, it's a fucking curse but there's a blessing there too if you can reign it in.
Title: Re: On Who I Am & What The Hell I'm Doing On Your Lawn!
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on March 08, 2019, 04:49:36 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 08, 2019, 06:54:44 AM
I'm rooting for you buddy. If you're bipolar then that puts you on my team. Yeah, it's a fucking curse but there's a blessing there too if you can reign it in.

Yeah man I love my manic phases, but they don't always lead to the best decision making. I was unmedicated for over 15 years. I'm hoping that with the mood stabilizers that I'm on I'll be able to ride the horse a little bit better when it comes around again. I've been having trouble sleeping recently and have other symptoms of mild agitated Mania. As long as I can get a grip on my sleeping pattern it should prove very productive...  I'm hoping.