Dear Diary...

[Catherine17]

Congratulate you on pursuing your dreams and leaving your old job.  If you now are going tobe your own boss, make sure, you won't turn into one of your previous bosses. Don't be so hard on yourself, now when you are free and that old job is to stop draining you of all your energy. May your journey be happy and successful! 

[BooksandTrees]

Thank you!

[BooksandTrees]

I wanted to touch on something I'm experiencing which is fear. I'm constantly thinking back to whether I should have bought that condo and stuck it out with engineering, but I remember not liking my career and it wasn't worth the tradeoff. It's just sad that I got so close to a home I loved and the financial security of my job. But I know I can always return so I can't be afraid. I should be secured instead. 

I've unfortunately leaned on pornography heavily for the past 10 days. That night I worked 16 hours and commuted 3 hours set me into a deep anger and sadness. I have been watching porn once to three times per day since. I recognize mental fatigue and exhaustion setting in from the emotional rollercoaster i've been on, the pressure to start working on passion projects, the desire to find a daily routine to keep me going, but also develop spontaneity where I might decide to go to the beach or a brewery or something. 

I realized I only enjoyed college, work, and video games for the sense of community as I'm an extreme extrovert and need attention. So I'm going to join a rock climbing gym or a gym where I can play sports and go to the other rock climbing gym once a week or something. I'm also looking for a yoga studio near home and I bought a beach pass and outdoor recreational passes. 

I'm hoping the integration of social and physical elements help revitalize my mentality and promote my drive to achieve my goals while eliminating some anxiety induced by the fear I mentioned earlier. 

The fear is kind of acting as a road block for proper thinking and getting in the way of me planning my long term goals of cartoons and books and my short term goals of blogs, comedy, and social media. 

Thanks for reading. 

Matt

 

[BooksandTrees]

I can't help but think I'm a retard for quitting.  I spend 1 day with my mom and she just picks fights.  What am I thinking quitting my career to pursue a dream I know nothing about.

This is terrible.

[Ikar]

It's not terrible, it's just a lot of potential you need to take charge of!

Myself, after I quit my job I wasn't happy at either and that was a good choice but poorly executed. I wasn't conscientious enough to pursue the goal and I got jaded pretty fast from the situation I was in and it cost me half a year, most of my identity and my relationship, although we both were similarly irresponsible to begin with.

I recommend checking out the video in the spoiler, if you want to "kick" yourself in the right direction. Dr. Peterson's work is simply amazing, especially his long lectures and podcasts:

Spoiler

 

I hope that clicks something within you! ?

[BooksandTrees]

16 hours ago, Ikar said:

It's not terrible, it's just a lot of potential you need to take charge of!

Myself, after I quit my job I wasn't happy at either and that was a good choice but poorly executed. I wasn't conscientious enough to pursue the goal and I got jaded pretty fast from the situation I was in and it cost me half a year, most of my identity and my relationship, although we both were similarly irresponsible to begin with.

I recommend checking out the video in the spoiler, if you want to "kick" yourself in the right direction. Dr. Peterson's work is simply amazing, especially his long lectures and podcasts:

  Hide contents

 

I hope that clicks something within you! ?

Interesting video.  I think the first part really helped me with something I needed to hear.  Thanks for this.

[BooksandTrees]

5

Edited June 15, 2019 by BooksandTrees

[Phoenixking]

I think this new way of handling things is a healthy step ;-) Keep at it!

Just remember to be easy on yourself. No pressure. Babysteps. Get into this new way of doing things slowly.

[BooksandTrees]

I'm 31 weeks free of video games right now and I think it's amazing to see how far I've come so far.  I have crushed every record of mine and I just feel so strong now.  I'm also about a week without porn.  I watched a movie called "Don Jon" with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansson and it reflected some of the struggles I've had with porn addiction.  It was a really good movie and I gained some strength after watching it.

I've been dealing a lot with anxiety recently.  I think it's being caused by a drive to produce something and work on my tasks, but at the same time I have this fear of direction holding me back.  The two forces are creating inner turmoil for myself and I just want to write my cartoon and create some stuff online.  I have been writing and coming up for ideas for my cartoon, which have been nice for me.  It just so happens that life keeps coming up.  I planned hangouts with my friends and former coworkers who I want to stay friends with.  My mom also had surgery so I'm caring for her.  There's also a woman who has kind of been interested in seeing me, but communication has been sporadic between responding within 5 minutes to waiting 5 days.  As we mentioned earlier I don't really give a shit about this right now and don't want to date until I'm in a more comfortable spot for myself.  I do enjoy her support, but I'm also not emotionally comfortable to give myself to somebody right now because I'm very fragile right now.  I don't want to just jump into something.  I fear one small turn could lead to an emotional collapse for me some days.

I found a yoga studio to attend and am touring gyms to try out.  I also helped my artist sell his work at a comic convention and did very well there.  It was nice to meet other artists, but was also a reminder most of these artists are going nowhere and work full time at their own jobs.  I don't want this to be some shit side gig.  I need to push through.

[Phoenixking]

1 hour ago, BooksandTrees said:

As we mentioned earlier I don't really give a shit about this right now and don't want to date until I'm in a more comfortable spot for myself.  I do enjoy her support, but I'm also not emotionally comfortable to give myself to somebody right now because I'm very fragile right now.  I don't want to just jump into something.  I fear one small turn could lead to an emotional collapse for me some days.

This is a véry mentally healthy things to say. Very mature, buddy. Not easy to come to this point.

[BooksandTrees]

51 minutes ago, Phoenixking said:

This is a véry mentally healthy things to say. Very mature, buddy. Not easy to come to this point.

Thank you.  I also just think living at home is going to be toxic to me soon so if I don't start producing an income outside of cartoons then I'll be forced to get an engineering job again.

[Phoenixking]

On 5/24/2019 at 10:44 PM, BooksandTrees said:

Thank you.  I also just think living at home is going to be toxic to me soon so if I don't start producing an income outside of cartoons then I'll be forced to get an engineering job again.

I get that. I'm a very proud man when it comes to stuff like that. In my country there's a special position as an artist you can claim from the government. It's the easy way out because it's basically just getting unemployment money. But you have to prove you're doing artsy stuff 2/3 of your time. And all of the money you make from it you can keep, and that gets substracted from your monthly guaranteed income. I hate that it's what they use taxpayer's money for. If you're a good artist, your crowd will come. If you're smart, creative and apply yourself, you don't need a handout to survive on a monthly basis.

I'm not able to live off my freelancing yet. So I have a part-time job doing office stuff. It's not glorious. But it makes me feel self-sufficient and productive. Don't be afraid in the future, if need be, to ask yourself if you need more money and should be looking for a temping thing or engineering part-time job or whatever. I want you to pursue your art. But I've been the stereotypical starving artist for 4 years. It's not healthy, there's no romance or grace in something like that and it's not smart. You're smart. Think ahead and budget your cashola ^^ you got this, dude!

[BooksandTrees]

I'm struggling a lot recently.  My mother is trying to get me to make her life better and do things so she feels better when I need the help.  Whenever I tell her about the problems I'm having and would like to discuss them she starts fidgeting and getting stressed out.  Within 10 minutes she says I talk like my father and leaves the room to go have a cigarette.  If she ends up staying in the house to talk then she completely sidetracks from any advice she's giving me.  She'll give me advice for 5 minutes and then ramble about something unrelated and then start talking about shit she needs to talk about.  I get angry and ask what the point of the conversation was and she realizes it has nothing to do with why we originally spoke.  

I'm in a fragile spot because I just gave my career away to attempt to write a cartoon and create an online media business for myself and it's hard to do this when she's being so fucking annoying to be around.  It's crushing me.  She picks fights, doesn't communicate with me at all, and makes me feel like I'm being an asshole.  I end up feeling guilty about everything because she's letting me live here for free, paying for groceries, and allowing me to take my time with all of this.  But at the same time the emotional investment is not worth it because of how stressful these living situations are on weekends. 

I want to write or take an online class and she picks a fight with me saying "it's beautiful out and I want to walk the beach! I don't want to sit around inside all day." This makes me feel like a loser for staying inside to work on something I want to work on.  So now I'm starting to get depressed and sad because I'm not living the typical "fear of missing out" style of life where we have to spend the whole day outside and take pictures because this is living yay!!!!!!

Fuck that.  I can do that some days, but other days I need to be constructive.  I need to create things.  I want to do something on my own some days.  

I don't want to go back to a career I literally just gave up.  But living here has been such a disaster and it's turning out to be exactly what I feared.  I'd quit my job and then get into arguments here and have to go back.  I haven't even written a single fucking line in my cartoon because of this drama.

I'm also tired of people saying "if you're not working on it then you don't want to do it".  I'm too afraid to start working on these things because my self esteem is low.  I have been working so hard to develop my self esteem over the past few months and between work dwindling down my life and my home life being so turbulent I just want to escape.  It's a miracle I haven't been watching porn 10 times per day and trying to play RuneScape.

Every day I just sit and think I should have bought that fucking house and just lived for the weekends.  But I don't want to do that.  I don't want the ordinary life.  I just want to do something special and be special because I know I can be special and not special needs.  My mind is everywhere right now and my mom doesn't see it at all.  

[Hmmge]

56 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

"if you're not working on it then you don't want to do it".

Yeah this is BS. If that were true, addicts would never follow their passions after recovery. 

Just putting it out there: sometimes, due to their own low self-esteem, parents subconsciously don't want their children to succeed and/or leave home. 

[BooksandTrees]

16 minutes ago, JustTom said:

Yeah this is BS. If that were true, addicts would never follow their passions after recovery. 

Just putting it out there: sometimes, due to their own low self-esteem, parents subconsciously don't want their children to succeed and/or leave home. 

I just feel so angry because I turned away my dream home for this and I'm too depressed here to do my passion projects now. I'm just sitting in bed crying like an asshole and once I'm done being sad I'll get so angry that I smash everything in sight like a lunatic. I'm so dumb for giving everything up. I can't even do it now. People are shit and life is terrible. It's this tease that one day you'll be happy and that one day doesn't exist. 

[Ikar]

On 5/24/2019 at 7:55 PM, BooksandTrees said:

There's also a woman who has kind of been interested in seeing me, but communication has been sporadic between responding within 5 minutes to waiting 5 days.  As we mentioned earlier I don't really give a shit about this right now and don't want to date until I'm in a more comfortable spot for myself.  I do enjoy her support, but I'm also not emotionally comfortable to give myself to somebody right now because I'm very fragile right now.  I don't want to just jump into something.  I fear one small turn could lead to an emotional collapse for me some days.

 

On 5/24/2019 at 9:52 PM, Phoenixking said:

This is a véry mentally healthy things to say. Very mature, buddy. Not easy to come to this point.

Agreed! I'd also work on developing my career/work first if it's already your focus, rather than to get tangled up in a new relationship and try to work out an extra thing. Taking care of yourself first is the top priority. Speaking of which, the end of my past relationship was the impulse that got me here on this forum after facing some harsh truth!

16 minutes ago, JustTom said:

Just putting it out there: sometimes, due to their own low self-esteem, parents subconsciously don't want their children to succeed and/or leave home. 

It depends on who your parents are. My parents also got shaken when I quit my day job. What they wanted me to be was to be safe and you are fairly safe in a day job. It's what they do too, so I can't blame them for that. I want some adventure in my life first though!

[BooksandTrees]

8 hours ago, Ikar said:

 

Agreed! I'd also work on developing my career/work first if it's already your focus, rather than to get tangled up in a new relationship and try to work out an extra thing. Taking care of yourself first is the top priority. Speaking of which, the end of my past relationship was the impulse that got me here on this forum after facing some harsh truth!

It depends on who your parents are. My parents also got shaken when I quit my day job. What they wanted me to be was to be safe and you are fairly safe in a day job. It's what they do too, so I can't blame them for that. I want some adventure in my life first though!

Thanks for the support. I'm not going to date and I'm still just very angry about my old job. Lots of shady things were happening there as well and I'm just trying to move on from those as well. My mother is sick and unfortunately the only way to heal is to move on from her for now. She's hurting my feelings and making me upset and then blaming me. It's volatile. 

[BooksandTrees]

Life is getting to a boiling point for me.  I absolutely cannot live with my mother anymore.  She is a deranged agitator who instigates arguments, leaves the area, then tries to turn things around saying I started them.  Luckily, I have prepared for this since my father did it to me as well. I am a master of mind games and I won't be hurt again. 

I keep saying how I made a mistake quitting my job and giving things up, but I did not.  I was unhappy there as well.  I hated being pigeonholed into mundane tasks and not having my managers know me even though other department managers loved me and all of my other coworkers loved me. Cries for attention went nowhere in that place and I was tired of being ignored.  If I return to engineering it will be on my terms in an office who appreciates me, communicates well, and gives me responsibility. 

Back to the main story: I am done living with my mom.  I will make an effort to find a place to live and create a new life for myself.  I will recreate my life as the person I know I am and see the world through the eyes I want to see it through.  I will try to follow my goals and make my dreams come true, or I will get an engineering job again in another part of the country and pursue my dreams slowly in my own time, but with the courage I've gained through the year or two I'll have spent trying to chase them.  I'll hopefully establish hobbies and a lifestyle that makes me happy.  Maybe I'll meet a woman who isn't a lunatic like my mother.  I'll have a kid who isn't a manipulative piece of shit.  I actually don't want children.  I want to live in a home I love, near friends who treat me well, and find a woman who loves me for me and lets me love her back. 

I will perform comedy, create a cartoon, write a book, enjoy my superhero/anime/scifi lore, exercise, rock climb, and create art through drawing/painting/animation/and music.  I am going to dominate life greater than anyone I've ever met.  I am going to leave my entire family behind as they have proven to be completely worthless to me.  

I'm tired of having anger and hatred be my guiding energy through crisis and I won't let it anymore.  I am letting it go.  I'm done living with gamers as well.  No more reclusive introverts who hide all day and are afraid to grow up or live life.  This is over now.  

I'm going to keep my good friends, meet happy friends who are engaging and enjoy life, and find a woman who loves me for me.  Maybe we can watch hockey or batman together.  Create art together or just share things we enjoy together.  

Or maybe I'll do none of that and create a life some other way.  I know I can do it and I'm done here (not the website).

Matt

[Ikar]

I'd have a very different opinion on this a year ago, but today I try to understand what makes people do what they do. Chances are, if they are human and you are human too, you can be a horrible monster just like anyone else. That's quite a shift from the binary "I'll take a revenge while I am angry" X "I'll just get pooped on and never make a stand for myself".

It's pretty rough if you have that at home on a daily basis and there's no way to have a reasonable talk with the other person though. Whatever decision you make, be mindful of yourself and be responsible!

[BooksandTrees]

43 minutes ago, Ikar said:

I'd have a very different opinion on this a year ago, but today I try to understand what makes people do what they do. Chances are, if they are human and you are human too, you can be a horrible monster just like anyone else. That's quite a shift from the binary "I'll take a revenge while I am angry" X "I'll just get pooped on and never make a stand for myself".

It's pretty rough if you have that at home on a daily basis and there's no way to have a reasonable talk with the other person though. Whatever decision you make, be mindful of yourself and be responsible!

We will see.   I feel like I already ruined my life by not getting the job and stuff.  If I had a stable place to live in and some emotional support I would have created something by now or at least learned something.  I'm miserable.

[fawn_xoxo]

21 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I'm too depressed here to do my passion projects now.

No you're not too depressed there to do your passion projects now. Your depression is the perfect signal from your brain that you need to act differently. You are responsible for your life. Negative emotions suck, but it's your choice to linger and stay in limbo instead of doing the things you told yourself you'd do. It's not easy and it'll never be. You have to accept that it's going to be hard and you'll not have the perfect conditions. You don't need perfect conditions, all you need is to do things despite not feeling like doing things. It's not about how you feel, ignore how you feel for a few days or weeks and just do what you said you would.

Stop waiting, start doing, whatever it is you have written down as your goals and desires. You have the luxury of living with someone who loves you, and for free, she's flawed like anyone else but she loves you and she cares, so make use of that opportunity and leeway. Many other people have it way worse and they still pursue their dreams.

It's not your mom's fault or the gamers' fault or anyone else's fault that you're not doing what you intend to. It's in your hands, your choice and at the same time your responsibility. Don't wish and don't 'talk' about the things you wanna do. Just start and do, no matter how bad you feel. You'll only feel better if you change how you spend your time.

23 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I want to write or take an online class and she picks a fight with me saying "it's beautiful out and I want to walk the beach! I don't want to sit around inside all day." This makes me feel like a loser for staying inside to work on something I want to work on.  So now I'm starting to get depressed and sad because I'm not living the typical "fear of missing out" style of life where we have to spend the whole day outside and take pictures because this is living yay!!!!!!

You feel like a loser because you're insecure about your desires being different than your mother's desires and this isn't your mother's fault. You need to work on knowing and accepting your personal beliefs and values. Your mom is your mom and you are you.

All in all I took the liberty to respond here in this crude, harsh way because of the rapport we had in the past and because I can't really stand and watch you waste your time and being miserable, really, you need to wake up. You have much more than many people who went after their dreams and you better realize it and start appreciating it. Others don't even have a family, or savings, or a backup plan, and they still achieve. So stop with the excuses, you have potential, if you don't use it it's just cause you're too comfortable staying in a place of talk-talk-talk instead of doing the difficult things.

[BooksandTrees]

17 minutes ago, fawn_xoxo said:

No you're not too depressed there to do your passion projects now. Your depression is the perfect signal from your brain that you need to act differently. You are responsible for your life. Negative emotions suck, but it's your choice to linger and stay in limbo instead of doing the things you told yourself you'd do. It's not easy and it'll never be. You have to accept that it's going to be hard and you'll not have the perfect conditions. You don't need perfect conditions, all you need is to do things despite not feeling like doing things. It's not about how you feel, ignore how you feel for a few days or weeks and just do what you said you would.

Stop waiting, start doing, whatever it is you have written down as your goals and desires. You have the luxury of living with someone who loves you, and for free, she's flawed like anyone else but she loves you and she cares, so make use of that opportunity and leeway. Many other people have it way worse and they still pursue their dreams.

It's not your mom's fault or the gamers' fault or anyone else's fault that you're not doing what you intend to. It's in your hands, your choice and at the same time your responsibility. Don't wish and don't 'talk' about the things you wanna do. Just start and do, no matter how bad you feel. You'll only feel better if you change how you spend your time.

You feel like a loser because you're insecure about your desires being different than your mother's desires and this isn't your mother's fault. You need to work on knowing and accepting your personal beliefs and values. Your mom is your mom and you are you.

All in all I took the liberty to respond here in this crude, harsh way because of the rapport we had in the past and because I can't really stand and watch you waste your time and being miserable, really, you need to wake up. You have much more than many people who went after their dreams and you better realize it and start appreciating it. Others don't even have a family, or savings, or a backup plan, and they still achieve. So stop with the excuses, you have potential, if you don't use it it's just cause you're too comfortable staying in a place of talk-talk-talk instead of doing the difficult things.

I just talked with my friend for 4 hours this morning and she said pretty much the same thing.  A lot of this is me pointing blame onto others due to faults within myself and it's tough to face them.  I'll keep running from my problems and my life if I don't stop and face them.  I need to keep going.  I agree.  I'm right here.  This is the burning hand, it's right in front of me.  I can use water to make it worse or use vinegar to neutralize the burn.  All of this hate is coming from within and it's so difficult to love myself when I've hated myself for my whole life.  It's time to change that and I want to face these issues so I can move on and create these things that I want to create without being paralyzed.

[BooksandTrees]

I feel such an emotional disconnect with myself as if I've lost who I am or if I was ever anything in the first place.  Straight lines go straight when curved lines meander.  I guess it just means every line has a direction and the purpose for that line just happens to be cause and effect - or maybe just momentum. I look back at the path and try to put together the pieces that caused momentum and helped further the path.  But I also look away and laugh at a YouTube video where somebody uses a soundboard to disrupt and harass Ventrilo voice chat rooms.

I'm grabbing for sentimental pieces to put in my pockets when the pants I'm wearing don't necessarily have pockets and the place I'm going might not even require me to need pants in the first place.

I'm trying to understand what makes people decide to have children.  What is their goal for the children and their involvement with that person's life?  Biologically, we are meant to reproduce often to keep our species alive, much like other animals and organisms.  I ask this because I took the path to becoming an engineer and established professional.  I went to school until I was 27 and finished my masters while working full time.  I now had the ability to finally date and live life.  But I'm filled with wonder about what happiness and love are and if I truly understand it.  I remember loving my mom and the world.  I remember being obsessed with building, action figures, hockey, and creating things.  I've always had deep thoughts in my mind and wanted to create things after deeply thinking for hours.

Is that normal to critically think and fantasize for hours?  Did any of you pace back and forth or find moments of bliss and clarity when the night covered the world and we were alone in quiet with the stars above us.  What could we create and what will we get once we are there?  

I hold onto thoughts of happiness when I'd play kickball at school and come home to watch Dragonball Z and then Ed, Edd, n Eddy.  They had friends and I didn't once school ended.  I was alone and didn't spend time with any of the friends I'd made.  I lost all of those friends once high school ended.  I kept all of my friends on RuneScape added on my friends list past the point where they'd quit.  I held my online friends so dear to my heart and they didn't feel the same way for me.  I still remember all of the names of my RuneScape friends dating back to 2004 because they were all my only friends and the most important things in my world.

I used to pace around my home for hours daydreaming about being the 4th Ed in the show Ed, Edd, n Eddy and try to come up with scams and shows to be in.  I used to pretend I was a character on Dragonball Z and gain power levels to help fight enemies.  When I got too powerful and numbers meant nothing, I restarted the daydream and would repeat this for hours.

Video games let me talk to anyone I wanted at any time of the day.  I am lonely.  Humans are lonely.  I want people around me at all times.  I want friends all of the time.  I want to lead my troops on missions for things that don't involve killing or conquest.  I just want to lead my troops to the store and get groceries for a barbecue on top of a mountain that we need helicopters to reach while escaping from nothing.  I want to lead my friends to college at a massive complex university built for several thousand students and stay there forever as I do fun activities and see things that give me purpose.  These are the dreams I have ever night.  They make no sense.  I lead my group of 2-10 people on beautiful missions in outlandish settings for a prize of insignificance and meaninglessness, but I was with them, the scenery was beautiful, and we enjoyed the journey.

I spend so much time being angry at the facility I'm in and blame the people in my life for the anger I feel when I just don't seem to see the mystery, adventure, and intrigue that life seems to give me in my reminiscent dreams of things I've never experienced enough to reminisce about.  It's like I live two lives: my real life and my unconscious dream life.  I'm never happy or satisfied.  I don't just do things for the feeling of it.  I just chase goals and speed through the journey without smelling the roses.  

I don't think this is a mindfullness issue either where I focus on the food in my mouth to truly taste the steak instead of swallowing it for sustenance in order to do my next task because I won't be hungry anymore and can focus on the next thing.  Or maybe it is.  I rush the dinner, get angry about cooking the dinner, eat the dinner, and rush to work on something I'm frustrated with because my dreams are to see the end product and I get angry at the steps along the way.  I hold onto the memories of me as a kid watching TV but look back at how long ago those memories actually were.  It's because I don't relax and see it when it's there.  I don't taste the food or enjoy the journey.  I'm treating my life like a Netflix show, binge watching it to get to the end like a lifeless zombie instead of appreciating the characters in each episode regardless of whether they're going to be in the next one or not.  I ignore the settings the show takes place in instead of noticing it.  

The line I chose meanders because the ball rolls up and down embankments and takes the path of least resistance.  I think it's important for me to experience the ball rolling instead of understanding the importance of the structure of the path and why it shaped the direction when the path is still being made and can is held by a universe we know so little about.  

If you reached the end of this long post I would surmise that my point is I think too much and don't experience the journey.  Time for a deep breath and some mindfullness.

Matt 

 

[Ikar]

Kids - I think people have kids when they both decide that life is worth living and they'd like to extend that over another human. It's also quite a glorious project to basically take care of another human for about 20 years.

Love - I've been recommended recently that love is truth and I'll see how that works in my next romantic relationship! Both to yourself (and the other person) and that's a pretty huge deal. If you are truthful, you can solve problems that will occur, because they WILL occur.. There are people that treat their dog better than they treat themselves and I think that's wrong.

Happiness - I imagine happiness is something like going along the journey of life and seeing that things are actually looking pretty good. You can never fix ALL problems or do EVERYTHING. I've been at home for half a year playing games/watching streams and I don't think I've been in a happy place, quite the contrary. It was like one of those retirement "visions" that contained "drinking margaritas on a beach". For a week, sure. For next 10-15 years? You're probably gonna be an alcoholic by that point!

Truth - This one is tricky. You really need to be responsible and in charge of yourself to tell the truth. That means you can't be addicted, as the addiction's personality is basically in control of you. Then you are only truthful to the extent of your addiction, but you can't be 100% truthful if you have it.

[BooksandTrees]

8 hours ago, Ikar said:

Kids - I think people have kids when they both decide that life is worth living and they'd like to extend that over another human. It's also quite a glorious project to basically take care of another human for about 20 years.

Love - I've been recommended recently that love is truth and I'll see how that works in my next romantic relationship! Both to yourself (and the other person) and that's a pretty huge deal. If you are truthful, you can solve problems that will occur, because they WILL occur.. There are people that treat their dog better than they treat themselves and I think that's wrong.

Happiness - I imagine happiness is something like going along the journey of life and seeing that things are actually looking pretty good. You can never fix ALL problems or do EVERYTHING. I've been at home for half a year playing games/watching streams and I don't think I've been in a happy place, quite the contrary. It was like one of those retirement "visions" that contained "drinking margaritas on a beach". For a week, sure. For next 10-15 years? You're probably gonna be an alcoholic by that point!

Truth - This one is tricky. You really need to be responsible and in charge of yourself to tell the truth. That means you can't be addicted, as the addiction's personality is basically in control of you. Then you are only truthful to the extent of your addiction, but you can't be 100% truthful if you have it.

Great response. Thank you. It's kind of strange that I started thinking about this after watching the movie No Country for Old Men and seeing the monologue at the end. 

I get frustrated because I'm depressed and just finished school and can't understand the feeling of raising a kid and bringing them back to school after I got out. I'm nowhere close ti having a kid obviously and it would be 5 years after birth that they'd be in school, but it's time. I think maybe it's depression talking since I'm not really happy or experiencing love yet.