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Alexanderle

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7 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

Sure, but the problem is not that there are some unhealthy things, which create an addiction cycle and overweight. Rather, it hinders me, to act in accordance, to what I am "supposed" to do - for instance to stay healthy, to stay fit. Why is that something, I am "supposed" to do?

What a long post full of interesting ideas. You should get a blog up as I have.

Back before when I was at the military uni (some 3 years ago), I was reasonably productive when I was living at the dormitory with others, but I slipped into doing nothing all day when I was coming home for the weekends, because that's how I learnt to live throughout high school.

7 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

Dayum that might be a problem. xD But if there are valuable things in that book, which you consider meaningful, don't hesitate to share them with us. 

There's a ton of it and I like to research this area. I am going to get around posting a blog article about relationships eventually, so I am sure some of it will resurface there.

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Ikar, how much does your ethnicity play a part in your identity? I was amazed to find out that Prague has enacted laws to prevent the modernizing of architecture and destruction of its historic heritage, I wonder how much the people still follow the customs of their ancestors and shun the dehumanizing secularism.

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1 hour ago, Amphibian220 said:

Ikar, how much does your ethnicity play a part in your identity? I was amazed to find out that Prague has enacted laws to prevent the modernizing of architecture and destruction of its historic heritage, I wonder how much the people still follow the customs of their ancestors and shun the dehumanizing secularism.

As for Prague itself, I dislike it. It is based on the fact I've only ever been there when it was related to one-day work trips and it's 3-4 hours travel from my native Silesia. Czech ethnicity is a tricky thing, because while Czech is a Slavic language, a lot of people in Bohemia have German ancestors and their facial features are different. I feel good about the fact I am a white Slavic Czech and I wouldn't trade it. I might need more context/more direct questions to answer you properly though.

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It has been a while, since I wrote something about my personal stuff. What is going on?

Regarding my thesis, I almost have all the participants I need, despite corona. Now I have to do the statistical analyses and basically write the whole thing. Still more than enough time, but I will start soon in the next days to dive diehard into the whole project. The last days, I was more focusing on my ethics course. This stuff is far more interesting, since the question of ethics basically is: What is the morally right action to pursue, which in certain ways is a question many of us are thinking about. But the whole field is very complex with stuff like Kant's categorical imperative, utilitarianism or Aristotles virtue ethics. But overall, university stuff is fine. I have a group work now going on, which obviously will be mainly an online thing and once again, my goal is not to contribute well. I mean, of course it is, but actually the plan is to make a step back and to not be overbearing. I have this tendency, to do too much. This is very important for my career to learn and to understand, when I have to express myself and when I have to let things evolve by itself. This is also, why I think that this forum is a very good way to practice this, because I sometimes express myself too much. I think, it can be very valuable to also listen , what people have to say, since I can learn a lot from other views and perspectives of the world. 

I am also wondering, what to do, when Corona is over. I kinda need to prepare this, because I want to use this chance to not be like an alien going into the "real" world, but actually to be one of many to "finally leave my appartment again". This does not come naturally to me, since I like to be at home and I have no poblems during this corona pandemic from an emotional point of view. I can work out, I know how to work on my own without real deadlines and pressure and I am kinda used to that. 

Regarding porn, everything is fine. Also I am now adressing my diet a bit, which turned out to be a bit sloppy. I was eating too much carbohydrates. I still need to loose some fat, before I can enter the bulking phase. 

The last important thing to mention is that I am actually thinking about getting a blog up, because I have soo much things to express and talk about that I want to order them somehow. I am now so interested in self actualization, self improvement and clinical psychology that it is kind of tough to swallow, since the field is pretty much infinite. I saw a book about psychotherapy approaches, which introduced a couple of them. You would not guess how much approaches actually exist: Hundreds! I hope that some day, I can contribute to the scene in a meaningful way. Oh, and I would like to have a relationship with a woman and some real friends in my close surroundings, but that is a different story. I am kinda stuck in that regard right now. ^^

That is all for now.

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1 hour ago, Alexanderle said:

It has been a while, since I wrote something about my personal stuff. What is going on?

Regarding my thesis, I almost have all the participants I need, despite corona. Now I have to do the statistical analyses and basically write the whole thing. Still more than enough time, but I will start soon in the next days to dive diehard into the whole project. The last days, I was more focusing on my ethics course. This stuff is far more interesting, since the question of ethics basically is: What is the morally right action to pursue, which in certain ways is a question many of us are thinking about. But the whole field is very complex with stuff like Kant's categorical imperative, utilitarianism or Aristotles virtue ethics. But overall, university stuff is fine. I have a group work now going on, which obviously will be mainly an online thing and once again, my goal is not to contribute well. I mean, of course it is, but actually the plan is to make a step back and to not be overbearing. I have this tendency, to do too much. This is very important for my career to learn and to understand, when I have to express myself and when I have to let things evolve by itself. This is also, why I think that this forum is a very good way to practice this, because I sometimes express myself too much. I think, it can be very valuable to also listen , what people have to say, since I can learn a lot from other views and perspectives of the world. 

I am also wondering, what to do, when Corona is over. I kinda need to prepare this, because I want to use this chance to not be like an alien going into the "real" world, but actually to be one of many to "finally leave my appartment again". This does not come naturally to me, since I like to be at home and I have no poblems during this corona pandemic from an emotional point of view. I can work out, I know how to work on my own without real deadlines and pressure and I am kinda used to that. 

Regarding porn, everything is fine. Also I am now adressing my diet a bit, which turned out to be a bit sloppy. I was eating too much carbohydrates. I still need to loose some fat, before I can enter the bulking phase. 

The last important thing to mention is that I am actually thinking about getting a blog up, because I have soo much things to express and talk about that I want to order them somehow. I am now so interested in self actualization, self improvement and clinical psychology that it is kind of tough to swallow, since the field is pretty much infinite. I saw a book about psychotherapy approaches, which introduced a couple of them. You would not guess how much approaches actually exist: Hundreds! I hope that some day, I can contribute to the scene in a meaningful way. Oh, and I would like to have a relationship with a woman and some real friends in my close surroundings, but that is a different story. I am kinda stuck in that regard right now. ^^

That is all for now.

Blog can be tricky since it might introduce more work for you and less personal time. Some weeks you'll want to blog and other weeks you won't. As long as you're not pressuring yourself to write like x amount per week and are doing it for expression and enjoyment. 

Good job with the diet. 

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20 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

The last important thing to mention is that I am actually thinking about getting a blog up, because I have soo much things to express and talk about that I want to order them somehow. I am now so interested in self actualization, self improvement and clinical psychology that it is kind of tough to swallow, since the field is pretty much infinite. I saw a book about psychotherapy approaches, which introduced a couple of them. You would not guess how much approaches actually exist: Hundreds! I hope that some day, I can contribute to the scene in a meaningful way.

 

18 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

Blog can be tricky since it might introduce more work for you and less personal time. Some weeks you'll want to blog and other weeks you won't. As long as you're not pressuring yourself to write like x amount per week and are doing it for expression and enjoyment. 

I'm happy I started my blog, even though it sometimes feels like I am writing something I identified with elsewhere rather than producing something extremely original. I generally only write when I feel motivated/inspired, but it's better than nothing. I feel like I either do something daily OR almost never 😄 

20 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

Oh, and I would like to have a relationship with a woman and some real friends in my close surroundings, but that is a different story. I am kinda stuck in that regard right now. ^^

Ironically, I was able to find a girl on the dorms that intrigues me I wouldn't have met otherwise thanks to the quarantine. Life's strange.

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50 minutes ago, Ikar said:

I'm happy I started my blog, even though it sometimes feels like I am writing something I identified with elsewhere rather than producing something extremely original.

I think that this is fine, right? I just need a medium to express myself and to collect my thoughts. Doing it in a public way to maybe reach some people would be cool, but only optional. Overall, the biggest issue is the technical aspect, since I want the content to really be mine.

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45 minutes ago, Alexanderle said:

I think that this is fine, right? I just need a medium to express myself and to collect my thoughts. Doing it in a public way to maybe reach some people would be cool, but only optional. Overall, the biggest issue is the technical aspect, since I want the content to really be mine.

I think it is, unless you plan to write daily/professionally. I might actually want to write daily, as I am writing my full biography and plans for the future. You can show the blog to friends as well later on too and perhaps they can identify with it too.

I was being a bit cynical with not being original, but after all, we can't know something we haven't been told. Human = genetics + environment.

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@Ikar That is true. Everything somehow already exists. But ultimately, we can all have our own interpretation of it. Trends come and go and sometimes, ideas appear a way, they never did before. The only thing that I don't like about online blogs is that there is a chance that the website could shutdown and all my things might be gone. I blog to invest money would solve that. But that is someting, I am hesitant to do. ^^

5 hours ago, Ikar said:

Ironically, I was able to find a girl on the dorms that intrigues me I wouldn't have met otherwise thanks to the quarantine. Life's strange.

I am also a bit intrigued by one of the girls from my current project group. But my first impression today, I kinda fucked up, I feel. And overall it really is only about her looks. I don't know anything about her really.

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8 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

@Ikar That is true. Everything somehow already exists. But ultimately, we can all have our own interpretation of it. Trends come and go and sometimes, ideas appear a way, they never did before. The only thing that I don't like about online blogs is that there is a chance that the website could shutdown and all my things might be gone. I blog to invest money would solve that. But that is someting, I am hesitant to do. ^^

I actually backed up my diary here by downloading every page of it. I suppose you can do the same 🙂

8 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

I am also a bit intrigued by one of the girls from my current project group. But my first impression today, I kinda fucked up, I feel. And overall it really is only about her looks. I don't know anything about her really.

I think the main thing is to find a girl who is interested in chatting with you at least a few times and to revisit and fact-check topics you care about from different angles. You don't need to explicitly ask her out for a date to recognize if she's interested or not.

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FUCK YOU PORN!

So lets do a little meditation or whatever. I relapsed on pornography. Which is super annoying. Whatever I tried, did not work out. I absolutely have the negative consequences written down. I also have the reasons written down, how I could benefit from not doing it. I also have things to do in the meantime. This whole concept worked wonders with gaming. Gaming is not part of my identity, it is not who I am. I have bigger goals than games. It made me feel bad and I don't want to deal with it anymore. Same with food and procrastination. So what makes pornography so difficult?

Obviously, there are no "replacement" behaviors other than sex. I cannot switch to vegetables, when I what some mouth pleasure. What helped me for quite a while was to focus on university, this kind of "push" at the end of last year, when I made all the drastic changes like morning routines, waking up early and super high workload. I think that I am much more balanced now. The high is gone, much like the feelings one has at the beginnings of a relationship. I kinda really don't know, if the hookup just happened, because I was not watching porn for a while or because it was a little conincidence. But the result is the same: Once it was over I kinda fell back into the old trap of porn. So maybe the solution would be, to create another "push". But I don't really know how. Pretty much everything besides my social and love life is straight on. I hardly think, anyone works harder then I do, eats better and takes care of his health. So I can be happy overall. But I need new strategies to deal with pornography. I know that trying to "resist" cravings and trying to fight something usually does not end very well. At first, there is this little voice reminding you of porn. You might be able to ignore it, but after a while, it returns, now screeming at you. Since we fight the thing, we fixate on it and eventually, it has power. I never really fought against my cravings of eating sweets, procrastination or gaming. They just kinda fell apart by themselves. So maybe I need to do the same thing this time. Not trying to fight it. Just accepting it. So maybe saying fuck you porn as the title for this post here is already the wrong thing to begin with. I know that I will inevitably will not watch porn in the future. I also will have a relationship and all that stuff. But the journey to get there is not yet completely visible. 

 

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10 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

FUCK YOU PORN!

So lets do a little meditation or whatever. I relapsed on pornography. Which is super annoying. Whatever I tried, did not work out. I absolutely have the negative consequences written down. I also have the reasons written down, how I could benefit from not doing it. I also have things to do in the meantime. This whole concept worked wonders with gaming. Gaming is not part of my identity, it is not who I am. I have bigger goals than games. It made me feel bad and I don't want to deal with it anymore. Same with food and procrastination. So what makes pornography so difficult?

Obviously, there are no "replacement" behaviors other than sex. I cannot switch to vegetables, when I what some mouth pleasure. What helped me for quite a while was to focus on university, this kind of "push" at the end of last year, when I made all the drastic changes like morning routines, waking up early and super high workload. I think that I am much more balanced now. The high is gone, much like the feelings one has at the beginnings of a relationship. I kinda really don't know, if the hookup just happened, because I was not watching porn for a while or because it was a little conincidence. But the result is the same: Once it was over I kinda fell back into the old trap of porn. So maybe the solution would be, to create another "push". But I don't really know how. Pretty much everything besides my social and love life is straight on. I hardly think, anyone works harder then I do, eats better and takes care of his health. So I can be happy overall. But I need new strategies to deal with pornography. I know that trying to "resist" cravings and trying to fight something usually does not end very well. At first, there is this little voice reminding you of porn. You might be able to ignore it, but after a while, it returns, now screeming at you. Since we fight the thing, we fixate on it and eventually, it has power. I never really fought against my cravings of eating sweets, procrastination or gaming. They just kinda fell apart by themselves. So maybe I need to do the same thing this time. Not trying to fight it. Just accepting it. So maybe saying fuck you porn as the title for this post here is already the wrong thing to begin with. I know that I will inevitably will not watch porn in the future. I also will have a relationship and all that stuff. But the journey to get there is not yet completely visible.

My social life picked up after I quit gaming, but I think there's a certain lag between how successful am I at what I do and how well I can present that to others. I think I set up a lot of things well than the majority of people my age, but at the same time I get to discover more people who are doing even better than me who won't let me slack and become too arrogant.

I've been wondering whether I masturbate without ejaculating too much. I eventually came to think that sex is a creative endeavor after all. Perhaps it is a "tax" for getting everything else done, because the drive that gets me to do all the blogging, reading, uni work and all the other things is at least partly sexual too. In a way, I am a bit scared that having sex again will make me more lazy, though it could make me even more driven too.

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11 hours ago, Ikar said:

the drive (that gets me to do all the blogging, reading, uni work and all the other things) is at least partly sexual too.

I'm unsure whether I structured that sentence clearly, because you just took out a short quote, so I put in the brackets now just in case. Does the question still stand or is it different? 🙂

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So you mean that your general amount of energy is also constituted by your sexuality? It read a bit like that the sexual desire is responsible to do things, which make you appear in a positive light to get laid. This was definitely the case for me to start to work out and change my diet. So for that I would understand and agree. It is more difficult with for instance university. So I am actually not sure, if the question still stands. xD

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10 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

So you mean that your general amount of energy is also constituted by your sexuality?

Yes, I think as one gets less depressed, more confident and overall just has a greater and greater desire to do things, the sexuality goes up too.

10 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

It read a bit like that the sexual desire is responsible to do things, which make you appear in a positive light to get laid. This was definitely the case for me to start to work out and change my diet. So for that I would understand and agree.

I wrote this before somewhere else. I think any motivation that gets you going towards a positive change is a good one. Work out "for" girls or recognition from friends at the beginning. Later on there should be some more "mature" reasons coming into the equation though.

10 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

It is more difficult with for instance university.

University is quite a long-term plan, but in the end I believe women would rather marry/date a psychologist rather than a cashier. I'd argue women overall are more swayed by the whole financial security/stability thing that they care to admit, but I think a guy who is successful in his job is more likely to be successful in all other areas in life as well.

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@Ikar yeah that makes a lot of sense. If you are doing quite fine in many areas of your life, people may find you more attractive. I mean Jordan Peterson speaks about hierarchies of "dominance". I mean, which should not just believe everything, other people say and get our own ideas out there as well, but it makes sense that a well established female doctor is quite unlikely to date a person with a less "attractive" job. Seems to be not always fair, but I guess it is a reality.

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28 minutes ago, Alexanderle said:

@Ikar yeah that makes a lot of sense. If you are doing quite fine in many areas of your life, people may find you more attractive. I mean Jordan Peterson speaks about hierarchies of "dominance". I mean, which should not just believe everything, other people say and get our own ideas out there as well, but it makes sense that a well established female doctor is quite unlikely to date a person with a less "attractive" job. Seems to be not always fair, but I guess it is a reality.

I think it was also him who pointed out that as a male gets more "successful in life", the increase of women that are willing to date him is linear. Starting near zero (fat neckbeard gamer covered in cheeto dust and living in his mom's basement) and ending in "infinity" (successful athletes or entrepreneurs).

With females it'd seem as there is more of a bell curve as to the males that are interested in them. Starting near zero (obese chicks), maxing near the middle (an average looking chick with an average job) and going down to zero towards the end (the number of highly successful males they are seeking for is small and the amount of males that would play the "woman" in the relationship is small as well).

Text is unrelated, but I wanted to find a Bell curve with a linear function together 😄

The-Bell-Curve-of-Free-Will-by-David-Tru

Edited by Ikar
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@Ikar yes that does make sense and describes it quite wonderfully. I have nothing smart to add here. ^^

I mean this also describes the tinder situation right? Only a small amount of attractive guys are attracting the majority of women. The rest of the guys are fighting on losing grounds and only attract the less attractive ones (fatties etc. without trying to be rude, but that is the sad reality).

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Alright, it is time to take the next step. So far, for more than one year, I haven proven to myself quite efficiently that I am able to control myself to some degree. It started with my diet: I am perfectly able to resist temptations like sweets to perfection. I kinda have already forgotten, how chocolate or ice cream taste and I have no real intention to change that. This created a chain reaction: I also found ways to control my procrastination issues. Usually, when other people start learning for an exam, I am already weeks in. As result, my grades and my confidence in my own abilities had risen tremendously. The same with sports and some other areas. Obviously gaming! While there are still areas, which I have trouble to adress with this strategy, I see some limitations here: It is like all or nothing. Black or white. I don't like that very much. It feels I am somewhere in between being either a "junkfood junkie" or an orthorexia nervosa patient. I am either a hardcore gamer or a hardcore student. Either a hardcore couchpotato or a hardcore "gym beast". It is all just either or. And I don't think that this is the perfect solution for a balanced life. I want to be balanced. I want to be in the middle.

Which brings me to the old topic of moderation. People say that complete abstinence of sweets is impossible? It is not! It depends on your needs, motivations and current identity. People say that moderation is impossible for an addiction of whatever? I used to believe that too. But I want to prove myself wrong. A couple of months ago, I wanted to be the Michael Jordan of the gym or the best psychologist possible. I still want to be very very good. Far better than average. Stuff like gaming or useless videos to waste time don't fit that ideal anymore. But I kinda came to the conclusion that there is a middle way. And it is called moderation. So let's look back: In order to prove myself that I am capable to resist sweets or junk food, I just did not eat it anymore. That was quite easy. For salty stuff it is not so easy. I still binge that shit occasionally. But let me tell you a little secret: There is something out there called the 100 percent rule: It states that it is far easier to resist something completely than trying to resist it 98 % of the time. So true! But that is what I am aiming for from now on. Two strategies:

1. Salty stuff in exactly the same moderate proportions a day of 30 g of delicious chips. The amount of calories is fine. With my current diet I would still easily loose weight. I kinda am a master of that. ^^ But this is not just a maximum. It is also the minimum, which I "have to" eat every day.  

2. If the salty stuff is too difficult I will do that with some fruit joghurt or something. This would probably be far easier for me. Let's see what happens.

I will try to write a daily report in here, how it is working. Of course no counting the days bullshit. And if I don't feel like doing it, I won't do it. But this is my overall idea to adress the business of moderation. Maybe I will have a similar experience and will see that I am able to do something in moderation. And maybe in october or november, I will be able to apply it on something else. 

Besides that, I tried some meditation today. It was quite awesome. I felt way more relaxed and could definitely breath far deeper. 

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20 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

Alright, it is time to take the next step. So far, for more than one year, I haven proven to myself quite efficiently that I am able to control myself to some degree. It started with my diet: I am perfectly able to resist temptations like sweets to perfection. I kinda have already forgotten, how chocolate or ice cream taste and I have no real intention to change that. This created a chain reaction: I also found ways to control my procrastination issues. Usually, when other people start learning for an exam, I am already weeks in. As result, my grades and my confidence in my own abilities had risen tremendously. The same with sports and some other areas. Obviously gaming! While there are still areas, which I have trouble to adress with this strategy, I see some limitations here: It is like all or nothing. Black or white. I don't like that very much. It feels I am somewhere in between being either a "junkfood junkie" or an orthorexia nervosa patient. I am either a hardcore gamer or a hardcore student. Either a hardcore couchpotato or a hardcore "gym beast". It is all just either or. And I don't think that this is the perfect solution for a balanced life. I want to be balanced. I want to be in the middle.

Which brings me to the old topic of moderation. People say that complete abstinence of sweets is impossible? It is not! It depends on your needs, motivations and current identity. People say that moderation is impossible for an addiction of whatever? I used to believe that too. But I want to prove myself wrong. A couple of months ago, I wanted to be the Michael Jordan of the gym or the best psychologist possible. I still want to be very very good. Far better than average. Stuff like gaming or useless videos to waste time don't fit that ideal anymore. But I kinda came to the conclusion that there is a middle way. And it is called moderation. So let's look back: In order to prove myself that I am capable to resist sweets or junk food, I just did not eat it anymore. That was quite easy. For salty stuff it is not so easy. I still binge that shit occasionally. But let me tell you a little secret: There is something out there called the 100 percent rule: It states that it is far easier to resist something completely than trying to resist it 98 % of the time. So true! But that is what I am aiming for from now on. Two strategies:

1. Salty stuff in exactly the same moderate proportions a day of 30 g of delicious chips. The amount of calories is fine. With my current diet I would still easily loose weight. I kinda am a master of that. ^^ But this is not just a maximum. It is also the minimum, which I "have to" eat every day.  

2. If the salty stuff is too difficult I will do that with some fruit joghurt or something. This would probably be far easier for me. Let's see what happens.

I will try to write a daily report in here, how it is working. Of course no counting the days bullshit. And if I don't feel like doing it, I won't do it. But this is my overall idea to adress the business of moderation. Maybe I will have a similar experience and will see that I am able to do something in moderation. And maybe in october or november, I will be able to apply it on something else. 

Besides that, I tried some meditation today. It was quite awesome. I felt way more relaxed and could definitely breath far deeper. 

Great post. This is something I've been experimenting with. I removed sweets from my diet for 6 weeks during the quarantine and have lost 15 pounds. I bought sweets yesterday and I haven't touched them once. I don't use them fit stress relief anymore. It feels great. I take more joy and relief from weight loss and healthy eating now. 

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