>>27112
This is very interesting in so many levels, and I couldn't cover them all.
The biological fatalism makes me think of Kiss Maerth talking about the morbidly obese human brain and the disastrous consequences of that degeneracy for all beings. The horn metaphor is brilliant.

>Which again accords with studies that "depressed" people make more rational choices.
Do you know which ones? When I'm peak depressed I often have this feeling of seeing clearer than ever, feeling more logical than ever, perceiving reality for what it is, more focused, all that while in atrocious mental suffering. It's an scary idea, the happy are the delusional, the depressed are just less distracted and can see true reality. I try to see the comforting part on this and think it's, at least, a general human condition, since it touches a very personal matter.

>>27114
I'm glad someone got something out of my post! And yeah I was also pretty impressed by that fitting metaphor – this is one of the few philosophical works that was a pleasure to read, filled with some nice gems and food for thought. I'll do a follow up with his views on technology which I thought was interesting to compare with those of anarcho-primitivists like Kacyzinski.

>Do you know which ones?
Look into the "depressive realism" hypothesis, although like all social science studies you'd probably be better off just trusting your insticts on this one given their notorious reproducability issues. (There's also probably different types of "depression" in the first place. I assume the one that Zapffe is referrring to is that of a chronic, dull weariness – not necessarily borne out of a painful environment but rather by a slow realization of the absurdness of it all).

In the same vein there's also some related thoughts that depression should be considered as an altered state of consciousness unto itself (i.e. a global alteration in the means by which sensory inputs are perceived). I think we might get a more concrete picture of all this in the upcoming decades or so when there is increased research into the exact nature by which psychadelics affect conciousness (i.e. not from a localized biochemistry point of view but a more functional systems perspective), since many of the same psychadelics supposedly have transformative effects on depressed people.

It's also interesting to think about how one might square the various annecdotes about psychadelics "opening your mind to the true nature of the universe" with Zapffe's writings – they can both be true if both result from different states of conscioussness, but which is the "correct" one? Offhand I'm inclined to say that it's the latter just because the state of mind induced by psychadelics seems opposite to that of the rational mind (in that people hallucinate forms that don't exist, and are generally less coherent for that time). The fact that some people also undergo ego disollution

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I read everything Schopenhauer wrote (because he explicitly tells you to and there was by no means a lot of it) and Kant's Critique (because again I had to). Never read Hegel (yet) but I just wish the guy could have gone 10 pages without some jab at him. World is full of them. I haven't read Marx's older stuff like the Grundrisse, only Capital I-III and I don't really see how Hegel is pertinent to Marx. You don't need to know anything about Hegel to read Capital. But it seems his modern relevance derives from Marx. I'll get around to reading him when I get some amphetamines or something. I had to do that for Kant. I feel tired all the time otherwise and can't be bothered reading dense shit.

>>27115
Some other things I recently learned which you might find interesting:
* Sleep deprivation seems to alleviate depression, although it returns once again when they rest [1]
* Depression leads to longer period of REM sleep (and less deep sleep). There are also some research that REM sleep is critical for modulating emotions.

Those sort of match with my experience where I paradoxically feel most energetic when sleeping at 4am and waking at 11am (as opposed to a usual schedule of sleeping at 1am and waking at 11am). It should also be noted here that at least in my experience the phrase "alleviate depression" should be very narrowly defined, not as having no melancholic thoughts at all (those are always a constant, and in the Zappfian sense inherent/inevitable), it's having the energy to override the feeling of listlessness/weariness and temporarily divert yourself by e.g. watching anime.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_therapy

>>24364
What anon said, a dream journal is your best, most useful tool to have access to your dream world, dream retention, almost a necessity to train lucid dreaming as well. I've been keeping a dream journal on and off for many years now and recently I'm back at it again. I usually would write and draw my dreams but it can get time consuming when you're remembering 3 or 4 dreams each night. That's the reason I always end up quitting it. Now I'm back at it, I can't stop for long, it's like losing half of my life when I can't remember my dreams anymore.

One useful technique I don't see people mentioning often is organizing your dream if you can't pull yourself to actually wake up fully to write the dream down. What you want to do is tell yourself the dream you just had, organizing the pieces you remember, doing your best to transfer all that dream data over to an organized thought remembering everything over and over again. Even if you wake up hours later or decide to write down later instead of right when you wake up you'll remember a lot, most often all of it. Try to tell yourself the dream over and over again, don't let your mind float away from it, you may lose it forever if you do. After you tell yourself the same dream 3 or 4x you'll have memorized enought to actually write it down later.

Another thing I don't see many people mentioning are dream triggers. You know when you look at something that instantly makes you remember a dream you had? Use that, try to come up with a system. If you're trying to remember a dream, try to trigger yourself by lookig at pictures of animals, plants, people, places, try to remember what you did the day before or the stuff you watched or how you felt that week. You would be surprised how these triggers are not that difficult to find. Just today I was trying to remember a dream and by touching my nose against a window and breathing on the glass, a whole dream scene triggered for me. It's fascinating and satisfying at the same time.

I had a wonderful dream last night. It was 1992 again, a gentle breeze was blowing through the open window, softly moving the curtains as it came. The pale light of a bright morning shone through the entire room and everything was quiet. I was sitting on a checkered carpet in front of the old TV set, switching through the channels. Between the ones with just static I find a station airing an old episode of Doraemon. As I sit there, watching a friendly blue cat teaching a kid to pilot a giant robot for the first time, the world seems to be captured in absolute bliss and perfection.

>>27144
That's a reposeful imagery. I would assume that you are from a different part of the world than I am but I have to say it's quite a pleasant surprise to hear that someone in another side of the world shared a similar childhood as I do. Makes it feel a little less lonely.

>>27144
This is one of the most beautiful things I've read on an imageboard.

I'm in a bit of a similar situation. I'm 21, close to 22. I entered university to study Japanese a few months ago but had to drop out, due to falling my exams, which resulted from a lack of motivation. The reason why I chose that major is probably not difficult to imagine; I spent all of my youth watching anime and to a lesser degree, playing Japanese videogames. Eventually, my interest extended to the culture's history and religions. But my course revolved mostly around learning the Japanese language, which I didn't have much interest or passion for. I'll still be returning to the course in a few months because there's nothing else that I could do that I am remotely interested in, in terms of education. I don't want to be a wageslave either and becoming a NEET is not an option for me.

>>27060
I'm 22, just got a job after being a neet for awhile. You dont need a degree to get a good job. For me, I got the comptia certification and now I got a comfy tech job. As for passion, I don't even think I am passionate about anything. You just have to think to yourself, "do I really want to be stuck like this". Or at least thats how I made it.

>>27136
>I entered university to study Japanese
Unless university is free in your country, this doesn't seem like a sound move, financial wise? English majors are already the laughing stock of employment prospects, and the job market for those majoring in japanese history/culture/language can't be any larger?

Why not avoid forking over money and just study these things on your own?

>>27141
>Unless university is free in your country, this doesn't seem like a sound move, financial wise? English majors are already the laughing stock of employment prospects, and the job market for those majoring in japanese history/culture/language can't be any larger?
It's practically free, yes. Let's just say there's no real financial downsides to it. From what I've heard, the job market for Japanese translation work is actually pretty big. I myself assumed that since Japan is a relatively wealthy country that is big in international trade and produces media which will only keep growing in popularity in the west, I'd probably have a decent amount of opportunities in terms of future employment.

>Why not avoid forking over money and just study these things on your own?
Well, I just lacked the discipline for that. I was hoping that receiving some sort of guidance would motivate me and help me learn the language more efficiently. Sadly, the amount of help I actually received was very limited. I was mostly on my own.

I also just didn't want to work. I'm currently working a low-skilled job until I go back and while it's nice earning money, I'd probably go insane doing this years on end. Being a student is the closest I can be to a NEET.

I'm nearing 30 now. I found out that I had health problems that went under the radar in terms of diagnosis, but, persistently, wore me down. I could never have energy (we called it "depression"... BS). I always had a near suicidal mood. Why me? And everyone hated me so much. And every person or group which might serve to alter this trend, I watched every single one of them die. The looks on their faces were burned into me. I agonized over them, some more than others, but the one message that came back to me was that I was everything wrong with a person. I gave up, came back, gave up, came back, gave up, gave up, gave up...

I'll tell you now that I did some wacky health thing and cured one of the major ailments. Suddenly I was no longer mortally depressed by default, it just went away. A huge weight in my existence just went away like that. And then other things happened and now I feel fine.

We're simplifying things here, but I still watch my screens. I wonder what is possible, and what it is like on the other side. The existential angst terrifies me. I tried to let go of this vice, because I can experience it not as such, these false friends, but I could not. There were some attempts in the beginning to leave, but I could never do so for very long. I would not know what to do. I do not. But I only know thhat I must leave.

There was a tremendously depressing metaphor I saw, though I can't remember when, and I can't even remember what it was exactly, nor can I find it. However, the gist of it was that the butterfly, in trying to get out of its cocoon, was weak and struggled, only barely managing to do the job and escaped its prison. But it never spread its wings, and spent the rest of its life crawling.

There was no point to this thread. It's just a bit of my story.

I notice mods have removed my original picture.. I didn't realize it was against the rules. You can't really see anyone's face, it's a pretty powerful and interesting picture. That's why I used it. Sorry about that.

tattoo the curse in the flesh and make your body strong

I'm pretty sure my creativity is getting tapped into by some supernatural entity and used to provide inspiration for artists/authors/musicians/etc that have actual followings (and by extension, the time and money to finish their creations). Every time I get an idea for a story or a character or a song and it feels like something worth fleshing out, something always comes out that's just like my idea. Even though I don't tell anyone about it. So now I can't even publish the cool thing I dumped so much time into because it'll look like a ripoff.

In that same vein, I've learned not to get my hopes up for anything because I'll always be shot down. Any time I see an opening to improve some aspect of my life and I take advantage of it, pow. Beaten down, again and again, until the opportunity closes. It's like teasing a dog with a toy and every time they jump up to get it, you yank it out of their reach right before they can grab it, no matter how high they jump. Only I'm the dog.

>>26962
It doesn't matter if two things have the same premise. Just what does it better.

>>26907
>>26908
You may be right. I do make an attempt to keep myself stimulated, but nowhere near as much as I'd like. Days fly by like hours, the month is over before I even realize it, and it dawns on me that I only accomplished a fraction of the fun/interesting things I (vaguely) planned for. Wageslaving doesn't help, even though my job is theoretically supposed to be pretty stimulating too.
In any case, I am still not unconvinced that it is actually some sort of hell life loop. Maybe I'll catch on eventually.

>>26979
who's rem?

>>26967
I wish I could simply order one of these from Amazon or something. Getting it printed and assembling it myself seems like such a hassle. And it's pretty expensive.

>>27031
>order from Amazon
You'd end up ordering a shitty Chinese knockoff design that makes you crippled instead. These things aren't single use though, so ideally some forward-thinking 3rd world country would buy a bunch and become a suicide tourist spot.

>>26983
>Rem is one of the twin maids working for Roswaal L Mathers. She tends to speak in a superficially polite manner and sometimes acts without thinking. She holds both worshipping respect and guilt toward her sister for an incident in the past; because of this, Rem tends to think of herself as inferior.
Source: Myanimelist

I love my dog but also my parents primarily look after it.

>>26997
You have a weird looking dog.

>>26877
My family has 4 cats and they are easy to look after, it depends on the cats though. These cats we have now are actually the hardest ever that we have had. Cats are basically wild animals that just take advantage of you, so long as you give them food water and kitty litter you don't need to do much else, usually. Ohh, but you should of course de-sex them. Generally we used to simply keep a bowl of cat food topped up and they ate when they felt like it, that worked well for all of our older cats but not for the ones we have now, we have two cats that are brothers and they are HUGE! We changed how we feed them but they are still fat, they are just very lazy so don't burn much energy, then my sister found a kitten by a creek and we took that in, it's mostly fine but sometimes urinates on things but then worst of all, my brother is an idiot so he did not desex his cats(both male and female) his female cat has had kittens and he has ditched the male one on us. We de-sexed him but he still has those hormones in him for now and so he is causing problems with the other cats and fighting them though I don't think it's serious so far they never seem to get cuts or bites, only one of the fat ones did and it developed into an abscess that we had to clean and monitor, I think it was from the other cat anyway it did not have any bite or claw marks just the abscess.

But anyway, that's the most problems we have ever had with cats, usually we just let them do their own thing and they are fine.

My parents have crested geckos. They are pretty cute and some do like being with people. They aren't too difficult to care for either, of course just make sure you have the time to care for them.

I have a red-eared slider turtle and 2 cats. Pets do kind of help you with loneliness. My shittiest years were made better because of my cats.

>>26361
25 although I can hardly believe it. It feels like the last five years passed in a couple months. I didn't really have access to games or a computer either until I was around 14, but I burnt out pretty quick. I wouldn't say it was that I watched or played a lot of stuff, I just have been tired all the time.

I remember being really afraid of heights despite rarely ever being anywhere very high. I think maybe I used to have dreams where I was falling because I had the idea that falling was the most horrible feeling in the world (where else could I have got this idea?)
Even the drop in rollercoasters was almost too much for me. The feeling of what it's like to fall for a prolonged period made me want to vomit and pass out (and still does).
Also the dark and really any place that felt too exposed and vulnerable to attack.

I always felt in a state of turmoil, never felt stable. I suppose that's why the idea of losing even ground beneath my feet or being somewhere exposed/indefensible/inescapable were my worst fears.

>>26976
Heights are probably my greatest fear. Because you could trip or slip and fall to your death at any moment and also the fact that there is nothing you can do about it once it happens, if you fall from a great height, that is it, you are dead. I feel less frightened being a metre away from a brown snake than a metre away from a tall cliff or ledge.

>>26364
You never know you could legitimately have some health deficiency in addition to whatever else is ailing you.

Happy new year everyone.

>>26985
This looks like a good year for anime. There's some new anime I'm looking forward to and I think it will only get better.

>>26981
Happy new year!

>>26985
One of >>26986 or >>26990 will turn out to be dead wrong!

If Made in Abyss season 2 comes out, it'll be at least a decent year.

>>26985
I bought a dakimakura to cement my everlasting happiness and there's at least one upcoming anime that makes me the most hyped I've been for a show in a decade. I have no clue about further releases though.

I kept up with seasonal anime last season for the first time too and most of it is fairly decent, but I plan on watching some high rated classic shows instead. Platinum End is my favourite recently released show though and I'm like 90% sure it is being review bombed by manga readers. Some of the negative reviews of it on MAL are outright wrong factually. I heard people are looking forward to Spy x Family too but I know nothing of it.

>>26826
Even if they don't articulate it quite like that I would say that most people would take that seriously. People generally want the people in control to be intellectual and to actually know what they are doing rather than be corrupt and only there to fill their wants.

>>25236
http://frombob.to/you/aconvers.html
i want this, its not a direct answer but a worthwhile read. it paints the most beautiful picture of what the world should be.

>>26890
Bob: Doug, recently you made some interesting comments. I was wondering if you could expand on them a bit, in private...

Doug: Sure, Bob. What comments?

B: You were talking about alien contact. You said if aliens were to contact us, they might try online before revealing themselves in person. Why do you think so?

D: Well, I have a number of reasons. Before that, you have to assume there really are aliens, they're aware of our existence, they have the means to contact us relatively soon, and they're interested in doing so. You could argue against all of these assumptions, but since you’re asking, I'm guessing you’re open-minded enough to accept them for the sake of argument...


B: Sure. Go on...

D: We've already discussed various means of contact that *may* be occurring already. UFO sightings for instance, which sometimes have multiple witnesses. There's also abductions.

All of these are easy to deny though. Authority figures can easily discredit reports of contact. It seems no one can provide hard physical evidence, and it’s easy to come up with other explanations most people will readily accept: weather balloons, secret military projects, mental illness, etc. Unless you've experienced it yourself, you can't say for sure contact has been made.

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>>26893
ET ... shitpost home...

>>24288
Thats why most hikkikomori are still alive. They just cant be bothered to die.

Its not not being bothered to die, but not able to because of their lack of willpower.

>>24288
When someone says "if you hate your life so much, why don't you just kill yourself" I have a little analogy.
Imagine you had some condition that caused you pain for every metre you were above sea level. Life is like living in a valley at 1,000m, surrounded all around by mountains of Himalayan proportions. "Why don't you live by the sea?" Because climbing over the mountains would be too painful.

>>24291
That's a really good way to explain it. Thank you, anon.