I suspect the problem lies with you, not with the company.
No one's denying this. It depends how big the problem is, and if it can be worked through. Ultimately, this is a personal problem, though "butting-in" may help.
I always find myself wishing for more intellectual discussions, but that is not opposed to finding people interesting, worth listening to and understanding. It's called "empathy", dude.
Ahh... So, it's about intellectually relating to someone? I don't really understand this.
I have found that people lack empathy, they seem to care about themselves and relating to themselves - (more so) - than to have a genuine interest in another human being. I'm not sure how much self-interest vs interest in the other (person conversing with) is involved. I'd like to know this. In my experience, people that didn't understand what I was saying, just didn't understand it, and not the other way around. I guess, deep down, I wish more people cared about me, I wish they would show it. There were times when this happened; a friend hugged me or wanted to hug me, but I shied away. I wanted to express my true emotions, but something was blocking the path. I think it's deeply rooted in my upbringing. The only way to fix this (that I see) is to develop meaningful relationships. Try, don't be afraid.
Yeah, if it's a charade, that's a problem. Perhaps you, being as brilliantly blaze and as suffused with ennui as you are, could find your way to being 'normal and 'OK' instead of pretending it. Or maybe you could continue to hide your inadequacy behind the juvenile mask of alienation. I suspect you will choose the latter. I bet you were about to say how nobody understands you!
That's right, band-aid solutions don't really work.
Try changing. Reality is a fascinating place, even if all your family cares about is kids and work. Instead of figuring out ways in which you are incompatible with the world, try to embrace reality. As it is, you are simply whining.
My thoughts exactly! Though, I didn't want to say anything - I didn't want to be mean. Bless you, then!
Oh well, who cares?
I care. It sounds like you desperately need someone for emotional support. Someone to hold you. Someone to make you feel like you matter to them. It's that deep emotional bond that you crave... These are natural wants for an emotionally neglected human being. It wasn't your fault.
It's not your fault.
I already have plenty of experience and knowledge of it.
You're missing something. See above.
Lack of interest doesn't necessarily signal lack of empathy, but I do have some unfortunate anxieties which may make it hard for me to connect with these people in a satisfying way.
I think there's some sort of fear involved. If not... Then... I don't know.
I don't consider being normal and ok, in this sense, to be something that should be aspired to. I have higher and healthier aspirations.
Neglecting these normal human activities doesn't necessarily allow a movement towards bigger and better things. The foundation must be healthy. No emotional scars. Can the emotional scars be forgotten?
I do have many inadequacies, I do routinely hide behind a mask, and much of it could be accurately described as juvenile, but I'm sincerely trying to move forward and develop and improve upon both myself and the human condition.
Define "inadequacies". Some are imagined, some are really there. Who am I to judge.
I see sickness, lies and unconsciousness, and no genuine desire or attempt to do anything to address them but instead active ongoing attempts to add even more momentum to this status quo. Christmas has a tendency to epitomize all this and I'm not interested in embracing or tacitly supporting it.
I love Christmas!
'm being honest and I'm attempting progress. From what I've seen you don't seem to possess the necessary tools to recognize or understand these types of issues. "The Human Evasion" and possibly "Civilization and Its Discontents" might provide you with some insight, although I suspect your psychological characteristics may render any real appreciation of the situation impossible.
Yes, Vic, can come across as an intellectual snob, but I think he's a good guy. I probably don't understand his motives. I'm uneducated. And pretty much useless in comparison. Age and life experience matter. Education is another biggy.
Then engage those people, draw them out. It's not hard.
I think what you're suggesting is indecent. I wouldn't have the heart to do that to family.
You mean because I don't go around whining about how shallow and inadequate the world is?..
You just proved my point.
I wish I knew the tricks of the trade.
You remind me of some existentialists who spend an awful lot of time bemoaning the terrible absurdity of human condition, and complaining about how they are condemned to be free. Pathetic. Yes, Universe is meaningless, there is no purpose, and you are, indeed, free whether you want it or not. Embrace the existential void, refuse to hide behind the skirts of your cultural upbringing -- or keep wallowing in the decaying pit of your enculturation; it's your choice.
You are FREE, dude! You have the freedom to become what you will -- you just have to decide what, and strive for it, instead of whining.
What if there are deeper issues at hand here? What if there's a part of me that I don't want to explore? Yeah, I guess questions like this are stupid. I don't know. I've found that the smallest thing can sometimes change everything. For instance: what if I actually have an illness (maybe the diagnosis is correct - small chance, though) and I'm keeping it hidden, by living as if I'm imprisoned? What if I free myself and flip-out!? These questions, however stupid, are what maybe keeping me in control.
Freedom comes in 2009.
Anyway, Vic, I think you're more/less right. However, if there are issues that prevent me from acting free, then should I not resolve these issues first as a good step towards freedom? I mean, if I act or pretend I'm free then will I not be free as free can be since I still have skeletons in my closet?
I think that almost anyone who believes that they are free from the conditioning of their culture and upbringing is extremely lacking in psychological self-insight. Simply proclaiming freedom doesn't make it so.
Rightly so, but I would say that there are different levels of freedom. For instance: a person in jail maybe more free, then a fellow walking around on the outside.
My very choice and ability to avoid Christmas gatherings is significantly explained by my relative freedom from the constraints of cultural conditioning, as are my critiques of these affairs.
Deeper issues.
I'm identifying what I see as problems in the hope of finding possible solutions, this is how progress is made, it's not mere whining.
If you identify it as a problem, then it certainly is a problem, even if it wasn't a problem before you identified it as such. The key is to identify a real problem as a problem, not make up problems. That's only a first step to a resolution of some kind.
See, you totally missed the point.
There is a third option besides become like one of 'them', or being a self-conscious outsider; an entire universe of 'third options' in fact -- or zeroth options rather, because rejecting the very counting of the first and second options, rejecting that very coordinate axis, is precisely the point. Both 'for' and 'against' approaches indicate that you give a fuck about the insider/outsider relationship; whether you are for it or against it, you are still moving along the same axis.
I am suggesting that you not give a fuck. Doesn't mean you reject them or embrace them -- simply stop worrying about this whole me/them relationship. Simply be. You are trapped in their world -- even when you oppose it, you define your actions by opposing them rather than by being you.
it's like conformism/non-conformism. Non-conformists still let conformism define them, even if only in the negative. The answer is not to not conform, but rather to ignore than plane of social reality altogether. Sometimes you might look like you conform, sometimes you might look like you don't -- why should you give a fuck?
Your problem is not that you are coming up with the wrong answers, it's that you aren't even asking the right questions. You are trapped in their coordinate plane of values and beliefs. You are measuring yourself by comparing yourself to them. They pervade and define your thinking, even if only as something which you are not. Your very self-consciousness of being not them, your obsession with this me/them relationship, is your prison cell.
This is interesting.
How would you resolve this: If you live with a person that has controlled you (or tried to) in the past. How do you deal with this if you cannot simply leave? Second, if you left that would be avoiding the problem. Third, it's not just the problem of the now, it's also the problem of the past. Avoiding the past? No. I'm thinking of traveling back to the past and changing my memories of it. How authentic would that be?
I am no more free from my cultural upbringing than I am from the laws of gravity; but I can choose to do something about it. You can choose to let others define your coordinate plane for you, or you can choose to do something else.
You have a long way to go, dude.
He is choosing, dude! What the heck makes you the authority? *WAIT* You see what happened here? This is unavoidable. Fleeing/fighting - I don't see a good option. How does one deal with this issue/s? Forget. OK.
You are no more free from your cultural conditioning than a non-conformist is free from social norms -- especially a non-conformist who defines himself by criticizing and rejecting the conformist norms of society. You still let them define you.
You are rebelling, it seems, but a rebellion cannot be a rebellion. You can only really rebel by not rebelling. Stop pushing back against it, and simply shift your coordinate space. A rebel is defined by that which he is rebelling against, and is doomed to failure thereby; unless of course his goal was to simply overthrow and then replace the old hierarchy, in which case he will probably succeed. Only someone who has simply foregone the entire system/rebellion plane, can succeed -- without actually rebelling! -- at that which a rebel will forever futilely chase.
...What hierarchy? What are you talking about? Is this like one of those "illusions" David was once talking about?
I can't see the difference between Jason opposing Christmas and Victor opposing, say, the New Age. Or between Jason putting on his non-conformist mask and Victor putting on his uber-aggressive Devil's mask.
What is the "New Age"? I've heard this being throw around. I think my dad mentioned it... Weird.
A free man is free to be aggressive -- but my aggression is not against religion, it's against irrationality; and I choose that.
You go...! (heh-heh)
Uh-Oh... maybe the aggression chose it?!
Dude, i am all about understanding, not doing. I do whatever I feel like doing, I try to understand everything.
It's better to understand and do, then to not understand and do. And even better: don't do if you don't understand! I think I've got it down pat!
