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541
« on: May 29, 2020, 12:44:07 AM »
Ever sit down and ask yourself what you're doing with your life by wasting time on a quiet backwater forum and essentially amounting to the town drunk? Like, I've been here for about what, a month and a half maybe and I've seen some shit comin' outta you that if performed in public would have you either slam dunked into a padded room or beaten the shit out of. I'm legitimately curious about what exactly this place holds over you. Why keep coming back if you squander your time so horrendously.
542
« on: May 28, 2020, 12:16:49 PM »
That's uh. I don't know man. That's some pretty heavy stuff.
Ah, I know. I saw a lot during those five or so years. That's the worst for what I've personally done. I saw a lot worse coming from other people. I traveled across canada and stopped and turned back when I got to quebec. That was the roughest place I've ever been to, at least in canada. I'm glad to be rid of the streets, although I suppose I'm not quite free. Reconciliation can be hard on the thoughts some days. I don't imagine I'd be talking to you if I didn't bet you could understand some of that sentiment.
In a sense, but being out there for less than a year and having couches to crash on most of the time, even if where I was changing on a daily or weekly basis (sometimes a month if I was lucky, once I was allowed to stay at a mostly vacant house while they looked for a new tenant) I think I really only scratched the surface. But it's like when you go to the steep edge of a mountain where you can see all the way down. I could see how far the fall could potentially be, and I did everything in my power to stop it from happening. I saw a lot. More than I'd ever seen in my lifetime all in that one year. Some people were nice but most people treated me like shit, but I also saw how much worse it could get. Was extremely persistent on staying busy and keeping a roof over my head in whatever capacity, even if it was someone's kitchen or garage.
Learned a lot from passing through so many people's living spaces, actually. 14 off the top of my head that I can think of right now, there's most likely more I'm not remembering. The nicest people were always the ones who were barely getting by themselves. They were always the ones that said they'd love to have me longer but they usually didn't have the space to accommodate me, and I never wanted to overstay my welcome with those people.
I can't understand everything you've been through but I can easily understand the path that would lead a person in that situation to that point. And that's a place I always found quite terrifying. I could still feel the slow creep of losing your humanity. Physically my body was very much in survival mode, but I didn't want my mind to go completely there too. The nights I didn't have anywhere to go were always the darkest. The hopeless feeling of wandering around for hours and hours, eventually giving up and finding a small covered area to pass out on, and waking up 2-4 hours later in incredible pain because my back is kinda shit. Then I think, for most of the other people I pass by that are out there, they're doing this every single night.
There's a disparity then I think in our views of the streets during that time. When I ended up there I don't think I had a notion of being terrified. More than likely I wanted to die, something to finish me off. There was enough of me in the background to keep me alive though, which is why I wandered and did my best to analyze the situations and act as intelligently as I could to self preserve myself. I can understand the despair though. The longest roads for me where the ones between cities and towns. I had a rule never to hitchhike with anybody, so I walked for the most part, unless I managed to jump a train. I carried a little tent with me. I'd walk a mile or so off the road into cover where I could pitch it for the night. Winters were the worst, because I'd wake up in the dark and I'd be freezing cold before I lit a little propane cookstove. I just remember the awful feeling of dread of realizing that I woke up still alive and that I had hundreds of miles to go before I found another gathering of people. I saw a lot of shitty people and things, but I saw a lot of amazing people and things too. The funny thing with the homeless is that they've all different views on it. Some of them blamed society and everybody else. A lot of them where people with medical conditions and no treatment centers. And every now and again you'd find one that was content for some reason, simply not wanting anything beyond that. I remember one that I traveled with for some time. She was a remarkably cheery person despite her circumstance. Rent and bills and college tuition piled too high for her until she went bankrupt and had the rug pulled out from under her feet. Her family had at one point disowned her due to her sexuality. She was wonderful with a few types of instruments though, and took to performing with them to make cash where she could. She traveled with me all the way alberta to ontario. She was remarkably cheerful right up until the end of the road. I didn't sense a hollowness to it either, like you can with some people. She was genuine every moment. But, yes, there's folk out there every day and night, for their own particular reasons.
543
« on: May 28, 2020, 10:38:38 AM »
That's uh. I don't know man. That's some pretty heavy stuff.
Ah, I know. I saw a lot during those five or so years. That's the worst for what I've personally done. I saw a lot worse coming from other people. I traveled across canada and stopped and turned back when I got to quebec. That was the roughest place I've ever been to, at least in canada. I'm glad to be rid of the streets, although I suppose I'm not quite free. Reconciliation can be hard on the thoughts some days. I don't imagine I'd be talking to you if I didn't bet you could understand some of that sentiment.
544
« on: May 27, 2020, 10:56:10 PM »
I never finished high school for starters. Everything I know of today I taught myself how to do. But if you're asking on what has more value? I can't give you a definitive answer because it's entirely dependent on the individual's capacity to learn, and what they're learning. I can highlight some points on the differences between the two. Academia, on paper, is designed to skip the process of self learning. For instance. It's taken me eleven years to understand the principles that I currently do in artistic mediums. Where I to take acedemia(assuming I landed the correct school), I could entirely skip this process by learning from the masters and what they know outright.
Or, for another instance, it's likely not possible for me to teach myself how to become a molecular biologist, or a chemist. I could learn the basic principles but I would not have access to the more advanced networks, information, and technology to help me learn. Most importantly, the right kind of teacher can streamline the learning process and remove learning barriers.
The downside to college and other higher forms of education however, is that they focus on monetary gain(a source of income for the learner rather than a passion) and they are monetary traps designed to close on today's youth. Society does place too much value on degrees, but only because most of society sees monetary acclimation tied to the word degree. I find that most people never go to college or university with the intent of interest. They go because they're interested in making money from some field that's "promised" to generate it. Lo and behold we arise to the trap. Oversaturation of fields and jobless graduates which college and uni's will shed no tears for, only bills and interest rates. University and college can be worth it for more advanced fields, but so long as it costs an arm and a leg in some countries, they aren't worth it. Education should be free.
545
« on: May 27, 2020, 11:59:09 AM »
That's a complicated question with a complicated answer.
Was there one event or was it a gradual slide into despair
I feel like I can't really say I "hate" life anymore because things just aren't as bad as they used to be. Life is still pretty shit overall but it'll never come close to how it was. From having my first major existential crisis in 4th/5th grade to being kicked out, going homeless and losing everything and everyone I cared about. I don't hate simply existing anymore, for the most part I'm fairly okay with it.
Could make a lengthy blog post but it's whatever.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time on this forum as a sort of crutch for how much my life was falling apart.
Ah, you did some time on the streets and came out of it too huh. Good on you for managing to pull yourself out. I know how hard it can be to get out of that circle.
I fought against it from happening every single step of the way and ultimately I was still powerless towards preventing it from happening. The hardest part about it was how goddamn hard I tried to do things right but how I lacked any control whatsoever of the situation. It was like I accidentally bumped into the boulder, and once it started rolling down the hill there was no stopping it no matter how desperately I tried to.
I kept trying and trying and trying and it seemed like I kept getting curbstomped into the ground. I remember this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to just give up but for some reason I just didn't, this feeling that I was continuing the crawl forward against my will despite being kicked and stepped on over and over along the way. I didn't want to keep going, but I did anyway.
I'm still around and kicking, and will continue to do so. But I find that my drive and passion is gone, washed up. The motivation I had back then, when I pushed through ridiculous amounts of bullshit to make things happen despite it, it's gone. I don't trust people, I don't have faith in anything. Been pretty socially isolated even before this pandemic stuff started. Yet for some reason I still hope that one day I'll be in a comfortable enough position where I'm self sustaining and content with my life. I still hope that one day my motivation will come back and I can actually do something meaningful with my life, in whatever capacity it may be.
Never too late to start anew. I spent five years as a wanderer with no place to stay and no income. Managed to keep myself alive by stealing money from people, just enough so as not to be missed, not enough to get attacked by other homeless, but enough to buy food for the day. My home's not much of an upgrade over what I was, a truck camper on a truck, but boy is it nice to have during the winters up here.
I'll tell you some stuff. Motivation doesn't arrive out of the blue. It's all in how you frame reality. At any point in time you can stand up and choose to do it differently. The focal point should never be the difficulty. Problems will always come no matter what you do and how you prepare. What matters is the goal and whether or not you want to let yourself be stopped from reaching it.
And I get the slow crawl. I wake up and go to sleep every day missing a person I love very dearly. Life's dreadfully awful without her company to the point that I don't have much of an existence with any meaning, other than two things. To stick around because I know she'd want me to fight it, and because I want to honor the dream we had and build the house we both wanted to build together. Contentment and happiness take time to re-learn but you gotta be open to it, and on occasion, fight very hard for it.
I never stole anything, but I'd been stolen from plenty of times during that time. Was even held at knife-point once. I dedicated my life to volunteering, because no one was hiring me anyway and all these various organizations were more than happy to take my free labor and I was deluded enough to think I was making a difference. Frankly it was the only thing that gave me a sense of purpose. It was also a good way to meet people that let me crash their couches though. I've won tons of small scholarships for all the work I did and they were supposed to help me go to university. All of it went to rent. In any case, eventually I managed to attempt attending community college despite still not having stable housing, had a really rocky semester and then I got in contact with my current roommate. He's basically the only reason I've been in relatively stable housing for the last few years.
Oh, I was stolen from too early on. After losing my first backpack of shit which was essentially my lifeline I developed careful habits. Avoided city and town centers and took note of active homeless gatherings so that I could avoid them as much as possible. I stuck to the fringes of bigger cities and did most of my pillaging in small towns I was passing through. I had a couple close calls and did a few abnormally awful things I'm not happy about. That and the theiving of course. I guess it's why I'm not stingy with my money with people. I aught to repay back what I took.
Five years of that and then I hit my low point. I swiped a shotgun from a farmer and headed out into the woods during the winter intending to blow the back of my head out. I just about accomplished it even after I chose not to. Freezing fingers pulled the trigger and it went off next to head. Permanently deaf on my left side now. Small price to pay I think.
Shit dude. I was only out there for a little less than a year. One of my biggest fears was falling to this point I considered the "point of no return", you might know what I mean. You can see it on a lot of people, the fact that they'll likely never be functional again. I kept myself busy, always working, always doing something. A lot of people in that local community knew my face, because any time there was an event I was there and I probably helped with set-up and tear-down. Was decently connected too since I had a smart phone and laptops that people gave me. The worst things I had stolen was my bike and later my moped, but besides that I did a relatively decent job storing my things with people who I trusted enough to not fuck with my shit too much.
Yes, I hear you. It's another one of the reasons why I tended to stay away from homeless populations. There's some people you genuinely look at and you can't help but wonder how they're alive. It's a level of despair so deep it's difficult to comprehend. That and it spreads like a virus. Stick around a group of the downtrodden and you'll feel it.
As for stuff, during those five years it was me and everything that I could fit into a backpack or carry on it. I think the largest amount of money I ever stole was close to two hundred dollars, and that was only because the person I'd studied and watched for several days was a drug dealer. I had no qualms taking all I could get from him. But that was one of the things that almost cost me my life. With regular people, I made a point never to steal anything that might actually be valuable. I scrounged for pocket change and people's random dollar bills. The max I ever took from regular people was twenty a shot.
I had a suitcase and one of those brown paper grocery bags. I didn't take them with me everywhere as you might imagine. All things considered, I guess I'm glad I went the volunteering route despite some of the bullshit because it probably got me out if the situation the fastest since people saw me actively trying to help even though I was barely surviving myself. It was hard learning to accept help from others, but it was necessary for survival and it was a bit easier to swallow since I'd already been contributing towards so many things. But I still struggled with it and found myself trying to justify things in my head.
The awards I got are nice but sometimes they feel a bit hollow because I feel no connection to them now. I used to tell people that it felt like I was "prostituting my suffering" because accepting them usually meant going up on a stage and showing off how pitiful my life was. Absolutely hated it, but I probably wouldn't be around today without it.
This isn't even all of them, there's about 3 or 4 more missing in the picture.
Hmm. At some point we've all got to make a choice we disagree with to get buy. It took me a while to accept forms of help as well, mainly because I don't trust 90% of help. It has a tendency to come back at you in the future when somebody decides that they disagree with you. To me, I would have rathered never receive help at all than have it held above my head at ransom when the tides shift. Was it legitimate help then if it could be used as an emotional set piece? I think not. One of my major regrets was the time I got involved in a fight. I let my guard down in Vancouver and made the mistake to pass through one of the parks at night. So of course I got jumped over my bag of shit. It was my second backpack and one that I'd managed to keep with me for a few years. The guy had a knife and I told myself that I'd rather die than lose my shit again and have to restart. But I didn't know much about fighting, so I went with my knowledge of basic anatomy. I used my coat to snag the knife on my arm and when I got close enough I went for the eyes. You know I don't really know how to say it even though it's easy to write plain as day. Those screams are still in my head. And the feeling of gouging eyes with all the rage you have in you makes my hands shake still if I remember it. I didn't kill the guy but I know I hurt him tremendously. Rationality says I was boxed into a corner with no way out and that I did what was necessary to stay living, but if only it were so easy to brush off the feeling of making a horrible mistake. I immediately left Vancouver that night. A few months later into the canadian winter in Alberta that was where I lost my will to keep going and swiped that shotgun. It's kind of funny I think, but you know what makes me happy? I was able to break back into that farmer's house and return the shotgun when I decided that it wasn't time to die yet. There's a part of me that wants to go back to that house someday and talk to the man who lived there.
546
« on: May 27, 2020, 01:45:11 AM »
Considering my views on sex? I'm on the fence. On one hand, you've got this massive industry that capitalizes on a basic human instinct and warps it into something lesser. In poorer countries people are drafted into the sex industry with no choice. And in the modern sex industry in so called civilized countries there's a lot of rampant abuse as well. On the other hand, there's people making choices in their life willingly to participate in the whole thing. I can't stop them from that, and all I can say is that if that's their thing, then so be it.
I won't say that it's just a job however. Crawling in shit in a hazmat suit is a job, but you don't see too many gleefully lining up for that do you? There's a limit for everybody in their self worth. And whether or not they want to delude themselves into thinking it, sex workers are at the bottom of the totem. I don't know your stance on sexuality, but I can tell you mine. I believe if you're going to do it, it's with somebody you cherish. Anything beyond that is either vapid or simplistic need, and it's lowering yourself down a notch in quality.
For you this will either be an act that sits well, in the middle ground, or poorly. You can't undo the poorly if you draw that card. So ask yourself if it's worth your trouble to be a gambler and lose for three hundred dollars. And, fuck dude, three hundred dollars will vanish quick. Cash is cash. It always vanishes, and you can always make it somewhere else without having to sell your integrity.
547
« on: May 27, 2020, 01:21:33 AM »
What’s the skinny on your writing, at the moment/over the last four years?
as far as my novel goes, the pen has officially made contact with the paper, and as you would imagine, the quarantine has given me ample excuse to work on it more than i ever have—which makes me feel like a gross opportunist, but whatever
i'm at a point where i can play the entire story out in my head like a movie from beginning to end—it's just a matter of getting it all down on the page, which is easier said than done, but relatively speaking, i'm making headway on it
but i'm also pacing myself—a lot of writers will tell you that you should write even if you don't feel like writing, but personally, i think that's an extremely unhealthy way of looking at it, and a good way to burn yourself out, or to start resenting your passion
if i don't feel like writing for a week, i don't write for a week—i'm looking at this as an artistic endeavor, not a commercial one, so there's no sense in rushing if all i want to do is tell a good and meaningful story
i'm also trying to come to grips that it doesn't have to be perfect, and that not everybody has to enjoy it—in fact, it's my intention for it to be somewhat alienating, but comforting to those who absolutely need it
it's a tricky process and it might take me all summer yet, but i appreciate your interest
frankly, nothing has held me back more than college has—enrolling to my university straight out of high school in 2014 was the single biggest mistake of my life, but it'll be all over in just one more semester
Undertaking a novel? May I ask what sort?
548
« on: May 26, 2020, 07:58:47 PM »
That's a complicated question with a complicated answer.
Was there one event or was it a gradual slide into despair
I feel like I can't really say I "hate" life anymore because things just aren't as bad as they used to be. Life is still pretty shit overall but it'll never come close to how it was. From having my first major existential crisis in 4th/5th grade to being kicked out, going homeless and losing everything and everyone I cared about. I don't hate simply existing anymore, for the most part I'm fairly okay with it.
Could make a lengthy blog post but it's whatever.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time on this forum as a sort of crutch for how much my life was falling apart.
Ah, you did some time on the streets and came out of it too huh. Good on you for managing to pull yourself out. I know how hard it can be to get out of that circle.
I fought against it from happening every single step of the way and ultimately I was still powerless towards preventing it from happening. The hardest part about it was how goddamn hard I tried to do things right but how I lacked any control whatsoever of the situation. It was like I accidentally bumped into the boulder, and once it started rolling down the hill there was no stopping it no matter how desperately I tried to.
I kept trying and trying and trying and it seemed like I kept getting curbstomped into the ground. I remember this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to just give up but for some reason I just didn't, this feeling that I was continuing the crawl forward against my will despite being kicked and stepped on over and over along the way. I didn't want to keep going, but I did anyway.
I'm still around and kicking, and will continue to do so. But I find that my drive and passion is gone, washed up. The motivation I had back then, when I pushed through ridiculous amounts of bullshit to make things happen despite it, it's gone. I don't trust people, I don't have faith in anything. Been pretty socially isolated even before this pandemic stuff started. Yet for some reason I still hope that one day I'll be in a comfortable enough position where I'm self sustaining and content with my life. I still hope that one day my motivation will come back and I can actually do something meaningful with my life, in whatever capacity it may be.
Never too late to start anew. I spent five years as a wanderer with no place to stay and no income. Managed to keep myself alive by stealing money from people, just enough so as not to be missed, not enough to get attacked by other homeless, but enough to buy food for the day. My home's not much of an upgrade over what I was, a truck camper on a truck, but boy is it nice to have during the winters up here.
I'll tell you some stuff. Motivation doesn't arrive out of the blue. It's all in how you frame reality. At any point in time you can stand up and choose to do it differently. The focal point should never be the difficulty. Problems will always come no matter what you do and how you prepare. What matters is the goal and whether or not you want to let yourself be stopped from reaching it.
And I get the slow crawl. I wake up and go to sleep every day missing a person I love very dearly. Life's dreadfully awful without her company to the point that I don't have much of an existence with any meaning, other than two things. To stick around because I know she'd want me to fight it, and because I want to honor the dream we had and build the house we both wanted to build together. Contentment and happiness take time to re-learn but you gotta be open to it, and on occasion, fight very hard for it.
I never stole anything, but I'd been stolen from plenty of times during that time. Was even held at knife-point once. I dedicated my life to volunteering, because no one was hiring me anyway and all these various organizations were more than happy to take my free labor and I was deluded enough to think I was making a difference. Frankly it was the only thing that gave me a sense of purpose. It was also a good way to meet people that let me crash their couches though. I've won tons of small scholarships for all the work I did and they were supposed to help me go to university. All of it went to rent. In any case, eventually I managed to attempt attending community college despite still not having stable housing, had a really rocky semester and then I got in contact with my current roommate. He's basically the only reason I've been in relatively stable housing for the last few years.
Oh, I was stolen from too early on. After losing my first backpack of shit which was essentially my lifeline I developed careful habits. Avoided city and town centers and took note of active homeless gatherings so that I could avoid them as much as possible. I stuck to the fringes of bigger cities and did most of my pillaging in small towns I was passing through. I had a couple close calls and did a few abnormally awful things I'm not happy about. That and the theiving of course. I guess it's why I'm not stingy with my money with people. I aught to repay back what I took.
Five years of that and then I hit my low point. I swiped a shotgun from a farmer and headed out into the woods during the winter intending to blow the back of my head out. I just about accomplished it even after I chose not to. Freezing fingers pulled the trigger and it went off next to head. Permanently deaf on my left side now. Small price to pay I think.
Shit dude. I was only out there for a little less than a year. One of my biggest fears was falling to this point I considered the "point of no return", you might know what I mean. You can see it on a lot of people, the fact that they'll likely never be functional again. I kept myself busy, always working, always doing something. A lot of people in that local community knew my face, because any time there was an event I was there and I probably helped with set-up and tear-down. Was decently connected too since I had a smart phone and laptops that people gave me. The worst things I had stolen was my bike and later my moped, but besides that I did a relatively decent job storing my things with people who I trusted enough to not fuck with my shit too much.
Yes, I hear you. It's another one of the reasons why I tended to stay away from homeless populations. There's some people you genuinely look at and you can't help but wonder how they're alive. It's a level of despair so deep it's difficult to comprehend. That and it spreads like a virus. Stick around a group of the downtrodden and you'll feel it. As for stuff, during those five years it was me and everything that I could fit into a backpack or carry on it. I think the largest amount of money I ever stole was close to two hundred dollars, and that was only because the person I'd studied and watched for several days was a drug dealer. I had no qualms taking all I could get from him. But that was one of the things that almost cost me my life. With regular people, I made a point never to steal anything that might actually be valuable. I scrounged for pocket change and people's random dollar bills. The max I ever took from regular people was twenty a shot.
549
« on: May 26, 2020, 02:37:25 PM »
That's a complicated question with a complicated answer.
Was there one event or was it a gradual slide into despair
I feel like I can't really say I "hate" life anymore because things just aren't as bad as they used to be. Life is still pretty shit overall but it'll never come close to how it was. From having my first major existential crisis in 4th/5th grade to being kicked out, going homeless and losing everything and everyone I cared about. I don't hate simply existing anymore, for the most part I'm fairly okay with it.
Could make a lengthy blog post but it's whatever.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time on this forum as a sort of crutch for how much my life was falling apart.
Ah, you did some time on the streets and came out of it too huh. Good on you for managing to pull yourself out. I know how hard it can be to get out of that circle.
I fought against it from happening every single step of the way and ultimately I was still powerless towards preventing it from happening. The hardest part about it was how goddamn hard I tried to do things right but how I lacked any control whatsoever of the situation. It was like I accidentally bumped into the boulder, and once it started rolling down the hill there was no stopping it no matter how desperately I tried to.
I kept trying and trying and trying and it seemed like I kept getting curbstomped into the ground. I remember this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to just give up but for some reason I just didn't, this feeling that I was continuing the crawl forward against my will despite being kicked and stepped on over and over along the way. I didn't want to keep going, but I did anyway.
I'm still around and kicking, and will continue to do so. But I find that my drive and passion is gone, washed up. The motivation I had back then, when I pushed through ridiculous amounts of bullshit to make things happen despite it, it's gone. I don't trust people, I don't have faith in anything. Been pretty socially isolated even before this pandemic stuff started. Yet for some reason I still hope that one day I'll be in a comfortable enough position where I'm self sustaining and content with my life. I still hope that one day my motivation will come back and I can actually do something meaningful with my life, in whatever capacity it may be.
Never too late to start anew. I spent five years as a wanderer with no place to stay and no income. Managed to keep myself alive by stealing money from people, just enough so as not to be missed, not enough to get attacked by other homeless, but enough to buy food for the day. My home's not much of an upgrade over what I was, a truck camper on a truck, but boy is it nice to have during the winters up here.
I'll tell you some stuff. Motivation doesn't arrive out of the blue. It's all in how you frame reality. At any point in time you can stand up and choose to do it differently. The focal point should never be the difficulty. Problems will always come no matter what you do and how you prepare. What matters is the goal and whether or not you want to let yourself be stopped from reaching it.
And I get the slow crawl. I wake up and go to sleep every day missing a person I love very dearly. Life's dreadfully awful without her company to the point that I don't have much of an existence with any meaning, other than two things. To stick around because I know she'd want me to fight it, and because I want to honor the dream we had and build the house we both wanted to build together. Contentment and happiness take time to re-learn but you gotta be open to it, and on occasion, fight very hard for it.
I never stole anything, but I'd been stolen from plenty of times during that time. Was even held at knife-point once. I dedicated my life to volunteering, because no one was hiring me anyway and all these various organizations were more than happy to take my free labor and I was deluded enough to think I was making a difference. Frankly it was the only thing that gave me a sense of purpose. It was also a good way to meet people that let me crash their couches though. I've won tons of small scholarships for all the work I did and they were supposed to help me go to university. All of it went to rent. In any case, eventually I managed to attempt attending community college despite still not having stable housing, had a really rocky semester and then I got in contact with my current roommate. He's basically the only reason I've been in relatively stable housing for the last few years.
Oh, I was stolen from too early on. After losing my first backpack of shit which was essentially my lifeline I developed careful habits. Avoided city and town centers and took note of active homeless gatherings so that I could avoid them as much as possible. I stuck to the fringes of bigger cities and did most of my pillaging in small towns I was passing through. I had a couple close calls and did a few abnormally awful things I'm not happy about. That and the theiving of course. I guess it's why I'm not stingy with my money with people. I aught to repay back what I took. Five years of that and then I hit my low point. I swiped a shotgun from a farmer and headed out into the woods during the winter intending to blow the back of my head out. I just about accomplished it even after I chose not to. Freezing fingers pulled the trigger and it went off next to head. Permanently deaf on my left side now. Small price to pay I think.
550
« on: May 26, 2020, 02:29:30 AM »
That's a complicated question with a complicated answer.
Was there one event or was it a gradual slide into despair
I feel like I can't really say I "hate" life anymore because things just aren't as bad as they used to be. Life is still pretty shit overall but it'll never come close to how it was. From having my first major existential crisis in 4th/5th grade to being kicked out, going homeless and losing everything and everyone I cared about. I don't hate simply existing anymore, for the most part I'm fairly okay with it.
Could make a lengthy blog post but it's whatever.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time on this forum as a sort of crutch for how much my life was falling apart.
Ah, you did some time on the streets and came out of it too huh. Good on you for managing to pull yourself out. I know how hard it can be to get out of that circle.
I fought against it from happening every single step of the way and ultimately I was still powerless towards preventing it from happening. The hardest part about it was how goddamn hard I tried to do things right but how I lacked any control whatsoever of the situation. It was like I accidentally bumped into the boulder, and once it started rolling down the hill there was no stopping it no matter how desperately I tried to.
I kept trying and trying and trying and it seemed like I kept getting curbstomped into the ground. I remember this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to just give up but for some reason I just didn't, this feeling that I was continuing the crawl forward against my will despite being kicked and stepped on over and over along the way. I didn't want to keep going, but I did anyway.
I'm still around and kicking, and will continue to do so. But I find that my drive and passion is gone, washed up. The motivation I had back then, when I pushed through ridiculous amounts of bullshit to make things happen despite it, it's gone. I don't trust people, I don't have faith in anything. Been pretty socially isolated even before this pandemic stuff started. Yet for some reason I still hope that one day I'll be in a comfortable enough position where I'm self sustaining and content with my life. I still hope that one day my motivation will come back and I can actually do something meaningful with my life, in whatever capacity it may be.
Never too late to start anew. I spent five years as a wanderer with no place to stay and no income. Managed to keep myself alive by stealing money from people, just enough so as not to be missed, not enough to get attacked by other homeless, but enough to buy food for the day. My home's not much of an upgrade over what I was, a truck camper on a truck, but boy is it nice to have during the winters up here. I'll tell you some stuff. Motivation doesn't arrive out of the blue. It's all in how you frame reality. At any point in time you can stand up and choose to do it differently. The focal point should never be the difficulty. Problems will always come no matter what you do and how you prepare. What matters is the goal and whether or not you want to let yourself be stopped from reaching it. And I get the slow crawl. I wake up and go to sleep every day missing a person I love very dearly. Life's dreadfully awful without her company to the point that I don't have much of an existence with any meaning, other than two things. To stick around because I know she'd want me to fight it, and because I want to honor the dream we had and build the house we both wanted to build together. Contentment and happiness take time to re-learn but you gotta be open to it, and on occasion, fight very hard for it.
551
« on: May 25, 2020, 09:38:22 PM »
That's a complicated question with a complicated answer.
Was there one event or was it a gradual slide into despair
I feel like I can't really say I "hate" life anymore because things just aren't as bad as they used to be. Life is still pretty shit overall but it'll never come close to how it was. From having my first major existential crisis in 4th/5th grade to being kicked out, going homeless and losing everything and everyone I cared about. I don't hate simply existing anymore, for the most part I'm fairly okay with it.
Could make a lengthy blog post but it's whatever.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time on this forum as a sort of crutch for how much my life was falling apart.
Ah, you did some time on the streets and came out of it too huh. Good on you for managing to pull yourself out. I know how hard it can be to get out of that circle.
552
« on: May 25, 2020, 09:02:54 PM »
Oldfag rings a bell, not enough to conjure anything for memory though. In any case, nice to meet ya.
553
« on: May 25, 2020, 06:29:11 AM »
I may have a workaround for the hitch up. Don't think of it as practice. I'll tell you why.
I've posted a few bits of my work here, and if you've seen them, you may be surprised to know that I personally can't draw for shit, moderate at best. My work is the result of over a decade of experimentation and combining all of my favorite digital mediums together into one piece. I use 3d rendering programs and models, stitched real world photography, and a few custom scripts and brushes I made to distort and recombine all of my images together into one thing. It's all actually a very big process when I get going. Imagine what it was like for me when I didn't know anything and I was teaching myself how to do all of this for the first time.
I learned how to do all of this through practice, of course, but I didn't view it as practice. To me, I wanted to nail the imagery I imagined. Every time I made a new image, it was my chance to push my abilities and knowledge further and get one step closer to achieving my desired result. I think if you start to view it as simply practice, you add rigormoral to the process, which sucks the fun out of what you do. Of course, art is a balance between rigor and fun. When you work, don't think too much of the technical details. Just focus on doing. Making something come alive and captivating. You'll learn as you work anyway.
Unfortunately my current goal is to learn to draw human anatomy which is basically entirely practice. I don't really plan on doing any fully composed character art until I've progressed more. I've got a ton of ideas to put to paper (or digital canvas) but they're all on hold right now until I have achieved the skill required to execute them how I envision. A little bit of practice everyday isn't as enjoyable as drawing things I am comfortable with but I can handle that much so long as I can just maintain the motivation to draw period. That's my biggest issue, honestly. For a while now I've felt like doing virtually nothing. Not just art. I haven't practiced just about all of my hobbies for months. The only thing I've really been doing lately is sleeping, lurking on forums, and watching crap on YouTube.
Too much of that good shit turns sour. You've gotta open up the windows and let some fresh air in so to speak. The death of anybody artistically inclined is stagnation, whether it be through physical patterns or mental ones. Rock the boat a bit and drag your corpse out of bed, go see something new outside.
554
« on: May 25, 2020, 06:25:48 AM »
It'd be illogical to hate the entirety of life so I never developed the habit other than disliking parts of my own life.
555
« on: May 22, 2020, 12:20:27 PM »
You too huh. My flatscreen got gravity'd by my fat ass fucking cat this morning and now it's finished.
rip cat.
Fat bastard's been through a lot with me. He's worth far more than the TV.
556
« on: May 22, 2020, 12:02:17 PM »
You too huh. My flatscreen got gravity'd by my fat ass fucking cat this morning and now it's finished.
557
« on: May 22, 2020, 11:41:33 AM »
Is it obvious yet that I keep hesitating to start practicing bodies?
Just do it. Start with rough sketchy shapes, and don't worry about refining the image. It's fine if it looks like complete shit.
Just remember, loose and sketchy. Using basic shapes can help a lot too.
It's not actually that I'm too worried about the sketches being shitty. I can draw bodies decently well as long as I have a reference (obviously still nowhere near perfect). It's just that the task of practicing new things in general seems really tedious and tbh depression is really screwing with my motivation to do anything productive, but that's how it goes I guess.
I'm actually going to try to suck it up and commit to drawing at least one full body pose a day. Hopefully other circumstances won't wreck my determination as they have been for a while now.
I may have a workaround for the hitch up. Don't think of it as practice. I'll tell you why. I've posted a few bits of my work here, and if you've seen them, you may be surprised to know that I personally can't draw for shit, moderate at best. My work is the result of over a decade of experimentation and combining all of my favorite digital mediums together into one piece. I use 3d rendering programs and models, stitched real world photography, and a few custom scripts and brushes I made to distort and recombine all of my images together into one thing. It's all actually a very big process when I get going. Imagine what it was like for me when I didn't know anything and I was teaching myself how to do all of this for the first time. I learned how to do all of this through practice, of course, but I didn't view it as practice. To me, I wanted to nail the imagery I imagined. Every time I made a new image, it was my chance to push my abilities and knowledge further and get one step closer to achieving my desired result. I think if you start to view it as simply practice, you add rigormoral to the process, which sucks the fun out of what you do. Of course, art is a balance between rigor and fun. When you work, don't think too much of the technical details. Just focus on doing. Making something come alive and captivating. You'll learn as you work anyway.
558
« on: May 20, 2020, 09:02:55 PM »
what does “deserve” have to do with it?
exactly—it doesn't, and that's one of the biggest problems i have with reality
there's people in japan who literally drop dead trying to make an honest living so they can pursue their happiness, and then you have junkies who've never worked a day in their lives who cheat at life and feel good anyway for putting nothing in
so if deservingness has nothing to do with it, why bother earning anything in life? why not just be a druggie, then
and before you say it, i'm not trying to say that going to the gym is the same thing as abusing drugs—i'm just saying, going to the gym is just another form of mindless self-indulgence to me. it's gross, and i don't like anything about it
everyone deserves to be happy in a vacuum, but not in a world where everyone doesn't get to be happy
Maybe I've missed a finer line here, but your argument lies with the failure of human mechanisms rather than reality itself. Druggies exist because the drug pushers exist. They get a free ride through society only because society likes to think of itself as moral and tries to help these "poor" people. The very same can be said of the japanese worker who drops dead on the job. He dropped dead because he lives in a society and a culture that allows it to happen. Life itself didn't dictate that. People did. They made the decisions that led them to that end. Reality itself is actually very simple. Survive or don't. That's it. The complications of happiness and unhappiness arise only because people are idiots, and they build systems that needlessly complicate things and are built to be abused. And if it's a question of deservingness? It's not. Nobody inherently deserves shit. Why bother earning anything then if deserving it isn't a factor? It's subjective to the individual who wants something. Everybody alive wants something by default. And as long as you're alive, you get what you want if you have the intelligence, the drive, and the necessary implements to achieve it. What you also get are the consequences that come with wanting anything and making the choices that lead to it. For example, you say that druggies get a free ride. They "cheat." You're only looking at the very minimal positives he achieves. Handouts from society and powerful highs from drugs that only last for so long before his body's adaptive nature weakens the highs. In return for having the easy life what does he get? Addiction cravings, diseases, conditions, mental degredation, homelessnes. He inherits absolute despair and a self destructive spiral that only eventually leads to one end. Druggies haven't cheated life. Not at all. If you've gone to any of the major cities out in the world and actually walked amongst their population, out in their hubs and major gatherings, you'd see that these people more often than not exist in a state of despair so deep that you can't even understand how they're alive. They live in a literal hell of their own making half the time.
559
« on: May 20, 2020, 02:14:48 PM »
Honestly, sometimes I wish we lived in perfect world where unsolvable problems wouldn't exist. But then humanity as it is now would not exist either.
Unsolvable problems don't exist. It couldn't even be classified as a problem if its counterpart didn't exist. The only type of problem that exists is one where the solution hasn't been found yet.
560
« on: May 20, 2020, 01:01:35 AM »
"the most broad question: at what point ought one call into question how they identify themselves, or define themselves by external subjects?"
Lastly before I drop into a sleep coma. Always. Always question your framework. When you settle into framework of identity you inevitably imprison yourself from new data coming in that alters how the game works. New data is always coming in. If you don't adapt, you stagnate mentally.
561
« on: May 20, 2020, 12:58:31 AM »
I only have a few minutes to reply so I can only pick one line. "How strongly should we consider the argument of "othered" persons or groups?"
I don't think it's so much a question of how strongly we should consider arguments made by anybody. It's a question of whether or not said argument has any foundation in logic whatsoever. That should always first and foremost be considered. Only after you've established that an argument has valid roots in logic can you proceed to actually weigh how strongly it's taken into account.
562
« on: May 17, 2020, 03:28:31 AM »
I'd probably be the first person to say that both sides of the trans train tracks aren't what they emulate, at least biologically. But for the sake of simplicity and fairness, I'd call either person by what they choose to address themselves as. That seems pretty simple to me and anything beyond that makes things needlessly complicated.
This article falls victim to what many various communities and movements are today in that they're folding into themselves and attacking each other. It's all one big victim show or an exercise in veiled hatred and insanity. It's a crock of shit and my life's timespan was wasted in reading that mental vomit.
Don't even get me started on the men can't understand women horseshit. I knew my significant other for seven years. I knew her head inside and out and vice versa. We knew what each other were thinking and regularily completed each other's sentences. We both knew what each other were feeling even if we were apart. And I knew her so god damn well that even eleven years after she died, I know exactly what she'd say about something if she were here with me today. I know how she'd feel.
It's a shit article and it's real simple. You can't have both. Trans men and women are considered what they emulate, or they don't. You can't selectively cut out one side.
563
« on: May 15, 2020, 12:39:25 AM »
tbh I'm not really sure what the question is
how would you cope with being an unwilling sex slave if your life depended on it
thanks for clarifying
just move forward?
I was in this exact situation like two years ago. I saved like a grand, packed my shit, and left while nobody was watching.
I try not to think about it, and I don't think it really gives me any trouble.
Then again, that's not the worst thing that has ever happened to me by far, so I'm not sure how the average person would cope.
what's the worst thing
I don't know exactly, it's hard to actually quantify and grade negative experiences
maybe the first time I was molested as a kid, or some other example of abuse from my childhood
adulthood has been tough, and I've had nowhere to live and nothing to eat more than once, I've been to jail for things I did and did not do, though the only time it was something I actually did I was stealing food from the supermarket
the town I found myself living on the streets of after high school wasn't big, and they didn't have resources for feeding the homeless or shelters for those other than battered women, it still has a big homelessness problem today
my dad sued me for eviction when I was 18. I was still in high school. I posted about it on here five years ago, and that has definitely led to a life that was not easy to get off on the right foot in
that's actually how I found myself trading sex for a place to live
I've been robbed and taken advantage of loads of times, but I really think that whatever the absolute worst thing is, it has to have been in my childhood
as an adult, at least I have options for recourse and a complete understanding of what's going on
I'm trying to think of how I can phrase things here. More expansively, what order to phrase things. I guess I'll start with why I've always liked the internet for one decent facet. People and their stories.(assuming you can find the true ones) All I can really say is that I understand. I haven't walked your shoes but I've had a lot of hard days. My youth was filled with homelessness and drifting from place to place. My parents were shit and both dead in my life quite early, I made plenty of mistakes without them or in spite of them, and went through a lot of events beyond my control as a child/teenager. My days now are largely empty and shit with a few bright exceptions. One of them being that at least I know that a good ninety percent of my life is in my hands now. It's just nice to bump into somebody who's seen some shit and shit accessories. It gets old bumping into people on the net with their vapid problems or woes that aren't really issues at all, just delusional neuroticism taken to the max.
564
« on: May 13, 2020, 11:34:00 AM »
I never understood people who hated a map so much that they close out the entire game.
Did you never play on Snowbound?
Never could understand the fervent hate for that map. The Covenant building interiors made for some pretty decent CQC fights.
It's nothing special but I wouldn't go sperging out a game over it.
I've got a theory about map-quitters. I think it's both a combination of over saturation and negative reinforcement for some people. I mean, there's some maps that are great to play on, but I wouldn't want to play them like ten times in a row. The negative reinforcement aspect comes into play from bad experiences. Most ragers I ever met were always usually pissed over their shit teammates or for playing on a map were they constantly got shit on. Personally, I groaned a little bit every time Guardian came up and you saw the other team vote for it because I automatically knew what it was going to be about. The other team was probably either as skilled as me and my buddies, or they were just plain better. The map would then devolve into a total lockdown fight and become absolutely tedious to play. Now imagine having to do it over and over again successive times in a row with very little change in outcome. Video games psychologically play very powerfully on positive reinforcement, but the same is true on negative. For somebody who is less emotionally stable, that's were we see the emergence of rage quitters.
565
« on: May 13, 2020, 11:22:41 AM »
That does look pretty damn stellar. The most important question obviously is, does it have loot boxes?
566
« on: May 13, 2020, 11:19:07 AM »
The province I currently reside in is undergoing it's wonderful five step plan to open up the floodgates and throw away the only advantage it had. Eugh. Time to get in my truck and fuck off to Nunavut. I think it's still the only province in Canada with zero confirmed cases.
This is like in zombie movies when outsiders try to get into the safe zone and end up infecting everyone
Apparantly Nunavut takes their zero cases seriously enough to close and enforce their borders to any outside provinces.
567
« on: May 12, 2020, 11:18:06 PM »
It's the staff's job. Generally if they found the broken item, they get the joys of putting up a sign and doing lockout/tagout paperwork and informing the manager.
568
« on: May 12, 2020, 03:10:44 AM »
The province I currently reside in is undergoing it's wonderful five step plan to open up the floodgates and throw away the only advantage it had. Eugh. Time to get in my truck and fuck off to Nunavut. I think it's still the only province in Canada with zero confirmed cases.
569
« on: May 12, 2020, 03:05:20 AM »
I don't know whether to be sad or amused that I spent my lunch break reading through this entire thread.
570
« on: May 12, 2020, 03:02:35 AM »
Not to beat a dead horse dude, but if that's you, it's uncanny how much you look like one of the hardcore druggies that occasionally visits one of the stores I work at. I almost wonder if it's because of the drugs that there's such a resemblance.
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