Amaterasu wrote:
I'm glad that I'm appreciated.

^_^

Hmm. I won't go too deeply into your personal life, LoBFCanti but I often say that you should not compromise yourself for any purpose. Aside from self-gain that is. And the latter clause can only be an exception of your choosing. Sometimes it's okay to treat life's personal rules as more of a "guideline" (Pirates of the Carribean, lol). I am, more or less, rigid in my personal beliefs and ways.

Such that I say to you that you should never cast doubt onto yourself for whom you are. Just accept it and whether that fits you into the world or not should be damned fact to begin with. Lying to yourself, to use an example, makes "John" married to a pretty girl for 20 years and in his 40's with three children, SURPRISE! He comes out of the closet wearing his wife's hose and make up. John has put his own true self aside and compromised. At least though, at 43 (etc) he's found the courage to really be himself and happier - if not that, free.

I won't get too personal (once again) but because of my personal past and the way that I am, I have concluded that I am, and should be a certain way. If I should not be happy, then it is not meant to be; I will accept it. But it is better than being someone that I am not.

If it is in your cards, then your happiness will come to you. If not.. then.. well - too bad.

(BTW: I'm not calling you homosexual. Another disclaimer: I have no beef with gays. Do what you guys feel like.)

In an attempt to be topical and more specific - perhaps it is the people's inherent weakness that makes them fall prey and cave under society's pressures. But they are not entirely to blame; humans have not evolved to cope with such stresses and psychological torments as we see all too commonly in the last 20 years especially. Society - or rather it's current state, is left to blame.

To address your point from my vantage: society does not actively make people zombies or robots (BoA anyone, lol) but rather it encourages it. Any outside of norm (or standardized range of social deviance - as I like to call it) is straight away jested, mocked, disrespected and then finally - ostracized. It is just the way that things are and perhaps always have been. There will always be the THEM and US kind of mentality. It's only a question of the numerical ratio.

Let's consider the Goth and then EMO movement. Why does society produce these people? In the 50s, there were rebels - but they were limited in number and unsocial habits. But from say, the 1980's and onwards the amount of self proclaimed social outcasts have arisen to an incredible degree. I think that society has become even more cruel and intolerant in these times; which is absolute irony when you think about the age that we live in. Or perhaps society itself has become so commercial, so robotic and so stagnant in its own ways that more and more people cannot see themselves as being a willing part of it.

Hell, I'm 26 going on 27 and looking for Nursing homes to wipe my ass and STILL, even now, I haven't found my niche.

Oh, for the record, because of my introverted nature and my history, I'm a very unfeeling kind of person. (Inside and out). But I make a point of mocking my overly sensitive and 'feely' male friend for showing feelings. I'm sorry LoBFCanti - I'd probably make fun of you IRL for the lulzies too!

ramenbox wrote:
Since you mentioned unfeeling, it does feel familiar. I am too kinda 'unfeeling' or maybe my face just doesn't show much expressions; thus, most of the time people think that I'm very stuck up which is totally false. I just don't like showing much of my emotions.

Btw, I just recalled that I read an article a few weeks back. The author himself is an introvert and he wrote about the misconceptions of most people have towards introverts. It's sad that people think introverts do not like to communicate with others. And from what he said, I find it true that it's not that we do not like to socialize or communicate with others, it's just that we can't do it all day long. Like what he said, it's "tiring" for introverts to do it all day long. Unlike extroverts, socializing all day long isn't the way to keep us rejuvenated. In fact, introverts need time alone to rejuvenate.

What do you guys think?

ramenbox wrote:
Yup, it is a bad habit. As much as I know it's bad, I can't help it. It gets so frustrating when I lose time for myself and when that happens, it's not a good thing because I end up being short tempered. It's complicated. The other day, I told my mom about this and she thinks I'm falling into 'confirmation bias'. She just does not get it.

Anyhow, for next semester, I'd be taking Psychology as one of my electives. Perhaps it'll help me to comprehend more of this problem.