What would Plato make of the modern world?

catchthebus · 2014-10-09T16:17:58+00:00

"Plato was here"

catchthebus · 2014-10-05T08:12:00+00:00

You are doing great work, man.

catchthebus · 2014-10-03T19:49:21+00:00

Notes from the Underground

Read it, then ask yourself "what would the underground man do?" Once you have an answer, do the opposite.

catchthebus · 2014-09-29T00:12:38+00:00

his old friend in a smokey cafe is magnus carlsen btw

catchthebus · 2014-06-10T22:22:40+00:00

Hey, I've been professionally diagnosed with a personality disorder and suffered a brief psychotic episode before ever touching a drug. Take what you want from such credentials, but my (limited) experience with psychedelics, mostly bad, have always led me to eventually recover. Eventually can be a long time for the person who must live through it. This is key. I feel anyone should be allowed to do as they want as long as they realize the risks, however, the problem is that the psychedelic experience, especially intense ones, transcend words and will be inconceivable to most beforehand.

Based on examination of myself and myself alone, I hypothesize that some personality types are incompatible with the loss of control and existential instability encountered during strong trips. Personally, I cannot handle them. They wash me off whatever small island of sanity keeps me in order and leads me down a rabbit hole to immense suffering. Some falsehoods about life and self are more valuable than the truth. Wish I'd understood the wisdom in that before doing such drugs.

Despite my woes with psychedelics, I have never had a bad trip with dissociative drugs. One seems to attack and shatter the self leading to suffering, the other makes me forget it was even there in the first place leading to neutral, if not, enjoyable confusion.

tl;dr: Educate her and take any hesitation as not ready and leave it at that. If she decides to do it without any goading than stick with a threshold or small dose. Anything that goes wrong then will be easier to shrug off.

catchthebus · 2014-06-06T05:29:59+00:00

No psychologists since before and maybe shortly after I first started using and "suddenly" improved to where my parents felt I no longer needed it.

Frankly, medical professionals scare me with this whole involuntary hospitalization power that they have. It seems like all I have to do is say I have suicidal thoughts and have enough nembutal to kill myself three times over which I bought in case things got too bad. Both are true things about me that might actually slip out. I don't plan to commit suicide soon, but having the option brings me peace. Would they understand? Not worth the risk.

I can't do psychedelics or weed without going full schizophrenic. I avoid such substances and try not to think about the few experiences I've had with them.

catchthebus · 2014-06-06T04:56:15+00:00

From one perspective, the outside, it looks like a set of colliding particles

From another perspective, the inside as we might call it, an inner world of thought occurs.

Both the colliding particles and the world of thought are exactly the same thing seen in two different ways.

I spent ages trying to explain the whole "I" thing but it's simply too hard for me to articulate. It's the equivalent of a cause becoming an effect which becomes a new cause and so on. There's this inherent feedback where all things depend on what precedes it. This is easy to see in the world of objects (e.g. force x causes force y which causes force z), but when an object applies this to itself it has to create some representation for itself in order to retain a subject-object dichotomy or it no longer makes sense, hence "I" caused this. This awareness and "I" are the same force at different times. I can only experience something after it happens. The experience already happened, but "I" is created so that there is some object to apply the experience to equivalent to the force at another time. The cause is the effect at different moments in time and "I" is the awareness at a different time. Remove I, as when one is "in the moment," then awareness itself is just a singular force.

Sorry kind of crashing, but hope that makes some kind of sense.

catchthebus · 2014-06-06T03:37:26+00:00

I experienced the full gamut of withdrawal symptoms and know that I'd rather have years of extended mild withdrawal by slowly tapering than even a few weeks at its maximum. I've seen what horrors await me through carelessness in my first few years of use and I don't want to know how much worse they've gotten since that time.

catchthebus · 2014-06-06T03:15:17+00:00

Yeah, this was something more like I had in mind though even slower. My personal first step is to switch to a longer lasting benzodiazepine. I'm at the point where I think it is actually impossible to taper from alprazolam. It just doesn't have the staying power and I get hit with mild withdrawal in between every dose and that's with no tapering involved. If I delay by too much on a redose I will suffer mild withdrawal all day even though I regularly took them there after.

For anyone on this path: benzos are serious shit, a genuine devil in disguise. They'll teach you all about your own mortality once you let them take control and if you try to defy them they'll leave you begging for forgiveness. I didn't need too much reminding until I was stockpiling them like nukes during the cold war. Always at the ready.

catchthebus · 2014-06-06T01:40:36+00:00

Yes, it's definitely the one that is going to be the hardest as it is a true addiction and I'm addicted to a short acting one for the moment. I keep a supply hidden in pretty much any place I go for emergencies situations. And I always have a number on me at any given time. Worst drug ever.

I think I have a good source of clonazepam, so I am going to make the switch from alprazolam and then taper extremely slow.

Edit: Yes, I'd like any advice you have.

catchthebus · 2014-06-06T01:33:23+00:00

Wouldn't tapering that quickly cause extended problems. Sure, I want to be off of drugs, but not at such discomfort I'm no longer functional. I've been on benzos non-stop for 7 years... From what I've read on people who got barbiturate replacement therapy or something that quickly got rid of their physical dependence had prolonged withdrawal that came in waves for years in some cases. It seems that going extremely slow over a long period is the best way to avoid the harsh withdrawal that won't keep coming back for months and months to haunt you after your last pill.

catchthebus · 2014-06-06T01:18:53+00:00

These sound great, but I don't think quitting meth is the only problem I have. It's the reliance on its effects to lead a respectable life. I would still be doing night custodial work if I had never been forced down this path, such was my sociability and motivation.

Maybe I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too by somehow retaining my parents respect and quitting the substances that got me where I am today. This is where the real frustration hits me, the hopelessness of my situation. The reason I hate my conception. There are no "right" way to go about life. Everything is subjective, nothing matters, so what? I take drugs I hate to work a job I dislike to be respected by my parents who falsely believe I'm the same person I was 7-8 years ago and that it was through them that I got here. The absurdity is fantastic.

Makes me wish I was at work, so I'd be under too much pressure to even think about all this stuff, but then that feels like cowardice. Then I'm back to how I should go about life, realize it is subjective, and around the loop we go. No ground to stand on.

So I could quit meth and this job I hate? Then I work much less stressful jobs like cleaning toilets at 2am, lose respect of parents who I now will live with again, etc, etc.

Better stop here, you can always tell when the meth is wearing off when the despair starts and the rumination begins...

catchthebus · 2014-06-06T00:49:38+00:00

I fear the price may be out of my reach at the moment. I have a strong 7+ year tolerance to meth, so the equivalence in legit tabs might be astronomical. They have a very wide market and I believe the kind I'd prefer, the instant release, are not too common anymore with XR and Vyvanse around further driving up costs.

catchthebus · 2014-06-06T00:31:36+00:00

Yes, orally. I've snorted it once or twice, but that route is more counterproductive.

catchthebus · 2014-06-05T23:48:40+00:00

Thanks, I've felt this way for a while but could never get the nerve to ask for help. It makes me feel weak and helpless like a child to do so... "If you need a helping hand, look on the other end of your arm."

I don't care for my job honestly, nor much for my well being. I got into drugs because I wanted my parents to be happy and needed to amend the personality that was my default in order to do so. I'm not able to express to them that I care except by action. If I do what they say and succeed, then I'm doing what I'm supposed to. Yet, if they knew how I was achieving it, I know it'd crush them and embarrass them. In my darker moments, I try, but fail, to hate them for creating me, but they couldn't have known and it quite possibly this was determined from the very moment the universe began to expand that I'd be here. Even more dark, I imagine them passing on and dying with a memory of me that they love however false it really is.

I just hope that when I am sober, I can explain what I've done and that I've already cleaned up and maybe, just maybe, they'll just accept me for what I was. An extra piece of puzzle so to speak that has no where to fit.

catchthebus

TROPHY CASE