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I'm a shut-in. This is my story

fighttheurgetofade.com

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Re: I'm a shut-in. This is my story

#111

Post by rokhayakebe »

tsunamifury wrote: post #36

I am a person who loves being social but gets in shut-in cycles. I once took 4 months and backpacked in the woods of Canada in an extreme cycle. Several points bothered me in this story, as it was a combination of honest observations and immature conclusions. 1) Life takes time, you need to be at peace with being young and not having all the solutions. 2) The author seems to suffer from observing the image of Silicon…

"A successful product is the evolutionary result...."

What we call success is possibly persistence mixed with applied failure science, a method in which the practitioner modifies his techniques continually based on previous failures. She is an explorer who does not stop because she meets an ocean north, instead she tries to go west or if she gots balls, she builds a ship, but ultimately she is determined to find what she seeks.

Re: I'm a shut-in. This is my story

#112

Post by georgeorwell »

Hey K-2052 / lastbookworm, good job on coming out of the closet, that's a difficult step. You obviously want to turn things around, and I think you'll find that in general, at least a tiny part of the world will be there to support you if you genuinely want your life to change. It's gonna take some guts and determination, but it can be done.

Don't pay too much attention to all of the people in this thread criticizing you or offering advice that doesn't fit. The two worst things about the internet are that it's simply more difficult to empathize with other people, and that there are fewer / zero consequences for rudeness.

One thing caught my attention:

> I have never known my Dad. My mom left him when I was four. They were both drug users and to escape the drug usage my mom left him. I have only blurry memories of him. None of my memories of him are positive.

Having had similar experiences, from my perspective this is the root cause of your troubles. It's kind of unbelievable how deep the rabbit hole can go in terms of how this affects your life. I just want you to keep that in mind.

Take care and good luck. You'll figure it out.

Re: I'm a shut-in. This is my story

#113

Post by omegant »

tsunamifury wrote: post #36

I am a person who loves being social but gets in shut-in cycles. I once took 4 months and backpacked in the woods of Canada in an extreme cycle. Several points bothered me in this story, as it was a combination of honest observations and immature conclusions. 1) Life takes time, you need to be at peace with being young and not having all the solutions. 2) The author seems to suffer from observing the image of Silicon…

I completely agree with you. I would only add that even when living in a sea of talented individuals, most people will keep themselves on known waters. It takes a lot of effort to go outside of your comfort zone, but once you do, you gain a huge advantage over more talented people. Because now you feel able to do things they think are out of reach or simply don´t think of them at all. It is really being outside a bubble while the other people is inside.

I´ve been feeling this way for this last year since I begun my project. Probably I will fail, but even then I have am far ahead from I thought I would be able to be.

Re: I'm a shut-in. This is my story

#114

Post by omegant »

josscrowcroft wrote: post #54

From the comments here I suspect that not many read to the end, and so may have judged the story before reading these closing words: "Publishing this was hard but it felt like my only option. For years I have not been living my life, I have been delaying it. Five years ago I paused my life and now it's time to choose between play or stop. I'm pressing play. The world pushed me and instead of pushing back I hid, now I…

If eventually he is able to simply live and forget about how attack life, he´ll do nicely. If he obsesses about how he is struggling and how he is not fitting.. he may end in an infinite loop and going nowhere. I hope he succeeds.

Re: I'm a shut-in. This is my story

#115

Post by Anderkent »

pdonis wrote: post #20
deleted_account wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more sad to expect others to divine the solution to your problems when they have no point of reference; I think it's sad when expressions of love and concern are rebuffed with a dismissive, "But you don't understand ." Of course poor Aunt Sharon doesn't understand. And no, the onus isn't on you to make her understand. Unless you want her to...in which case, it may take some effort on your part to frame y…

I think it's more sad to expect others to divine the solution to your problems when they have no point of reference I didn't get any sense that the author was expecting others to divine the solution to his problems; I think he was just irritated because they were besieging him with "concern" without actually helping any. I think it's sad when expressions of love and concern are rebuffed with a dismissive, "But you do…

In the aftermath of emotional implosion; friends, family, colleagues and even strangers will metamorph into an invasive species from planet Concern. You okay? Want me to come over? Is there anything I can do? Just let me know man. We are here for you. Remember we are all in this together.

It seems the first type is also irritating. And even though I agree it should be met with thanks the first time, if you keep bothering me I will get irritated. Or if many people keep bothering me, even if only once each. I can only imagine it's similar to what the author felt, and why he disconnected.

Re: I'm a shut-in. This is my story

#116

Post by martinced »

javajosh wrote: post #81

Hey Ken, I see a deep internal contradiction in your belief system, and I want to point it out to you in the hopes that you can lead a happier, more fulfilled life. What is that contradiction? I want to be alone I want to make money This does not compute. Creating things for money is a fundamentally social act. And indeed, the stuff of your life was all produced by others, from the house you live in to the clothes yo…

"Creating things for money is a fundamentally social act."

Uh!? For years and years I've been writing books (real, printed, published books) and articles. I was probably the most antisocial person in all my friends group and I was also the one making the more money.

I could disappear for months from civilization. My only trip outside would be to go to the grocery store and going to the garage doing the maintenance of my spiffy sport car (bought cash with the money I got from writing). The rest of the time I was writing, during night time. Sleep 6 to 7 hours and wake up at 1 or 2 pm. Take the car for a spin, alone. Rinse and repeat. No social life. No girlfriend. Just work (and the money that goes with it).

Making money and being social are two totally different things.

Especially moreso in that always-on, Internet connected, society were brilliant people can work from home if they want to: there are more and more domains where you can work from home and be as much anti-social as you want.

I know a single mom who runs her entire business from home, updating her websites, receiving her stuff and repackaging them. And she's making a killing money-wise.

A company I was contracting for was shelling big $$$ to south america to two genius programmers: we didn't have a freakin' clue as to wether this guys were socials or not. Doesn't matter.

It's nearly your entire comment which doesn't compute: making money and being social are two completely orthogonal concepts.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm not saying you should be anti-social just for the sake of it or be anti-social and make lots of $$$ just to make a point. Since I've opened a FB account (I barely ever go to the movie but a friend I hadn't seen in ten years convinced me to go see the movie and I kinda liked it, so I opened a FB account, go figure ; )

And now I've got a girlfriend since two years and life is better I'd say. Yet I make much less money than when I was that anti-social books and articles writer.

I wish the author of that entry good luck and, like you (but for different reasons) I think he should try to socialize to some at least some extent.

Re: I'm a shut-in. This is my story

#117

Post by LilValleyBigEgo »

RyanZAG wrote: post #37

I think you're wrong on one point: you constantly repeat how different and strange you are from everyone else. You're really not. As you mentioned at one point: you didn't want to go out and play, but the teacher forced you to do so. This is very common behavior, and teachers are forcing children every day to go out and play. Huge amount of people go through similar experiences to yours. Others start to lapse into an…

The problem with not trying to fit in with society comes when you lose your job and you need a place to live for a while, or you have a stroke, or you are fighting an addiction to drugs or alcohol.

You can't be a loaner your entire life and then suddenly need someone.

If you don't care about people and you don't bother to have friends there's no one to answer the phone when you pick it up to call for help.

I have struggled with this balance all my life. It's the balance between being exhausted from managing relationships and being alone with no one to call when you need help.

Re: I'm a shut-in. This is my story

#118

Post by javajosh »

martinced wrote: post #116
javajosh wrote: post #81

Hey Ken, I see a deep internal contradiction in your belief system, and I want to point it out to you in the hopes that you can lead a happier, more fulfilled life. What is that contradiction? I want to be alone I want to make money This does not compute. Creating things for money is a fundamentally social act. And indeed, the stuff of your life was all produced by others, from the house you live in to the clothes yo…

"Creating things for money is a fundamentally social act." Uh!? For years and years I've been writing books (real, printed, published books) and articles. I was probably the most antisocial person in all my friends group and I was also the one making the more money. I could disappear for months from civilization. My only trip outside would be to go to the grocery store and going to the garage doing the maintenance of…

>most antisocial person in all my friends group

I don't think antisocial means what you think it means.

Re: I'm a shut-in. This is my story

#119

Post by confluence »

deleted_account wrote: post #3

"It only takes one crazy dick to cause dicks for generations to be forever mutilated, The Butterfly Dick Effect." What am I reading.

Poetry.

Circumcision, like other hazing rituals, is simultaneously pointlessly arbitrary and unnecessarily barbaric.

Re: I'm a shut-in. This is my story

#120

Post by Raphael »

sliverstorm wrote: post #108
crntaylor wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a voice in my head. When I learnt from reddit discussions that most people experience their inner thoughts as an inner monologue, I was flabbergasted. If I heard a voice, I would think I was going insane. I think that's pretty normal. A quick poll of the other three people in the room reveals that none of us experience an 'inner voice'. It's more like a stream of associations, some of which might involve…

I'm pretty sure the "inner voice" is just a metaphor to describe a concept. I, too, do not hear a voice echoing in my head as if God was speaking inside my skull. I have a train of thought that I could directly translate to spoken words, but is not actually in words. It is more abstract; I shuffle around ideas. Sometimes I will speak aloud to myself when I'm trying to disassociate to find a new viewpoint, but that's…

It sucks that writing is slower than thinking, but it has to be done because thoughts are fleeting. You need enough notes to remember later or trigger recreate roughly the same idea.
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