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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

#181

Post by zallarak »

unconed wrote: post #84
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…

I identify with huge portions of this post. And if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that I don't think like most other people. I don't mean "my ideas are better" or "I have superior reasoning skills". I mean "the tools that I use to reason about the world are not the same that most people appear to use". It's the only logical explanation for the fact that several popular ways in which humans commun…

I also hear from others that I think "totally differently" - but when they tell me that, I also realize everyone thinks totally differently! The mind is immensely complex, and I think it's a positive thing if we still attempt to communicate and do things with people very different from us.

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

#182

Post by com2kid »

sillysaurus wrote: post #144
sliverstorm wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. I figured much the same way with mind's eye; much like my thoughts, I "visualize" in a very abstract fashion. I don't see the object, I just know it. So there are in fact people, who see it?

I figured much the same way with mind's eye; much like my thoughts, I "visualize" in a very abstract fashion. I don't see the object, I just know it. So there are in fact people, who see it? I do. I don't really know what to say about it, so if you have any specific questions, feel free. I'll try to explain what it's like. Example: when I see a math expression x times y, I mentally see a rectangle with side length la…

Example: when I see a math expression x times y, I mentally see a rectangle with side length labeled "x" and perpendicular labeled "y". So understanding (x+h)(x+h) = x^2 + 2xh + h^2 was totally natural for me. It's not abstract symbols to me, it's pictures in my head. I see a tiny square in the upper right labeled "h^2", and a big square in the lower left labeled "x^2", and two rectangles along the edges labeled "xh".*

For me, it is the exact opposite. Teachers would spend ages trying to explain this to me, eventually I just had to accept the equation as being true, it never has really made intuitive sense to me. I dealt with it by coming to the conclusion that it is just the way math is agreed upon being done in the particular syntax we have all agreed upon using.

A good # of math courses later (enough for a minor in mathematics) and that is still basically my understanding. Physical diagrams don't really mean much. For some things they are useful, mostly for intro calculus concepts (which is a subject I find to be amazingly visualizable in general), but I just had to basically take all of Algebra on faith as being "agree upon syntax".

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

#184

Post by gwern »

crntaylor wrote: post #98
unconed wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I identify with huge portions of this post. And if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that I don't think like most other people. I don't mean "my ideas are better" or "I have superior reasoning skills". I mean "the tools that I use to reason about the world are not the same that most people appear to use". It's the only logical explanation for the fact that several popular ways in which humans commun…

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…

This whole discussion reminds me very strongly of http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ 's example about the 1800s debate about whether people could actually visualize things mentally or whether that was just a metaphor.

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

#185

Post by glitchhopper »

lastbookworm wrote: post #12
jpxxx wrote: post #5

TL;DR: Abuse survivor gets depressed, has untreated foot wounds, descends into his own echo chamber, navel gazes for fifteen pages.

Normally I wouldn't detract from someone's opinion of something I wrote by responding to summaries. I believe people should be allowed to judge for themselves whether opinions are accurate and when authors jump in defensively it's a slipper slope to derailing the conversation. However, your summary is factually misleading. You imply I was physically abused which I was not. Hopefully my article doesn't give that impre…

I had one on my coding wrist, saw the doc, he advised against surgery. Sometimes they come back after excision or spontaneously disappear. In my case the latter happened years later, literally overnight. Good luck!

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

#186

Post by jcroll »

astine wrote: post #178
jcroll wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, guess I had more important things to do with my time.

And yet you still had time to leave a comment? If you want to criticize what someone writes, read it first. As it stands, you're just an ass.

omg dude serial?

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

#188

Post by lightyrs »

Although I think you overestimate your uniqueness, you have the potential to be a very good writer. Please keep the posts coming, Kay.

Of everything you wrote, this line was the most relatable to my own experiences:

"If you don't like who I am then you can go fuck yourself."

Once I adopted this mindset, all things became possible.

Good Luck!

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

#189

Post by robbiep »

svachalek wrote: post #161
sliverstorm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Pretty interesting topic and responses. For one more data point, I can create an internal voice and/or images but neither happens by default. If I need to verbalize my thoughts I often have a practice conversation in my head, to see how it comes out in words. I also find it very easy to not think about anything, mind blank and just taking the world in, which seems to be considered a "weird" ability in some circles.

I am very similar to you

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

#190

Post by jmcqk6 »

afterburner wrote: post #177
jmcqk6 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In fact, it's just the opposite. Many Christian denominations (e.g. Catholicism) specifically DISALLOW circumcision, if it's done for religious reasons. On the other hand, many christian denominations (e.g. esp pentecostals) circumcise precisely for religious reasons. The simple fact is that while it might not be a religious ritual for some christians, it is for others christians. Oh, look at that, christians not be…

It is odd though to say circumcision is a Christian thing, when generally it is not, and for a long time in the past was considered definitely not Christian.

If you're talking about christian beliefs, circumcision doesn't even make the top 10 ten odd things.

Just like most things with christianity, having a definite 'yes' or 'no' is not really possible. Christianity has a very mixed history with circumcision.

Wikipedia has a surprisingly good overview, though it doesn't address at all an overview of modern christian beliefs in the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_male_circumcision#In_...

Of course, the fundamental premise of your statement is flawed. There isn't one single 'christian' thing. There are many christian things, and many of those contain mutually exclusive beliefs. Circumcision is one of them. There are many others.

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