for all you chicks and dudes

I've said this before, but I think it warrants repeating. For some, they ought to hear it everyday.

If you are a fully-grown human being, that expects to be taken seriously, don't call yourself a "dude", "chick", "guy" or "girl". You are a man, or a woman. By calling yourself and others these things, you simply remove the responsibility that any human should have to not act like an idiot. Just to demonstrate the powers these words have:

A bad girl: some kind of sex-pot who is still becoming emotionally acquainted to basic human conduct
A bad woman: A woman who does irresponsible, mean-spirited things.

A good guy: A clueless, defenseless nobody
A good man: A determined, reliable person

Of course for relaxed settings, like talking to a friend, feel compelled to talk however you want. But if you indulge in the full benefits of adulthood, including being able to sign legally binding contracts and consent to sex, then you are a man or a woman. It's not a matter of "maturity"; which I don't particularly believe in, but a matter of embracing reality.

For example, when a "girl" dies because a sorority of "girls" put her through hazing, it's considered slightly regrettable. When a woman dies because a group of women physically abused her, they are murderers and at least complete idiots. Men and Women, from the age of 18, ought to refer to themselves as such. If they catch themselves doing something that they think a man or a woman shouldn't be doing, maybe some evil, be it just obnoxious or quite dangerous, can be stopped in it's tracks.

Workahol

Workahol is not what you do at your job. It is also not what you do to forget about your job. Workahol is anything that you feel intensely compelled to do, outside of what you "need" to do. And it's relationship with the individual is just as strange, if not more stange, than it's suffix-namesake: alcohol.

You have, inside of you, a spinning orb of possible actions. Do you do something neccesary, like something to make money or some chore, or do you indulge in workahol? The priorities spin as such:

Feed yourself

Rest yourself

Feed the cat

Do laundry

Entertain yourself

Work

And with that, work is either embraced, or left behind and everything re-cycles. Workahol is not naturally addictive. It takes alot of will to commit yourself to something that is basically pointless in the short-run, with the promise that it will pay off in the long-run.

But that is exactly what the workaholic does. He has introduced in himself, through sheer will alone, the concept of "putting the work in" and he knows that if it is ignored, it will introduce itself in his natural cycle more and more often. At first he thinks "what the fuck ever" but in time he thinks "better to get it out of the way". Soon, he completes work as a matter of habit, and he is then a workaholic. Unknown to him, work is being completed at a rate he had never before seen.

S.A.P.s

Similar in form and function to the jewish american princess, there exists a specimen of humanity known as the southern american princess. When I first moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina for no particular reason, I was shocked by the shortage of beautiful women roaming the streets, pubs and general stores. Not that there are none; instead, they don't show themselves in similar proportion to other groups.

Yet, when the holidays rolled around, I was amazed by how many there were. At this time, they were showing themselves in greater proportion to other groups, and for what reason? To shop? Yes, exactly. Sadly, this creature, as voluptuous and interesting as it is, indeed believes it is a princess. I was still skeptical of the conclusion I had jumped to until I heard a story of a never-created marriage due to a father forbidding his daughter(a probable SAP) to marry a particular man. What century is this, anyway?

The S.A.P. is a modern incarnation of the Southern Belle. Whether ex- or implicitly, they are subservient to their fathers and boyfriends, and never get to see the light of day(a.k.a. Cobe Soldo). Though they could override the patriarchal standards of their "daddys", and I'm sure that some do, for the most part, they get to play with their toys(blocks, rich boys penises, GPAs) until they "settle down" and crank out children by means of a "not arranged" marriage, to keep money that has more likely than not trickled down from slavery within their families.

Perhaps I am just bitter because I'm not in college, where I would see many more attractive women. However, even when I was definitively not-in-college in other locations, these attractive women roamed the suburbs-turned-"cities" in packs, looking to get intoxicated and accidentally cross-pollinate with the likes of high-functioning white trash like me. Here, and maybe in the total southeast, they stay inside with the blinds closed, hiding from cocaine-addled negroes and youtube news show anchors. What a shame.

I'm a newsman.

What is a newsman? What kind of man can encapsulate the full scope of world and local news, and still eat and drink enough to stay "alive"? I'll tell you:

A newsman takes care of his appetites. He doesn't worry about the politics of them, he just quells them before reporting. If a newsman does drugs, you can assume he has already done them before his job. If he has a significant other, he's already fucked them. This is a nice reversal of the "work before pleasure" mantra, because for a newsman it's pleasure before work, for works sake. Who can do a serious job with the possibility of future pleasure clouding their thoughts?

A newsman is in the now. Less effective ones will dissect the past and speculate on the future. But in doing so they have changed themselves from newsmen to historians or idiots, respectively. When you ask a newsman what's going on, you get an overloaded earful. Despite any other distractions, a newsman is primarily focused on awareness.

A newsman doesn't "get obliterated" in any sense of the term. He doesn't kill a liter of vodka in short order(unless he's reporting on vodka), he doesn't watch mind-numbing television, and he doesn't "just chat" with other people. He is fully aware of his surroundings, time in history, purpose, and physical condition at the given moment. He is here to live.

A newsman doesn't have friends. At least, he doesn't have friends that are ill-conducive to news reporting. Among the group of people he voluntarily shares his time with, at any moment he could say "time for an update" and everyone surrounding him would cease what they are doing and help create one. He doesn't have friends he could talk to about personal matters, because to him there is no such thing.

A newsman is compulsive about news. It is like the earth breathing for him, and who is going to send our planet into a respiratory arrest for their own comfort? All things must be dropped in the face of breaking news, including putting on clothing and talking a friend down from suicide.

A newsman completes his report. Anyone who exclaims "there's shit going down!" and doesn't follow-through is as useful as an alarm clock that goes off every minute. Of course there's shit going down, there always is. Instead, the newsman knows that the news isn't finished until the general public is pushed into a state of anxiety because of it. This happens when the report is finished and broadcast, and not a moment before.

valium cigars

Sometimes, when I check into my subconcious nightly, I'm surprised by the quality, and the rates.

Last night I dreampt that Valium Cigars were somehow invented and available on a large scale. I can only imagine how they were made, simply crushing pills into tobacco cigars, creating valium liquid to cure the tobacco leaves in, it didn't matter.

The smoking of them chilled-out even the most violent factions in our society, and we were aided by them appealing to heads of state(who love a good cigar, which is never "just a cigar").

In my dream it was pure utopia. There was no more mellodrama and hysteria. Because the kind of people who cigars appeal to also probably need valium, The social change they caused was incredible.

Of course, If they were actually effectively produced, it would be behind a dumpster in portland oregon, due to a cannabis drought, and would cause some 14-year-olds to "feel alright" and decide to go watch TV instead of skateboard. In fact, that likely already happened. But It's fun to consider the wide acceptance and availability of the right drugs causing improvement for humanity.

fuck pluto

SOMETHING I READ: Pluto is actually not as planet.

ME: Really? How come?

SOMTHING I READ: Well, a planet is defined as any body in the Solar System that is more massive than the total mass of all of the other bodies in a similar orbit. Pluto doesn't fit that definition.

ME: Oh. Word up.

----

STRANGER: You hear that they're trying to say pluto isn't a planet?

ANOTHER STRANGER: Who?

S: I dunno. Some egghead assholes.

AS: What do they know? Pluto was a planet when I was growing up, and everyone knows plutos a planet.

S: Yeah but they're going to change that.

AS: You mean they'll like change the books and school stuff?

S: They want to.

AS: That's nuts! That'll be really expensive, and the gumm'ent's taken enough of my money!

S: I know.

AS: And then what am I supposed to tell my kid, in school? What if they tell my son pluto isn't a planet! He'll think I'm stupid, grow up not respecting his father, and unless I beat him regularly he'll turn into a hippie or a gay!

S: I know. you figure these "super-smart" scientists would be smart enough to know the trouble they're causing. Well, they passed laws in some states to make sure pluto is still a planet.

AS: At least some people are sane.

"Knock that shit off" - insecurities

Cobe Soldo is a blogger, newsman, emcee, and now advice column writer. Enjoy.

Everyone has certain insecurities. Various things about their body, thinking powers and clothing choices. What's so strange is the supposed gender disparity regarding insecurities. It has become so "the norm" for women to rely on their significant others for magic cures for their insecurities that I suspect many young women are simply making that shit up to more typify a "normal girlfriend".

Everyone is, at least somewhat concerned with their appearance, and unhappy about some of it. A man is only expected to talk about it if he is pointedly insecure- to the point of near-neurosis. Women, on the other hand, get away with ridiculously lavish demonstrations of "exactly how" insecure they feel. This is the first time I've been out of a relationship for more than 2 months since beginning the first one. Feeling apart from women now, I feel much less sympathetic to this "plight".

If someone spends time with you, has wild sex with you, and performs oral sex on you without turning their head and saying "got damn! yuck!", then chances are you are beautiful to them. There is no reason to badger them into constantly complimenting you. What's worse, for a man who fires alot of compliments at my significant others, they make it more difficult than that courteous act. Some of the most obnoxious times I've spent alone with women was when I reassured them, and they argued with me about it. Why?

I honestly think many women are simply reasurring themselves of their gender roles. Society says they shouldn't feel good about themselves, they should break open their boyfriends and find their self-worth, like in a fortune cookie. Well, I, not being sexist, know that women who are slaves to societal standards are just as culpable as the men who are.

One of the sexiest, most gorgeous and impressive things a woman can do is feel good about her appearance, and not pretend that she's not worthy of her boyfriends love. Confidence is just as arousing to the eyes of men as it is to the eyes of women. Then again, maybe I'm just a feminine man(we're better at sex).

The right amount

If you're going to eat, eat till you're stuffed.

If you're going to smoke, smoke unfiltered.

If you're going to fuck, do it 3 times in a row.

If you're going to drink, black-out.

If you're going to live, do it forever...

If you're going to die, do it now.

If you're going to read, finish.

If you know what you want, get it.

If you know what you need, take it.

If you live on the edge, jump off.

If you don't want to stop, don't.

If you need some help, ask.

If you love me, show me.

If you want to begin, start.

If you want to finish, stop.

Soggy Bread

I didn’t finish, and for that I was punished
The sink, for my sandwich; a good place to dump it
For a time I thought I ought to be dead
When I felt a handful of soggy bread.

My lips had been chapped, flakey and brown
I licked and I licked till blood came down
It dripped and dripped till my coffee was red
But it wasn’t as bad as that soggy bread.

One day, a bandit, in a black mask
Broke in my home, stuffed things in his sack
He gave me a fright, and an awful dread
But nothing felt worse than that soggy bread.

My nana, beloved, in her last hour
Cried and then died, the stench became sour
Alone, I lifted her, limp from her bed
She felt much better than soggy bread.

the unpatented invention of stress

Most people drift along in a subdued, self-congratulatory haze. The hood ornament on this method of traveling through life(very slowly) is stress. Stress is, about 4 times out of 5, completely invented. 1 time out of 5, it's blown out of proportion, like everything else.

The equation that the modern daily grind operates on: work causes stress= stress is very upsetting= stress is complained about= stress is "relieved" and minute amounts of serotonin and dopamine flow. However, when carefully examined, most lives are not very stressful. When they are, the stress is more easily dealt with than the individual likes to admit.

Why? Couldn't they just realize that their lives are actually pretty uneventful? Well, yes, but that would mean 2 things: They wouldn't be justified in "relieving" their stress by drinking "a few beers" and badgering others, and also, They would be pretty bored, instead of in a constant state of time-killing alarm. With their unstressed, unaffected brains, what would they do? Think? Act? Do something to enjoy their own company? The horror!

What's worse than your full-time school schedule, your full-time work schedule and taking care or your 3 children? Whining about it afterwards instead of doing something else. You might have been stressed, for fleeting moments, and now those moments are over. Have a cup of coffee and read a book for fucks sake. You bastards are stressing me out.

my funeral wishes

All of us are going to die, but some of us more than others. Just because my body was found motionless, 20 degrees frozen solid in the yukon with a lethal overdose of caffeine in my system doesn't mean you should label me "dead". It's judgemental and furthermore, if you accept my death that means you caused it through your inaction

Upon the discovery of my inert body, I want the funeral, or more accurately, the "revival" to begin at once. Despite my constant uttering of "what a bunch of bullshit" at supernatural claims, try all of them. Haitian voodoo(make sure it's performed by a blind, drunk 95 year old man), exorcisms, astrological hoopla, medical cures performed after the fact, slapping me around and begging me to "come on man" must all be tried. At that point, don't give up hope. That's what religious people do.

First contact everyone I hate and take some of their stuff. Just something that they're attached to. Don't tell them who you are, and for god sakes wear a mask, idiot. Second, contact everyone who likes me and ask them to donate money for the efforts to keep me alive. If they don't do it, take some of their stuff.

Pool all of the money, and take my body to the nicest hospital, wherever it exists in the world. Implore the fine doctors to upgrade my condition to alive, by any means neccesary. Offer them a small fraction of the money(the rest going to me upon my "return"), if they refuse, offer all of it. At this point, I will probably "come back" in some sense.

If not, at the 3 year mark, I probably am, in fact, dead. Autopsy every tissue in my body. I know for a fact I didn't die on purpose, so catch the bastard who did it, whether it be a sociopathic stranger, an enemy, a friend, or heart disease. Send a call to all bounty hunters who can be reached to drop their current jobs and find my killer for double their original bounty. When the culprit is apprehended, keep him/her/it alive and torture till the day he/she/it dies.

I then want a statue of my likeness to be erected right next to the current tallest sky-scraper in the world. The dimensions should be head and shoulders above it, just like I was in life. This skyscraper, internally, will be a massive museum of my lifes work, on every floor. Except the top floor. No one goes to the top floor, that's where you keep all my stuff. If another skyscraper tops me, make another statue of my likeness. I want to be wearing a blazer, with an afro that can be seen from space, with the words "too real" stamped on my chest. I want my real, original brain preserved and placed in the head of the statue(and moved to the next one) so that when the aliens land, they can retrieve it and revive me.

11 advertisements for neccesary things

-computer without internet
Do you want to have the functions of your computer, without friends and enemies bombarding you with useless information and advertisements at 56K+ speeds? Since 1992, You may have forgotten that computers can be disconnected from the world. When they are, a computer is transformed from an exhausting social tool to an energizing tool of isolation. Excellent.

-whiteboard
Do you want the illusion of being able to start fresh, followed by the illusion of progress, followed by the illusion of being able to start fresh, over and over? Who doesn't? With a whiteboard, you can attain such illusions and maybe even reality(if you write it on there, in bold red).

-alcohol
Do you feel really "Ok" all the time? do you feel so "Ok" that you want to drive your car into an electrical pole? Well, with the consumption of alcohol, you can feel better than ok, and the next day, worse than ok. But at least the suffocating neutrality is put to rest. Just don't plan to drive, cause you might drive your car into an electrical pole.

-snus
Do you use your time and energy to great effect, are often congratulated on a job well done, and still don't know where your dopamine is hiding? Try some nicotine that doesn't have carbon and incinerated formaldehyde in it, and your dopamine will come out to play. The best part is now you can use your time and energy to use snus, and congratulate yourself!

-wikipedia
Want to know something? like, right the fuck now? Well, type "wikipedia.org" (you don't even need the WWW, because we all know you're on the world wide web) and check it out. If you don't find it, it's not real.

-mini fridge(or big fridge)
Tired of eating pizza and drinking warm liquor? yeah, me neither. But each thing can be improved with the recent invention of refrigeration! Food can be saved without causing new and upsetting flavors to emerge, and various drugs can be stored to have greater effect.

-mouthwash
What is that taste in your mouth? Shame, or vomit? It's probably a mixture of both, and if you want to feel "clean" while still living dirty, look no further than mouthwash. People will stop turning their heads and saying "oh my god!" when you speak to them, and the opposite sex will, as if by magic, do all sorts of invigorating things to your mouth with their own without being nauseated.

-calvin and hobbes books
Eyes burned out from the digital age? On drugs? Not on drugs? happy? sad? Tired of words? Tired of pictures? Attention span about 3-10 panels? There's an interesting synthesis called the comic strip that can satisfy you, and Calvin and Hobbes is the best one.

-audacity
Do you wish sounds, like people, could be manipulated for you own benefit? They can, with a freeware program called Audacity. It's like photoshop for audio. Now you can take perfectly good songs, break down their component parts and create a new off-putting song with MC GRAHAM rapping on it.

-video camera
It's one thing to just try to convince the people in your life that your inner circle of friends gets really drunk and does embarrasing/illegal things, it's another to actually record it for posterity, and have the people in your life watch it and talk to you much less. A video camera reminds you that your world is not limited to your facebook friends list, or your cellphone contacts list, but instead limited much greater to people who are willing to "work" on your videos with you for no compensation.

-condom
Love to have sex, but hate to have offspring? Wish you could trap all of your seemingly sterile but alarmingly fertile life-goop in a balloon and send it to the final frontier, your girlfriends trashcan next to her computer? Now you can. If you love to have sex with strangers but hate to have a syphilitic brain, it also helps.

men die too

It's always been counted among casualties in wars and conflicts the "women and children". It's mentioned like a negation to the victorious killing of men. Typically, no one dares to question the horrors of killing women and children. And they shouldn't. On the other hand, they should question whether men dying is any less awful.

Why should women and children be exempt from dying in mankind's "neccesary" wars? Well, perhaps because women are necessary for the nurture of children, and keeping of a steady home which strengthens society. And perhaps children ought to get the chance to live out their time of wonder, exploration and personal development. But wait a second, don't men do all of those things as well? In fact, in many cases men are just as capable or moreso of providing a stable household and personally developing(which everyone does their entire lives, contrary to idiotic belief).

Male children get an even tougher break: They are guaranteed their childhood only with the possibility of dying as an adult man looming over their head. Once a male is "mature enough" to die in a war, he apparently has nothing else to offer the world but seeing how many people he can kill before he's taken out.

situation the first: a child is abducted in the congo, and conditioned and forced to fight for an army. He may die, and if he lives, he will have nightmares his entire life.

situation the second: an adult man is forced to serve mandatory military service in Israel. He may die, and if he lives, he will have nightmares his entire life.

Ask each child's father(note: not necessarily mother, fathers are capable of love as well) how they feel about their offspring's death. They will tell you the same thing, it was a horrible loss.

The most revolutionary thing an adult man of military age can do is keep himself alive.

revising the mirror's reflection

I look in the mirror, and I see myself. I had little control over what myself would look like. I could do various things with my hair, maybe use make-up, but the shape and expressions were determined genetically. Similarly, how I feel about it was a foregone conclusion. Whether the man in the mirror is a friend or an enemy to me is at first out of my hands.

They say you can be beautiful on the inside. They don't mean that exactly, what they mean is you can alter your perceived image with what you say and do. However, what I say is still housed within my voice, which can be altered about as much as my face can be. What I do is still limited to the given functions of my body and brain. Each thing can gain more functions and stamina, but it's still in a cage of possibilities, not an ocean.

So, whether I am pretty or ugly to you when you watch me and see me speak, I can, through great effort, convey beauty. My beauty is not in what I am. People who are completely self-satisfied when they look in the mirror must have some crossed-wires. If I were one of them, I would only need to look in the mirror periodically to make sure I'm the same beautiful person, and return to bed. Rather, my beauty is in what I do. You are looking at me right now. When you are in my home, you are surrounded by me. I am not only myself, but everything I have moved, made and conquered. The mirror tells me I'm nothing special, all of my other reflections beg to differ.

screwy reviewy: magic mushrooms

I really had no idea what I was in for. I had been piss drunk, I had been too stoned(from canna-brownies) to effectively hit the toilet while urinating. I remembered that psilocybin mushrooms is considered a less intense trip than LSD. The problem is, my experience, like all of ours, is limited by itself. I hadn't used LSD, so how could I know what was less intense than it?

So, I tripped my ass off. Every room was it's own world- and that's what "governed" the trip. I would stay in a room until it became too intense, and then move to another. When I would walk, every single wall of my usually boring home was brand new... literally I was confused as to what I would see when I turned my head.

Which brings me to another thing that I "didn't understand" until doing it. I figured that psilocybin was a pretty mellow experience because I wouldn't hallucinate. As in, I wouldn't see things that weren't there. While this is true, I didn't realize just how much your mind can make with what already exists. Everything I already saw or heard was playing tricks on me. Spacial relations were randomized, and audio in particular was repeated, amplified, or otherwise messed with.

At first being excited and euphoric about my state, I "asked questions" about other things in my life. When I asked about what role liquor should play in my life, I of course had to take a shot of it. I poured a shot of rotgut rum which forever has a place in my freezer, and while looking out the window at what seemed like the desert, I drank it, to my surprise, slowly. I remember trying to notice a gag reflex, and I just didn't have one whatsoever. When I was finished, Everything was the same. Of course it was, but for me this answered something: liquor was nothing, like water. LSD has shown a 50% success rate in treating alcoholics. I can imagine it's through similar soul-searching. Seeing just how intense magic mushrooms were was another re-enforcement. Even when I was black-out drunk, it was nowhere near as intense. Liquor remains in my mind like water. Whether drunkard or abstainer.

Then, I had a "friendship trip". I literally thought friends were the most important thing in the world. Calvin and hobbes strips seemed like an awesome re-enforcement of that idea. I read through some of the book, although I focused on the images. For me, this is unusual. I always read the text, and sometimes at the expense of the images. This time, I could read strips that had their own life without words(some of them had no words anyway).

Finally, and this could be considered the "bad" part of the trip, I thought I had lost my mind. I was finally sick of this trip, I just wanted sanity to come back. I imagined that I was one of those "final trippers"(which don't actually exist), that is, someone who went tripping on drugs and never came back to reality. The horror of this was excruciating. I was long past feeling gleeful about tripping, I just wanted it to end now. Imagining that it wouldn't, ironically enough, made me paranoid. The last hour, I tried to sleep, totally exhausted, but was unable to. I lay awake, the whole carnival ride still going in my room, and I just reminded myself of the simple pleasures in life, down to a shower, a cup of coffee, taking a shit, normalcy. Yet another thing I didn't understand until doing it was "not wanting to repeat the experience". I felt like my psyche had taken about a thousand shits, and I wanted now to start fresh.

When I could tell it was wearing off, I had a strange manic episode where "cleaning up" seemed incredibly important, which was unusual for me. Every dirty piece of clothing in my room, the stubble in my chin, the dirty dishes in the sink. I just wanted to make it all go away, and did make some of it go away on the spot. This feeling remains with me now, that I have alot of cleaning up to do, and I feel desperately I need to start fresh.

So that's it! besides these "episodes", my usual state was overstimulation and confusion. Looking out of windows continually reminded me of the desert, because there were no leaves anywhere(ironically, that's because it's winter). I would start obsessing over what season it was. that was re-enforced by the fact that I couldn't tell if I was warm or cold, hungry or thirsty, etc. An unusual amount of my attention was devoted to my physical well-being, and at times I had the vision of being very frail and elderly. That is why, hereafter, I can't imagine wanting to feel that way again. It was worthwhile, definitely, but now I realize how much I took sobriety and normalcy for granted.

To feel normal, day-to-day, is more than okay. It's great.

the human factory

No one has a use for me if I’m not producing. I am a thing, much like a pile of wood or an idle computer. If I move my parts into mechanisms, then use those mechanisms to produce a worthwhile product, then my existence can be justified. I am a human factory.

I have a physical body of course, which houses what I have been genetically given, shaped further by my environmental conditions. This consists of my baseline emotional composition, the physical place on earth I choose to exist and the fuel I choose to use. When a product is finalized and given to those who have use for it- that is the best product I can produce at the time it was given.

If I am not producing in great enough quantities, or up to an expected quality, then I am redesigned. Each part of every mechanism is accounted for and it’s importance reevaluated. The part may be discarded, moved, rearranged, refashioned into a new part, or allowed to remain in it’s original function. Then I, the human factory, produce again... and the product is, in theory, improved.

Sometimes, an outside force like a human willingly or unknowingly sabotages me. Other times, I may forget regular maintenance like lubrication and the re-tightening of parts. Sometimes a part is exhausted, breaks, and needs to be replaced. My machinery seizes, and I can not produce momentarily. Everything needs to be repaired. It’s takes time. But less time on each new occurrence than the one before it.

If I take time to wallow, If I take time to grieve; my machinery will rust from idleness. When it is used again, it will have been weakened and break. If this happens too often; If I cannot produce efficiently, I will be rendered obsolete. So when you, the human being, tell me, the human factory, to take it easy, to let it go, to settle down, to take a break, to stop working for any reason, you are asking me to render myself obsolete. I would ask you to render yourself comatose, but you already have.

it takes no one to raise a child

One thing that continues to bother me into adulthood is societal attitudes towards children and youth. In what is considered a highly developed country, wherein any nutbar can express any opinion he likes without fear of reprimand- our attitudes towards children and our treatment of them is still rooted in a dark time.

What's so strange about our disciplinarian attitude towards children is that with its other hand, society holds children up as innocent, fresh, and rightfully presented with expanding opportunity. Yet, when a child says something they "shouldn't", when a child does something "wrong", spanking them, slapping them, or otherwise abusing them is an acceptable course of action.

In fact, parents and authority figures that don't torture children for minor breaches of civility our frowned upon as lazy, ignorant or childish themselves. I don't use words like "torture" and "abuse" lightly. When one individual outweighs another by more than 100 lbs, is smarter and wiser than them by decades, and their action is to exert physical dominance on the smaller, weaker person, that is abuse and nothing less.

Even the idea that children need discipline is a falsehood. Children surely need to be taught what is acceptable behavior. And that is non-coercive, non-abusive, calm and calculated sociability. What's so strange is that adults assume that children will not learn how to behave in society without their discipline. Surely, if a child is not hit, if a child is not bound to their room("grounded"), they'll turn into a raging sociopath, willing to take a literal shit on someone instead of talking to them?

It's truly awful. When psychiatrists evaluate the antisocial, they never owe their disregard for human rights to a free childhood. Either the individual was continually abused, or their childhood was rather normal. But the conclusion reached is never "I did something unnaceptable, I wasn't spanked, so I started carefully harming others".

So what are the results of an undisciplined child? Well, the person typing came from a home where I was very rarely spanked until I was 9. The spanking not-so-mysteriously stopped when my dad was taken off of prescribed steroids. From that age on, I could come and go as I pleased. I never had to tell my parents what I was doing. My parents never even went upstairs, where me and my brother lived, to tell us to clean our rooms to their liking or have our property searched.

And here I am today, after an essentially undisciplined childhood, never having done wrong to another person, never having tricked or hurt to get my way. With the ability to think freely, knowing that any decision I make will not cause unrest in my family. Consistently creating pieces of "art" or "entertainment" in my free time that both educate the curious and criticize the wicked in our society. Possessing a grandiose view of myself that at the very least will cause me to enjoy every moment of my life and at the most will provide sustenance for myself and those around me.

Leave the kids alone. If they turn out to be bad apples, they were always going to be. Most will be good, because most people are decent. Don't turn good people into bitter, traumatized and frightened individuals by childhood conditioning, or "correcting". Save that for lab rats and political leaders.

overly-simplistic definitions: depression

I've never jumped on the slowly moving, boring and unsafe bandwagon of depression. Though it's in style these days, I could never with a clear conscience say that my basic personality; my state of being, was depressed.

Well, those days haven't passed and never will. How did I "fight depression"? Though the psychologists and idiots will tell you that it's all biological difference, and our actions owe very little to it, they're wrong.

I've always worked for something. Not often for anything society would hold up as a worthwhile cause, but something. In every case of depression, a person either has no goals, or they've already completed their goals. In either case, the person is simply idle by their own standards, and doesn't want to be.

You're not in a position you like = you're not a person you'd admire = you don't like yourself = you're depressed. You might think it foolish and overly-simplistic to suggest that depressives just decide to do something, and do it, to cure their condition. You're probably right, but that's the only advice I have to give. I have never had a romance with lifestyle-depression because I'm happy when I'm working on something, and I'm always working on something.

If you don't like my advice, ask a depressive for some advice. He'll likely tell you "I'm not happy right now"... very useful.