Me and my shado...

[shadokastur]

With all that has recently happened behind the scenes in Code Atom, I spent a lot of time thinking to myself and something hit me out of the blue: a rock. But seriously, it was the realization that I truly am concerned about the current state of affairs that people are in these days. Whenever I look around and see someone homeless, someone drinking to avoid something, someone screaming, someone doing drugs and saying "I just CAN'T stop." it kills me. Something inside me - maybe some of my idealistic vision of what life should or could, be - just screams and dies. Curls up and wants to shrivel away. So I bother myself with these things. Nothing so solitary as struggling to reach some goal or dream but really wondering "why?" Why do we put ourselves in these predicaments? Why do we believe that we can't do anything about them? Why do we let the size and scope of a task paralyze us into inactivity? And, for myself, why doesn't ANYTHING ignite that fire that used to be inside? I let it gnaw at me for a while until I realized that I'm terrified of my own power. The power that comes with being a human being engaging in everyday interaction. The power I have as a father in shaping the mind of my child and therefore affecting his future life and (subsequently) the lives of all those he will meet and interact with. As human beings it is our utmost responsibility to understand how we truly affect each other and how we handle the negative emotions that are the result of inefficient coping methods and insufficient understanding. The magnitude of this point has been crippling me for years. Because of this I had subconsciously chosen to do nothing so as to avoid "getting it wrong" and creating a bad example. But, as it can be easily seen, anytime you don't use something it atrophies. So now I'm going to have to find the courage to start starting and trust that all who listen will understand that if nothing else I'm trying. We're trying. Everybody is trying, and bless them for it...

Hopefully with this in mind I will experience a new dawning and be able to move forward from this tarpit that I find myself in.


(This is a thread for everyone! I can't stress that enough. Everyone has these moments, I'm sure so here is a place to vent it. BUT this thread is special because not only do I want to place problems here but what they teach us. I think learning is ultimately important and encouraging it in each other is the best way to promote it.)

REY

[Damion]

Hoooooo boy. I gave up on that years ago. Working on the individual is completely and totally pointless; humanity has lost its strength. Talk to anyone you want, suggest a change for the better and there will inevitably be a million reasons why it wouldn't be a good idea, a million excuses not to act, a million predictions of unfavorable outcome. We are a stagnant society. No one takes risks anymore, no one stands up for what's right; no one has the strength, and no one knows where to get it. We're all too afraid of what will happen.

As a culture, as a group, we have limitless untapped strength; that is the basis of our country, and the founding principle of our culture: work together and anything is possible. But working together requires an act of trust altogether unthinkable in this day and age. Trust is a dying animal, gasping its last breaths in the form of nice guys (who finish last) and honest policemen (who die young).

You can test that theory. Ask yourself something: Random acts of kindness...do they truly exist, or is there always a reason? Then ask people around you. Take a poll.

My answer? Hell no. No one does that crap anymore. Why? Because it's crap. Why sacrifice yourself for someone else? You've got your own life to worry about; spend too much time worrying about someone else's and yours will go dry, or run off the road, or trip over a rock.

Blame everyone you want. The government. The media. Parents. Kids. Aliens. Hell, blame the Irish potato famine if it makes you happy. I suppose they all had a part in it. The fact is we're headed for a dead end. Our culture and our society will continue to splinter and fragment until the increasing drive to perfection drives us all into the ground. There's only so much one person can do on his or her own.

So there's the problem. What's the solution?

We need a good shake. As a collective, we're like water which has been still too long. Bacteria grows, it begins to smell funny. Can't drink it anymore. Best water doesn't come from lakes, or reservoirs. It comes from tiny streams and springs high up in the mountains, where the slopes are steep enough to keep the water moving fast, and therefore clean.

We need a catalyst. Someone needs to upend the bottle; show the world something so revolutionary as to jostle the world back into motion. Alternatively...a cataclysm. Something huge and terrifying and deadly, to weed the strong from the weak, to winnow the gene pool back to a more reasonable size.

Less people = less competition = easier life. It's vicious, and horrifying, and probably disgusting to contemplate. It's also true. Welcome back to natural selection.

We're in limbo. We need to evolve, or we need to regress. If we stay where we are, we'll destroy ourselves.

[Tobias]

Unfortunately, friend, this is where i must deviate from you.

You can look at any act of good in any way and pull from that a reason for your own personal gain. It is in the letters from Paul to the Corinthians. Paul shows the world there that no matter what we do, there is a personal gain from it.

Hell, everything can be a personal gain, everything can be for ourselves. Everything can be that way, because we don't care anymore. If you really want to, we're just a big compelation of flesh and bones, that acts of neuronic activity that makes us act the way we are. But something is different about us.

I have to side, good friend, with Rey on ths one. It feels like you know what he's talking about, yet you don't want to try to change it up a bit...make it work. It could just be the way im interpreting it, but its what I'm reading. I've found that i have, as Ray mentioned, let too many of my talents atrophy, and that only now have i really understood what they are. Currently, I'm seeing what he means by this power that you are terrified by. Someone like me hasn't had anyone to show me this, i've just had to try it out on my own, since the rest of society doesn't "care" to use it.

But you know what...sitting around isn't gonna get jack done. You said it yourself...the world needs a good shaking. Something needs to get the water moving again. When water moves together, it can do anything...clean itself, power towns, the whole lot. But it isn't gonna happen if we leave it be and hope something happens. That only works in creation...not in revitalization.

So if you need someone to talk to about what you have deep down inside...ive got my experience. It's not the best, but its something. Especially coming from someone who learned to use it on his own. If you wanna shake up the world, id be willing to help, whether it be in song, or in the spoken word, or in literature. Some people just don't quite understand, and it takes people like us to get it into their skulls. But sitting around and proclaiming the doom of mankind never solved anything. The general who broods about losing is inevitably going to lose, becuase the other general knows that he has no more morale; that he can't make any more straight decisions; and the greater general is focused on winning. Either way, make the effort, and despite what people say about good actions being selfish...the hell with that, just do it anyways.

That is all
~Mike

[shadokastur]

The person who acts first IS this catalyst! This person performing this act is the ultimate epicenter of all things. It only takes one person doing one right thing to create a ripple that spreads out and affects all those they meet. You speak of a dead world but that just reflects your inner view. Things are bleak because we have made them that way either by wrong action or inaction. Things CAN change. People ARE good. It merely takes a want to help. A cataclysm will not change the world, only people can change the world. a cataclysm will only bring out of people their inner view. If it's selfish, their actions will be completely self motivated and cold-hearted if they are outwardly concerned then they will try to help wherever they can. I have this faith in people and I know that it is not misplaced. Many have lost their way, myself included. But I have come to believe that it is only the want to be better that can make us better.

[Azurel]

I don't believe a normal person could create enough of a ripple to matter to a lot of people.

I'm not too great at analogies but:

A cliff wall on a still lake represents worries and problems of a person (or people). The still lake represents the people willing to help. Those of the lake have the power to cause ripples (books, songs, advice, anything). It is often, almost to the point of always, that a single ripple will seemingly do nothing to the cliff. It does, in fact, eat away at the wall slowly. Depending on the person and problem, a few scattered ripples may not be enough. Sometimes it takes a powerful ripple from a close friend or a phrase or lyric that hits the nail on the head, that kind of ripple has the energy to curl into a wave, which takes down that wall much quicker. Sometimes it simply takes a lot of little corrosions at the wall from standard ripples.

Some people get fed up and think that the one cliff and all cliffs like it aren't worth the energy just because their ripples don't take down the wall. There are some people who see that their ripples aren't doing enough and make more ripples faster. Then there are other people that see that their ripples aren't doing enough and give up because they know that there will be more ripples and they tried, even if they weren't the one to bring the wall down (or even that the wall never came down due to collective effort).

It's my belief that it takes a special person or a collective effort to have a worthwhile impact. Thus, even if you don't see an immediate or eventual change, you should always attempt to help in any way you can.

Personal rebuttles:
-If we stay as we are now, we will not destroy ourselves, we will simply become something a lot of people don't like. Probably a regression into anarchy and then probably another society. We don't like to be too controlled and we don't like to be too free, but I think we'll bounce back from one extreme to the other until we find a balance.

-There is no random acts of kindness because there's no random acts of humans ever. Though I do believe that the personal gain from our acts of kindness may be small enough to not warrant a label of "selfishness." I went to dinner with two of my friends last night. I paid the bill. Why? cuz I had my money out already and it was a small check. The real reason? I didn't feel like doing any math to split the bill and I figured that I've owed my share in gas money for the two guys. That's not selfless, but the personal gain (which I figure is only less stress for 5 seconds and making myself feel better for wasting gas over the years) is too small to be selfish too.

-I don't believe everyone's good.

[Ultrawolf]

[Girkon]

I believe it comes down to an analogy quoted by many, but also from Alucard in Castlevania. The only way for darkness to win is if good people do nothing.

Give me your million reasons not act if you want. I will laugh them off with confidence.

Tell me it's all crap, I will say "Is it crap, or is it merely you just letting yourself be buried in it"

Trust does not live or die. It exists in the form of people who believe it.

Sacrifice comes from the heart. From it you can find courage. I pray I will have it when it comes down to it.

I guess all in all, there may be millions of stubborn people saying to not try like Damion here. I can't fault him for his view of life. Nor can I be mad or scornful. All I can think is that he better know the consequences of such thoughts. Be it selfish or righteous, don't cry if you fall in the hole you dug for yourself. Though at the same time, never be afraid to ask for a helping hand.

With that here is some wiseness...Even the tiniest ripple can become a tsunami with time.

[Shurikane]

It's not a thousand people doing ripples who will take down a cliff. It's the one dude who was smart enough to go get a jackdrill. You can send as many people as you want down the street with signs, it won't do much, but have one guy at the right place at the right time to take that one controversial photo and you've just stopped the world.

But humanity as a whole? I have no desire to help it, nor do I see a way of helping it. People in general don't listen. They believe that those who think differently are no less than blasphemous. No matter how open-minded each and every one of us wants to believe we are, we'll all notice that whenever someone says something that doesn't match what we want, our heart briefly stops and a tiny knot forms in our stomach, just long enough to induce a sense of insecurity and prompt defense. That alone is enough for us to try to tear down ideas that do not work exactly within our goals.

As well, there is an overwhelming desire to freeze time itself. We've built structures that can last longer than anything ever seen before. We aren't nomads anymore; we're sedentaries, intended to live in a single spot. If it's not the "national historic landmarks" we want to protect, it's the urge to challenge nature by settling into places that are flat out dangerous. We have people who buy a home right next to a river, and with each springtime, their home is flooded like mad. But they don't budge from their spot. New Orleans is below the sea level and people are bent on rebuilding it entirely. Not to say this isn't a noble endeavour, but the city is below sea level! It could get completely flooded and destroyed all over again if it suited nature's fancy. But we want things to remain as they are forever and ever, so we always end up coming back to the same place and trying to make things just the way they were before.

Watch out when the poles melt. I'm already bracing myself for those who will respond to the threat by buying a scuba mask instead of looking for a "drier" place to live.

On one side of the spectrum, you have those people who were raised on the street and most likely end up living the gangsta way. On the other side, you have the rich, spoiled people who do things beyond the law because they know they can pay the outta-jail fee anytime and several times. In the middle, people who are competing with each other because it makes you sick to see that your neighbor somehow managed to get himself a BMW despite the fact that he's working on the same shoddy salary as you do while you're still driving a Hyundai '94. And let's fit in there those who are asses for seemingly no reason and will just never learn until they actually get shot in the head.

What do I do to fix all this? Nothing.

In today's society, good Samaritans are given shit. Either they make the ones they help appear as weak, or people abuse their generosity. People don't need and don't want help, so they say. Therefore, I ain't going to do anything. Besides, if humankind really is as wretched as we all believe, then things will eventually go belly-up, free some place, and give breathing room to the survivors to figure out what went wrong and resume the life while fixing the bugs. And when that actually gets to happen, I'll have died a long time ago!

[Tobias]

There's one thing though that I can't stand to see...and thats conformity and the rule of the bystander.

In psychology, you have two rules. The first, of the bystander, is that with multiple people comes diffusion of responsibility. A woman can get killed in the street, and if 10 people just look at her and walk away, its because they saw everyone not do anything and figured that it wasn't their matter, nor were they personally involved, and that this type of thing is commonplace. What they don't know is that every other person out of those 10 are thinking the same thing.

This brings us into the psychology of conformity, as practiced by a scienticed known as Asch. Upon a unanimous decision that is wrong amongst a plethora of paid-off subjects, the real subject will answer wrong as well, because they believe that they "just don't see it the same way, so maybe they are really wrong." This leads them to not want to stand up for themselves.

But you know what happens when that one person does stand up? Everyone sees the giant balls that this guy has, and realizes that he's the only right guy out there...and that one guy sparks everyone to rise up to affirm what they truely believe.

Many a revolt, many a war, and many a situation, as ultra pointed out, was started just like this. When Injustice becomes law, Resistance becomes duty...but it takes that one man to get the resistance to get up and move.


A strange example, but one that makes sense...is that of the space monkey...and of Fight Club. It only took one looney man with a second personality to spark a revolution amongst all of the middle class in the world. And if that happens, every other class has no way of dealing with it.

That is all

[Rizzen]

I'd say people don't have the power yet. We need to work on ourselves first. That's the miracle to me. So many people want to try to heal the world, but how can we unless we're strong enough to change ourselves. And before anyone asks that includes me as well. I dream about this every night as I told Tobias. I wish and hope and pray every day that this would happen, but it isn't right now. Is it possible? Yes I think it is...but for now we need to work on ourselves first. Man I wish I wasn't so tired...gimme a little while and I will make sure I come back with a much more in depth answer.

-Kyo