How many of you have heard about some cousin, or other family member, who thought like you and eventually had a meltdown?
And was it just a concern,
or a prophecy?
I don’t know what you mean by meltdown. I have had depression sometimes. Most of the time I just have a moderate level of anxiety caused by not knowing answers. Generally, I feel like the time I am least anxious is when doing philosophy. I have tried not doing philosophy for a while but get nervous and feel like I am wasting my life so resume my old patterns.
My family is large and widely scattered, so I don’t know my cousins very well–or not at all. I’m interested, but not avidly so, in genealogy, but more so because it’s a study of the genes, or genea, that led to me–I’m egoistic that way.
As for any path to which my intellectual curiosity has sent me, those paths are as diverse and widespread as is my secondary family.
Have there been psychological “meltdowns” in my ancestral family–yes, several. I’d think that every family has someone on the upper branches of their tree who has some sort of labeled psychosis. Of course, back then, they weren’t labeled with modern labels. But i have an alleged wife killer, an alleged son killer, and several other matriarchal and patriarchal family members who were institutionalized for some reason or another, although that doesn’t include either of the alleged murderers .
Actually, what I’m referring to are the warning signs you get as you start down the path to the life of the mind: the psychological hazards of pursuing it. I couldn’t begin to count the number of people throughout my life who, in some form or other, complained that I think too much. And it’s not just those around you. The the wake of our intellectual history is strewn with the wreckage of some it’s most important contributers.
Agreed, it’s a choice you make, a sacrifice really - safety overboard… in favor of the possibility of profundity, insight.
I’ve seen quite a few thinkers around me go down, collapse, crash and burn… and they were among the most original and authentic ones.
I think it’s so dangerous because you have to question all values, which also means the self. This is after all an assumption, beyond which we do not generally dare to look. Psychosis is to me very simply the breaching of the unquestionable unity (value-integrity) of the self. That’s at least what I’ve observed in those who fell in that abyss.
Certainly, there is a danger in recognizing that the unified self is a kind of illusion.
People are always telling me how people who think like me went crazy…
Thing is I already went crazy…I actually came back though…
I like to think I found that piece of the puzzle that left others chasing the wind…
Think of it like this you don’t have to take acid to trip, you don’t have to be genetically made that way, control of the mind lends to amazing things, but control the wrong things and you can’t get out of the deep end unless some miraculous swimmer pulls you out.
Actually, I never thought of my thoughts as leading to the “life of the mind.” I just figured I was ‘different,’ even among my family members–but I thought that was because essentially I was the middle child. My youngest sib was adopted and 20 yrs. my junior. I did throw out a lot–mainly religious thought–but I replaced what I threw out with my own ideas about things. Other than having spent years of my life being theraped grouply or in one-ones, I think I’m turning out okay–just ‘different.’ 
Unfortunately recognition of difference leads many into attempting adjustments that make them fit, that really F things up more, or end what goodness might have been had…
I’d agree with the first part of you answer. I don’t understand the last part. Can you explain, please?
A person see’s they don’t fit in and starts drinking alcohol. There are many other sort of these things, often including drugs, sometimes including physical alteration by means of surgery, sometimes things like becoming a monk even (if it leads one in a belief system that is self-detrimental) I guess you could just say joining weird groups, sometimes ones that feed on people of that nature: thus ending what better might have resulted if that person had stepped away from other’s opinion’s and outlooks on that person, and instead embraced not giving a smack about what other silly social expectancies have cropped up in society…
this mind made war
being generous
this heart could dare)
unhearts can less
unminds must fear
because and why
what filth is here
unlives do cry
on him they shat
they shat encore
he laughed and spat
(this life could dare
freely to give
as gives a friend
not those who slave
unselves to lend
for hope of hope
must coo or boo
may strut or creep
ungenerous who
ape deftly aims
they do not share)
such make their names
(this poet made war
whose naught and all
sun are and moon
come fair come foul
he goes alone
daring to dare
for joy of joy)
what stink is here
unpoets do cry
unfools unfree
undeaths who live
nor shall they be
and must they have
at him they fart
they fart full oft
(with mind with heart
he spat and laughed
with self with life
this poet arose
nor hate nor grief
can go where goes
this whyless soul
a loneliest road
who dares to stroll
almost this god
this surely dream
perhaps this ghost)
humbly and whom
for worst or best
(and proudly things
only which grow
and the rain’s wings
the birds of snow
things without name
beyond because
things over blame
things under praise
glad things or free
truly which live
always shall be
may never have)
do i salute
(by moon by sun
i deeply greet
this fool and man
Thank you. Since I did none of those things, I hadn’t thought about them. I just figured I am who I am and I’m happy with who I am, so why change?
Indeed, But I would suggest thinking much as to what things might lead to the most happiness, not in terms of immediacy, but overall. Often association of happiness with certain things is more beneficial, and dissociation of happiness with certain things is better too. For example practicing studying things can lend to it being easier and lend to associating it with fun…but even if it does not seem fun one can simply see that association of fun with it would be great and then just choose to do it and begin that association…I don’t know that one can just snap there fingers an re-associate to a high level of happiness return…but re-association can be done enough to lead to more happiness in the long run…(depends on what is being studied though…perhaps i should say research such as to understand better what is better…or something) so in otherwords there is change that is good, i don’t know that it is really what is so often thought to be good though…
This is coming from someone who has had a lot of experience with being in “diferent states of mind”:
I think, as Abstract seems to be implying, that when you see yourself as being in a different state of of mind than the other that you assume to be normal, you sometimes tend to overcompensate in order to seem normal yourself. I’ve seen this phenomena both from the inside and the outside.
In fact, I now realize this might explain a lot of behaviors that people who are mentally ill actually engage in.
I hope you wouldn’t think someone is mentally ill who engages in such often…as that would suggest more that 75% of the population is mentally ill. Possible though…depends on who and how is defined “mentally ill”
I sincerely apologize, but I really don’t understand what either of you are getting at. Will you please try to explain further. Or maybe we should go back to the OP. What did you mean by it, dc3?
Again, I apologize but who the hell ever suggested an “altered state of mind?”
That is true. There are a lot of situations in which people might overcompensate but not be mentally ill. In awkward social situations, for instance, or as I pointed out when your drunk (especially around someone whose sober). You really tend to see it a lot with people who are stoned trying to pretend they’re not. I think it’s generally the result of self consciousness.
However, in the case of mental illness, there is often excessive self consciousness, therefore, excessive overcompensation. They might be overly nice or agreeable, or sometimes overly socially agressive.
Actually, altered state of mind was brought in as an extreme and more immediate form of the difference of mind that comes from being intellectually curious. But I’ll have to go back through this figure out how we got on the subject of overcompensation.
At this point, all I can say is that overcompensation in this context is what results from trying too hard to seem normal while feeling decidedly abnormal.