uppers are immoderate and for destructive egotists, downers are the responsible choice of the nurturing selfless
― ogmor, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:32 (seven years ago) link
otm
― Mordy, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:38 (seven years ago) link
mordy your post made me think of this article on "Unforbidden Pleasures":
http://harpers.org/archive/2016/05/red-light-therapy/
― ryan, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:38 (seven years ago) link
If we take forbidden pleasures as the essence of pleasure, as the real pleasures, what happens to the unforbidden pleasures? Do they really exist — are they derivatives, substitutes, sublimations? — and if they do, what kinds of pleasures are they? Are they all poor relations of the real thing? Are they merely for the timid, the inhibited, the cowardly, the dull? Is unforbidden pleasure merely hedonism for infants and the elderly?
If we believe, for example, that real pleasure, profound pleasure, passionate pleasure, is forbidden, or derives from the forbidden, then clearly courage is what we need, and risk is what we will celebrate and idealize. We will need to be as brave as possible in not betraying our desire; indeed, to promote unforbidden pleasures is to imagine a world in which we don’t have to take courage or cowardice very seriously. There certainly seems to be an old-fashioned story about heroism lurking somewhere in our commitment to the forbidden, in which the bold, the risk-taking, the transgressive, are, by definition, having a better time. If one of my greatest pleasures in life is my morning coffee, am I a pathetic person? If being as kind as is possible gives me the life I want, am I some kind of weakling? If I prefer friendship or political activism to sexual relationships or sexual encounters, am I just inhibited? Are the seekers of unforbidden pleasures simply bland? Are they great sublimators and displacers but poor realists? Are unforbidden pleasures sad substitutes for the forbidden ones? What has the monism of forbidden pleasure — the siren song, the abiding claim on the Freudian subject of the forbidden — stopped us from thinking about pleasure?
― ryan, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:39 (seven years ago) link
so much shit you just have to do isn't enjoyable but life will be better if you do it. so many things that are supposed to be enjoyable aren't and life is too short to do things that are only for enjoyment with no payoff
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:40 (seven years ago) link
Moderation in all things... including moderation.
― Oh the pacmanity (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:44 (seven years ago) link
If I prefer friendship or political activism to sexual relationships or sexual encounters, am I just inhibited?
this is a little confused i think. political activism can often be one of these /exciting/ pleasures - the pleasure of protesting, engaging, fighting, etc. and by contrast, not every sexual relationship/encounter is exciting. i think as a culture we def look down on monogamous longterm relationships as boring/staid but what is wrong w/ enjoying having sex w/ the same person you've had sex w/ for the last 50 years? if anything that sounds to me like a sublime pleasure available to probably only a few of us. i hope one day i know what it's like to have had sex w/ the same person for decades and decades. boring? well, not exciting fresh and new. but sex is never really boring no matter who it's with, and there something here about depth vs. breadth. you can sample a lot of different things or you can really get deep into one particular thing. in yeshiva we called this distinction iyun (in depth study) vs. geirsa (broad study) - studying one or two pages of the talmud over the course of a semester vs. trying to finish the entire volume. you can really ruminate in a page and think about what it means and what the numerous commentaries are on it. i actually always found the pleasures of iyun to be more meaningful + substantial than the more temporarily exciting pleasures of constantly moving on to new topics.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:47 (seven years ago) link
or I should have said, things that are for "enjoyment" that aren't actually enjoyable
i'm all for branching out but sometimes the old standbys are where it's at
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:47 (seven years ago) link
the siren song - lol i did mention this above. even in forbidden pleasures there are ways of dealing with them that are maybe safer than others.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:48 (seven years ago) link
yeah agree about politics being a "hot" medium for pleasure. (maybe one reason i never quite identify with the farther reaches of the left)
― ryan, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:49 (seven years ago) link
i'd rather live in a society of masochists than sadists, but the former can't in good faith claim to be looking out for themselves. neither the ppl I've known who are fond enough of tranquilisers etc. that they lose control of the rest of their life.
i think the trick is to see multivalence, which is what transgressive pleasures utilise to some extent (this ties into the kristeva disgusting/enticing thing & even accounts for the joys of e.g. bitter beer, spicy food, marmite, whisky etc.), and allows you flexibility and some degree of wisdom
― ogmor, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:50 (seven years ago) link
i.e. it's not just that what you enjoy is fraught and can be seen in contradictory ways but the very act of enjoyment is often powered by awareness of those contradictory impulses
― ogmor, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:52 (seven years ago) link
i think as a culture we def look down on monogamous longterm relationships as boring/staid but what is wrong w/ enjoying having sex w/ the same person you've had sex w/ for the last 50 years?
i think the idea of sex with one person being boring is generally stated within a social/moral framework of someone who prizes marriage and the implied monogamamous sexual relationship it entails. nearly every person I know who fears their marriage would be boring/staid also can't imagine a life where they didn't seek out a marriage partner
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:55 (seven years ago) link
this isn't something i really relate to personally but i look at pop culture and it seems filled w/ this idea that long term monogamy is boring - and it seems like (tho i don't know for sure) like adultery is rampant for this reason. i'm always seeing these articles about how ppl can't really be expected to stay faithful, that humans are wired to seek out new pleasures, that humans are not wired for monogamy, etc. i mean maybe this kind of behavioral psychology is correct on the merits idk (other primates seem to have dramatically different sexual habits from us) but possibly just a part of our culture's fixation on hot pleasures?
― Mordy, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 15:58 (seven years ago) link
Underplayed, yet overrated song comes on at the bar.
i don't understand this, but i'm sure there's a ILM list thread on the topic with hundreds of examples
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:01 (seven years ago) link
xp I don't think that's really true, there's obv a tension there though. a lot of the griping in this thread about unforbidden tame pleasures seems borne of a weird insecurity about what everyone else is up to and what they deem boring, which reminds me of when I see people being performatively & self-consciously lame/boring/middle-class and clearly getting a huge kick out of it
― ogmor, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:04 (seven years ago) link
xp no, it's just because the idea of sex is very exciting and universal and good for fiction and is a shorthand for thrill-seeking. there are people who are all over the place sexually, but they're kind of that way in general.
like I know people who are bad at sexual monogamy but for the most part their lives are a hot mess outside of the sexual relationship aspects, too
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:05 (seven years ago) link
isn't the truly radical act to actually be very boring indeed? aren't the suburbs are the real frontier?
― ogmor, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:07 (seven years ago) link
-are
― ogmor, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:08 (seven years ago) link
if you think about it, having kids is the biggest risk/slowest reward payout thing you can do
I was mentioning a few places I'd like to travel to a coworker and he felt like a couple were too risky for him, but he has three kids under the age of seven. I mean, chances are low anything would happen to me on a trip, but anything could happen to any of those kids and it'd fuck up his life hardcore!
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:10 (seven years ago) link
lol this just showed up in my fb feedhttp://www.msn.com/en-ph/entertainment/celebrity/scarlett-johansson-monogamy-is-unnatural/ar-AAmWKp1
― Mordy, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:11 (seven years ago) link
raising kids has a lot of enjoyable moments and can be very long-term fulfilling but if you're used to getting your enjoyment from thrill-seeking it's a pretty huge adjustment
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:11 (seven years ago) link
Mordy, popular actors have insanely fucked up lives! Like, can you imagine being on set umpteen hours per day, on location halfway across the world, and having a spouse that just deals w/that? People love to read about people with lives that don't lend well to stable relationships because it makes you feel better.
but at the same time they have some blip of SJ saying she views marriage as "a responsibility"
if someone is reading that and thinking "yeah I am just like this international actor, better not have any monogamy" then lol
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:15 (seven years ago) link
lol no i agree i just thought it was serendipitous
― Mordy, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:15 (seven years ago) link
like as a boring-ass middle class person I can read that and think, wow, even insanely successful Scarlett Johansson has trouble with relationships! she's right, it's a lot of work, I don't have it so bad -- and I guess I am doing a lot of work by being in a relationship
like there is nothing in that article that doesn't put monogamy and marriage up on a pedestal, and there's no inclination SJ is divorced because she just wants to fuck around a lot
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:16 (seven years ago) link
this is literally half of the content at grocery store checkout tabloids
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:17 (seven years ago) link
ugh, sorry for sounding very preachy
but i have for real been trying to evaluate what brings me joy and fulfillment in life because i kind of flamed out after not finding fulfillment OR enjoyment in things i tried and have been resorting to some easy fixes in both categories to the point where things are definitely losing even their brief enjoyment factor
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:21 (seven years ago) link
one reason i loved that unforbidden pleasures article is that i'm naturally inclined that way and always feel guilty about it, like i'm missing out on life because literally my favorite thing to do is read outside when the weather is nice.
― ryan, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:30 (seven years ago) link
I did that on a mexican beach once, would highly recommend
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 16:32 (seven years ago) link
just figured out where the thread title came from and tbh I should have been enjoying that on a beach instead
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 17:07 (seven years ago) link
Fomo is kinda a trait of cunts I've noticed
― Betsy DeVos Ayes (darraghmac), Wednesday, 15 February 2017 17:10 (seven years ago) link
...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Cunts
― Neanderthal, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 17:12 (seven years ago) link
hey now
imo it's a trait of insecurity, and only some insecure people play out that insecurity by being cunts
they're the worst, though
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 17:19 (seven years ago) link
Ok
The fear don't make u a cunt
Typing #fomo does tho
Square?
― Betsy DeVos Ayes (darraghmac), Wednesday, 15 February 2017 17:23 (seven years ago) link
oh wow who even does that
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 17:25 (seven years ago) link
This statement in the thread "uppers are immoderate and for destructive egotists, downers are the responsible choice of the nurturing selfless" = totally disagree.
Blanket statement if there is one, people can do both. I would say that the downers are less destructive overall, but I don't align with calling people who do uppers egotists.
― Everything Moves Towards The Sun (Ross), Wednesday, 15 February 2017 19:50 (seven years ago) link
IE. you could smoke pot everyday and yes it would seem more innocuous compared to cocaine, but I cannot imagine smoking pot daily for years (which I've done) makes one less of an egotist or more self caring.
― Everything Moves Towards The Sun (Ross), Wednesday, 15 February 2017 19:51 (seven years ago) link
expand yr pool of enjoyment
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 February 2017 19:55 (seven years ago) link
uh hello
http://ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=60&threadid=2955
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 20:57 (seven years ago) link
caffeine is an upper guys c'mon
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 20:58 (seven years ago) link
do I need a friggin coffee mug that says "destructive egoist" on it
the war against drugs really jacked with perceptions
*smokes a cig*
never enjoy anything it will just break your heart
― assawoman bay (harbl), Wednesday, 15 February 2017 21:27 (seven years ago) link
xp to ross - yeah that was supposed to be a self-evidently absurd position i was ascribing to mordy
― ogmor, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 21:40 (seven years ago) link
I think we can say with some certainty anything we like
As long as one exhibits a breeziness whilst doing so
― Betsy DeVos Ayes (darraghmac), Wednesday, 15 February 2017 21:43 (seven years ago) link
i didn't say anything about egoism? xp
― Mordy, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 21:44 (seven years ago) link
if anything i think the thrill of danger/excitement has something to do w/ a nullification of the self - losing oneself in something overwhelming - but generally speaking is irrelevant to this paradigm.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 21:48 (seven years ago) link
My apologies if I missed that ogmor
― Everything Moves Towards The Sun (Ross), Wednesday, 15 February 2017 21:57 (seven years ago) link
danger is cool because your brain makes adrenaline and endorphins duh
like "oh shit i'm gonna die" doesn't give you joy per se, but you get a blast of the brain chemicals
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 15 February 2017 23:03 (seven years ago) link
Don't forget the pop ev-bio explanations for stupid, dangerous, and otherwise nonadaptive behavior. This is probably a dated and discredited view, but cf. Desmond Morris.
Why do adolescent males do things that are risky and stupid? Because if you do something risky and stupid YET SURVIVE, a female will mate with you. At a subconscious level, she will perceive that your genes are strong, and she wants to have children who will be more likely to survive the Starving Times.
On the other hand, if you die doing the risky stupid thing, then the species was better off without you anyway.
This explains Tom Sawyer doing handstands in front of Becky Thatcher. But it also explains beer bongs, skateboarding, keg stands, Xtreeem sports, "Jackass," stage dives, freebase cocaine, and "Point Break."
Of course girls, women, and older men will do these things too. But that's more a matter of it being in the culture than a biological drive.
― Oh the pacmanity (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 16 February 2017 14:45 (seven years ago) link
Don't forget the pop ev-bio explanations
why?
― ogmor, Thursday, 16 February 2017 14:50 (seven years ago) link
Earlobes are for pair bonding, everybody
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 16 February 2017 15:13 (seven years ago) link
Obviously, and it's no accident that they're a popular location for piercing. Piercing is, of course, a vestige of the "I did something dangerous but I survived, so please mate with me." So are rollercoasters.
Grand unification theories that explain everything - they're a helluva drug.
― Oh the pacmanity (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 16 February 2017 15:35 (seven years ago) link
Intellectualizing the habit of gawking at cleavage was, for me in my youth, almost as exciting as cleavage itself.
Now I'm almost forty and it's clear: actual boobies are the only thing that matters
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 16 February 2017 15:51 (seven years ago) link
I think it's in Camille Paglia somewhere: cleavage is there to make you think of a butt. Just like lipstick is there to make you think of labia.
― Oh the pacmanity (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 16 February 2017 15:59 (seven years ago) link
http://www.drmartens.com/us/p/mens-boots-b%26b-smooth-backhand-pascalhttp://www.drmartens.com/us/p/mens-boots-b%26b-london-backhand-smooth-pascal
I mean, I know they are hideous and yet
― ornate orchestral arrangements (DJP), Wednesday, 1 March 2017 19:25 (seven years ago) link
link not working right
please tell me you meant to link the beavis & butthead boots
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 1 March 2017 19:28 (seven years ago) link
I did, both versions
― ornate orchestral arrangements (DJP), Wednesday, 1 March 2017 19:46 (seven years ago) link
http://www.drmartens.com/uk/beavis-and-butt-head-collection
― mh 😏, Wednesday, 1 March 2017 19:47 (seven years ago) link
they are gloriously ugly
― ornate orchestral arrangements (DJP), Wednesday, 1 March 2017 19:50 (seven years ago) link