I’ll admit that missing the concert due to our son’s fucked up priorities(church first, family second) has made our relationship a lot clearer, in my mind at least. He has disappointed me countless times by not showing up when we’ve scheduled time together. I’ll text him about something and he never bothers to answer, let alone even acknowledge that he got the message. If you can’t be bothered showing up, then don’t tell me you will when you won’t.
I did realize something yesterday while I was on one of my walks. I’ve been listening to music for several hours a day, especially when I’m walking my laps outside, and that was that I really haven’t been listening to the music, I’ve just had it on as background noise.
As soon as that thought came into my head, I started LISTENING to my music again, to the specific bands and songs, and it made me feel better than before.
We’ve been in this situation before, even when I was working 50-60 hours a week, we have never had a lot of money, but now it’s really come to the forefront.
With the price of everything going up, it’s caught up to us. I had to stop going to the gym because of a shoulder issue, plus the cost of membership and the price of gas for 3 trips into town a week. I know that this has had a big impact on my mental state. I’m basically stuck at home and can’t go anywhere because we don’t have gas money for anything but Becky’s car. It’s a 40 mile daily round trip into her office for work, plus her trip into town every Sunday to her fucking church.
I think that part of the reason for my lousy state of mind is because I resent not being able to go anywhere without having to justify the expense now.
Tomorrow(Saturday) she has to go into town for a meeting at her church, which means more gas money.
I’m just not sure how to go forward with my relationship with our son. My relationship with my father was non-existent after my 12th or 13th birthday. I went from being a kid to free labor whenever he wanted it from that point forward. He was an angry, racist, workaholic.
I swore that I wouldn’t be him with our kids, but I was an angry workaholic when our kids were growing up, and now I’m just an angry old bastard. I’ve actually caught myself swearing just like he did, same words, same tone of voice, everything.
I’m trying to be a better grandfather with our grandkids than he was with his.
I’m trying to deal with my current situation the best I can. I’ve figured out that if I have something to look forward too, it makes coping with the pain and numbness a little easier. Next Saturday we’re meeting the kids and grandkids at the pumpkin patch we’ve been going to for decades like we usually do. Our daughter just invited us over for dinner tomorrow night too, very cool.
I feel better already. Hey Cog, is this a “normal” coping device?
Sorry, but I have another question. Is it normal to prefer to be in the dark come night time? Or to be outside at night time and just look at the sky sitting in a chair listening to music?
What about having a feeling that I belong whenever I’m in a cemetery? I don’t know what it is, but it’s a very calming feeling. I love the dark side of life, I always have, horror movies and literature, Halloween, the occult, cemeteries, tattoos, black metal music, artwork, t-shirts, everything.
Am I crazy, or just different?
Your asking a monkey what is normal? Have you been following my posts? Do you think I have any idea at all what is ‘normal’ in this world? My interpretation of the word ‘normal’ is so fucking expansive as to be completely abnormal. “If a human being can do it, it’s normal.” If humans can do it, humans have always done it, and that makes it human behavior, and that makes it normal human behavior.
I think the real question is; “Are you doing harm to yourself, your relationships, or others?” What we call abnormal (and pretend no sane human would ever do) are things that harm ourselves or others. These are the things we call abnormal. Outside of that, I have no means of actually measuring what is normal outside of my own bigoted opinions.
You do what you do. An equally important question is:
Why do I feel like I belong inside a 1950s factory? I enjoy working inside of a what I could best describe as a clock tower combined with a steam engine. I enjoy the industrial raw feel of it all. It is obnoxiously noisy, I mean you can hardly hear a radio on max volume. It all fades out to me, I just work on machines off in my own little world. I am that guy who loves his job.
Now why the hell would anyone feel they belong in a deafening factory? I can’t fucking explain it, I just realize it and fucking enjoy it.
Isn’t that great! I have been teaching and counseling for 50 years now. I love public speaking, writing, grading papers, and pretending like I know shit. I can’t see myself doing anything else. Standing up in front of a new class of students each year, a new problem to deal with each day, emotional breakdowns, turmoil, insanity all around me; I love it. It’s the best thing in the world to have a job that you love doing.
Now, to be honest… I also like machine shops. I like the sound of a power drill and the smell of oil. I love the whirrrr of a spinning lathe and the smell. The bit cutting through the metal and making little shiny curls is just satisfying. Wet sanding the metal to a shimmering gloss and then seeing myself in the finished product is about as satisfying as life gets.
I’m the same way in a wood shop. Plainers, sanders, table saws, lathes, band saws, the smell of cut wood, people screaming, bloody fingers on the floor (Just kidding… sometimes) I did see a guy using a lathe with a necktie. Guess what happened. YEP! Fucking idiot. He was so fucking wrapped up in that lathe we had to cut him out. He lost his necktie and half his shit.
These aren’t quite the industrial shops you are speaking of. I don’t know that I would find those as appealing. Still, I get what you are saying. There is something about being in a shop that I really enjoy. To this day, I can do both metal work and woodwork, to the degree of a decent hobbyist.
In the end, “People like what they like.” It’s knowing what you like that is sometimes hard to figure out.
Yea, I have seen at least three incidents like this. Watched an industrial cord winding machine grab a guys T shirt sleeve and twist it about 80 times before he hit the emergency stop. His shirt collar was quickly becoming a tourniquet.
Then the most ridiculous one was a woman operating something similar, unfortunately for her, the top she had on was so thin or poorly made it quite literally disappeared off her body like Houdini snatched it!
Had another coworker get crushed between two machines, and I mean BIG machines. Lucky he only broke his leg……Come to think of it, I should probably hate working in durable goods industries.
I think I enjoy the risk involved, I’ve watched people get wide eyed when I throw open a live electric panel with arc flash warnings and dig through hundreds of wires tracing a single circuit. It’s like fighting a hydra or some mythical monster to me. Slogging through some medieval labyrinth. Performing other repairs of piss poor prior repairs as if they are some side story to my main quest of slaying this foul monster. The ridiculous sense of accomplishment when I finally get to put all the chains, belts, and covers back on, then flip that giant slot machine handle like breaker arm up into the on position. Like Dr. Frankenstein throwing the switch on his creation.
Watching a colossal machine suddenly jump to life in working order, after a breakdown, is an an anti-depressant money can’t buy.
Am I crazy because the sound of gunshots and explosions calms and relaxes me? Before I ever met my wife, I lived in a nice small town that shared a border with a larger “badlands” city. And if I happened to be home each New Year’s Eve, I would go sit up on the roof of my house near midnight and listen to all the fireworks AND gunfire as it erupted all around the area. I’d just sit up there for awhile, sipping on a beer, eyes closed, just taking it all in, feeling the tension and stress slowly draining away. Even playing a little game in my head of picking out the sound of gunfire vs. the pops and bangs of fireworks. And if gunfire, was it a rifle or a handgun?
Anyway, if being in a cemetery at night relaxes you, then do what you have to do to counter stress and pain. Who gives a shit what others may think about it?
The best I would ever sleep on a field exercise was when in a bivouac area near a range where mortar teams were doing night fire with illum rounds, or Cav with their Bradleys.
Neil Todd’s research on noise’s effect on the sacculus may apply here, if one might consider Comp B to the tune of 81mm as “music.”
lack of new experiences and progress towards them makes you unhappy. if your feet are handicapped you could still play music instrument, or any activity that dont need feet in order to perform. if youre still depressed after trying those thing then i think not much can help you
“we are the cosmos experiencing its self” - carl sagan
One of the coolest things ever was when the Paladins would sometimes fire off a volley or two in the evenings, and the rounds would go screaming directly over our compound heading northeast to fuck up somebody’s night. No way to describe how awesome that sound is. Never got old for me.
LOL… And I love hurricanes. A walk on a stormy beach, thunder and lightening raging, wind nearly blowing me over, surf pounding the shore, and black clouds. I am at total peace in the world. It makes me feel like just a small speck of everththing that is. A part of everything., That’s the best way I can describe it. The same as simply laying on my back and gazing at the stars or on top of a mountain stairing our across the peaks. Looking deep into a blade of grassl… so many things… But I love storms. Sitting in a jacuzzi looking up at the sky, cold rain on my face, heat on my body, chain lightening flashing down from the clouds. Hmmm> Am I normal… fucking who cares. Like the song says… ‘These are a few of my favorite things…’
If I didn’t believe that God created me and loves me and has offered me the chance to live forever with him in a heavenly paradise, I would be depressed too. In fact, if I didn’t believe those things, I wouldn’t want to be alive or even conscious.
Yea, I know what you mean. If I didn’t believe banana yogurt could cure my cancer I would have stopped taking baths in it years ago. I began taking banana yogurt baths in 1960 and I have never had a trace of cancer. It’s so fucking simple. I have the fucking cure and no one will listen to me. It’s just brutal when you know the truth and everyone thinks your a fucking idiot isn’t it.
Sooooo, let me see if I’m understanding this correctly…
Your idea of a paradise is to be on your knees all day, every day, doing nothing but singing praises to a jealous, egotistical, narcissistic entity for ALL OF ETERNITY?.. … Wow… If you consider THAT to be fun and pleasure, how fucked up is your life NOW??? You really should get out more. Just a suggestion.
So your saying you were not telling us the truth? You’re one of those lying theists who come on here and say anything they can to try and win a point? Now you are trying to assert that you were lying when you said you believed that a god thing created you and loved you? Look, your statement is either true or not true. Which is it?
… Wow… If you consider THAT to be fun and pleasure, how fucked up is your life NOW??? You really should get out more. Just a suggestion.
