Hello comrades. ITT we talk about what we are doing to improve ourselves. I'll go first:
I am trying to quit smoking. This is probably my sixth attempt but I am going to try and take it more seriously this time.
I have been cutting down for the past few months and had gotten down to 3 cigarettes a day but when I tried to quit earlier this week I ended up buying a pack at the end of the first day and smoking the whole thing that night out of anxiety about quitting.
I am a drug addict in recovery and this leaves coffee and kratom as the two substances I can use. The kratom seems to help with cigarette cravings or at least incentivizes smoking because I feel sick when I smoke on it. I might try NRT too. I am going to try and get back into running too since that helped me get off heroin the first time.
114 posts and 27 image replies omitted.I'm learning to sing and play guitar. I want to go busking, but get better than the average busker warbling out "Wonderwall'.
Even the fucking original was crap so how is a busked version going to be any goodI'm doing a few other things which are good in themselves but will to help with it, like a side benefit.
Yoga. You need to be relaxed when singing. No pain no gain doesn't apply here.
Reading books on the things I'm interested in. I'd be doing that anyway, but it's an added benefit if I can get ideas for lyrics.
Anyway, if getting better than average is the aim, how is it possible for the average guy?
Well it's kind of like you need both of what ozy here calls regular uncertainty and Knightian uncertainty.
https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/knightian-uncertaintyOr rather, you need to pull some Knightian uncertainty into the regular uncertainty.
Regular uncertainty is like the entropy of dice. Vid related. The sum of multiple dice rolls are going to end up in the middle range, mostly. "Keep doing the same things and you'll get the same results." So you need to explore outside of what you know a bit. For example, I saw a vid on YouTube called Dramatic Vibrato by Madelyn Harvey, thought it sounds a bit musical theatre ish but I'll give it a shot. It improved my singing 500%.
But you need" regular uncertainty" too. You have off days in whatever you're trying to do, but you need to keep turning up, plugging away at it. If everything was edgy Knightian uncertainty nothing would be possible. You couldn't even get out of bed in the morning safely. Everything would be chaos.
>>3599>>3619>How is pic 1 cringe tho? Its true. If you don't self-reflect you may swiftly find yourself careening onto a whole different path,Imagine being such a laughable failure that the preface of the first draft of Das Kapital blows your shitstain idealist pure ideology out of the water
"Karl Marx 1859
Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy"
>>In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htmSoulless radlib loser with no historical materialism whining about "soy" as they post idealist inspirational memes like every neoliberal instagram drone. This leftoid website is the most hilariously pretentious out of any I've seen. You should stop doing soy mindfulness and self help and KYS, now that would be a revolutionary materialist praxis!
>>21923 Imagine being such a laughable, projecting failure that you
A) Use Argument by Authority of a Theoretical Text analyzing 19th Century Capitalism and its impacts on Society, and attempted to make a prediction of the future of Western Society using materialist analysis in regards to Western Capitalist Social Structures (and not being fully correct as the course of History demonstrates, in regard to Revolutionary action and socialist Revolution in Russia that Marx thought to be highly unlikely at best).
B) Using an excerpt ignoring the full context of the passage and that out of context this part of Das Kapital essentially implies that the Proletariat cannot escape or progress and so Capitalism remains self-perpetuating. Despite later passages of the same Theoretical text specifically stating that Class-Consciousness can and will arise, again demonstrated by history and the many grass-roots revolutions in countries that did not reach industrial capitalist development. Moreover the quote itself admits that change can be made within the system, but it is limited by the issues endemic to the system, and it is later stated that hitting said limitations is part of the driving force in the demise of Capitalism and the Class System.
C) Having no argument of your own and just spamming a response to justify your hedonistic doomerism
>Soulless radlib loserAnd yet you're the one assblasted over a post about self-improvement because "Nooooo, let me regurgitate quotes I don't understand out of context!" and "N-noooo don't call out my destructive decadent behaviours!"
>no historical materialism And yet you are the one that demonstrates a complete lack of comprehension of history, nor understanding of actual theory of communism as can be applied to real life. Marx's statement that society limits the consciousness of people in said society is not the same as saying "do nothing there is no point because 'society' limits you!" If that had been the case Das Kapital and revolutions could never occur to begin with.
>"soy" Nobody complained about Soy at all you speedreading ignoramus, the post replied stated specifically that the IMAGE of "soyboys" presented by the Alt-Right is detrimental to the image of communism in the public eye and gives confirmation to the idea that communists are just entitled brats, though sadly your pitiful post seems to prove the point.
>KYSAh yes, so mature, so MANLY - using a pitiful acronym for an edgy phrase used by teenagers to bully kids ten years ago, boo hoo.
>post idealist inspirational memes like every neoliberal instagram drone<Everything I don't like is idealist, and Neoliberal and fascist and nazi and hitler and Muh soshul media boogieman too! Good lord you negative Nancy, get off your high horse before you break your neck.
>>22527Probably.
Breaking up with my gf really set me back, specifically because I felt moving and living with her will solve these concerns.
>>22542I have no means tot ravel right now
>>3525I'm trying to read more.
It's hard to get myself focused on a book for too long nowadays, but I've managed to read 3/4 of the first book of Dune in 2 months.
>>22524>I just feel this clock ticking and that all good things in life already passed by.That's called depression.
>>4965 You have to push past it. Most of us have been there, done that, and moved past it through grim determination. It isn't about being some uber-special dude, just try to be the best you can every day; you fuck up? Try again tomorrow, your efforts already make you worth acknowledging.
>>22655Thanks, man. I finished it yesterday, finally.
Moving onto reading some theory and finishing What is to Be Done, but that'll be much harder. Is there a beginner reading list for leftist theory around?
This a technique based on those Internet quizes to tell you what psyche disorders you may be prone to. The idea is to watch out for and recognize the manifestations, so you're not as much in their grip. So you get a bit of distance from them.
Doc. Hyatt was around a few years ago. Many of the people into his stuff have got Black Cat Syndrome. If you've got a mental health quirk, they're psychos. If you're into crystals, they've caught a demon in one. If you've got a black cat at home, they've got one too. But it's blacker.
Anyway, that aside, it does work. He basically ripped it off from reichian therapy, old school psychology texts, and other places.doc hyatt had a misanthropic world view so anons might like it if you find things like mindfulness a bit fluffy.
https://youtu.be/SFybBuxoJd8
<a de-victimisation technique <the idea is to bring out what is in your unconscious as quickly as possible <one of the things you're going to learn from this exercise is how to use the superego, that is, the interjected, that is taking in like an amoeba the values and consciousness of this society and of your parents… you know when the superego's talking anytime you feel shame, embarrassment or you hearbthe word should in your mindhttps://thingofthings.substack.com/p/app-review-amaru<you can’t exchange real-world money for in-game money. You can complete your item collection only by playing the game. There’s no incentive for Amaru’s developers to make in-game money increasingly difficult to get over time, forcing you to spend money on the game in an illegible way once you’re sucked in. All the possible payments are clear and upfront. While much of the game is free, if you like it you can spend $10 in a lump sum to unlock the full game, forever. I got the app after reading the review. Its basically a combo of a virtual pet app, and a self-development /meditation app.
The virtual pet bit seems like an old school tamagotchi, so anyone using such defunct methods like anonymous imageboard's might like it also.
The self development thing is good, and basic. You basically choose 3 things to work on, like meditation, journalling, or switching off your phone. It's not to much to make you give up and quit.
The meditations are great. I've used hesdspace in the past but this is better. . Less emphasis on woke and being inclusive of "teachers" or "coaches" of variable quality. Surprising Prince Harry and Meghan Markle haven't popped up on headspace as "teachers" yet . It's just a mellow sounding Californian - sounding guy giving the instructions. He also goes into better detail on things like getting a good posture for meditation. Also one of the "3 part" breathing techniques, where you expand the belly then the ribs then a bit of shoulders gives a better feel, it almost has a tantric deathy feel to it anons.
>>32311>come here expecting shitty attempts at self-help>find a long ass boring discussion about muh idpol>Never change faggots.sounds like you came here hoping to be disappointed, but got disappointed by something other than you were hoping for?
Shitty attempts at self help, eh? Well it's like anything, you have to start somewhere
muh idpol can get tedious, tbf
and of course, idpol is often criticised in bad faith, not wanting oppressed groups to have their own place in the sun
>>40680Really? I've mainly just been reading
Capital Vol. I and
Imperialism in The Twenty-First Century recently in terms of theory. The other books are more mainstream histories like Hofheinz'
The Broken Wave and Wheatcroft's
Years of Hunger. I've stopped reading fascist primary sources and just started reading analyses of fascist regimes like
The Wages of Destruction and
Fascism and Big Business, and if you're wondering why my choices are so surface level despite being "invested" in this study then that's because I was cursed with ADHD-brain and had to borrow the physical versions after I tried and failed to read the PDFs.
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