They beat the speed of light?

[Stoppy2000]

Try snorting Olbas Oil then get back to me.

I once snorted a large amount of jagermeister. A winner is me.

[QualityChimp]

Does snorting Olbas Oil/J?germeister/Fisherman's Friends make you travel at the speed of light or does it just seem that way?

[charlesr]

I drunk a whole bottle of Tobasco sauce once as a dare. That's when I found out who I really was. An idiot.

I think as children we have so many dreams and aspirations of what we want to do. As we get older, for many people, our dreams shrink to match our reality. Rarely do we consider that we can work to expand our reality to match our dreams. Unless of course, you dreamt of being a Dragon Rider with a pet Unicorn....

I'm all for sitting contemplating every now and then, but it's only by taking action based on those thoughts that we will become who we are meant to be. And if sitting contemplating doesn't result in anything new and inspiring (which it often doesn't), then the next best thing is to just change something anyway, just to see what difference it makes to our happiness and the happiness of those around us.

[Brad]

I once tried to knock back a flaming sambuka but when I closed my mouth there was too much liquid in there so I kind of spat a fountain of it up into the air and it came back down and landed in my eye. ON FIRE ALCOHOL IN MY EYE!

[kryss]

A friend, who really wasn't me, did some flaming Aftershock in a plastic shot glass, ending up with plastic melted on his hand. Knowing him, he carried on drinking anyways.

[Dogg Thang]

I drunk a whole bottle of Tobasco sauce once as a dare. That's when I found out who I really was. An idiot.

I think as children we have so many dreams and aspirations of what we want to do. As we get older, for many people, our dreams shrink to match our reality. Rarely do we consider that we can work to expand our reality to match our dreams. Unless of course, you dreamt of being a Dragon Rider with a pet Unicorn....

I'm all for sitting contemplating every now and then, but it's only by taking action based on those thoughts that we will become who we are meant to be. And if sitting contemplating doesn't result in anything new and inspiring (which it often doesn't), then the next best thing is to just change something anyway, just to see what difference it makes to our happiness and the happiness of those around us.

Totally agree, Charles. Especially on your last point. It's something I considered a while back - you don't have to know what you're doing. In fact, if you know exactly what you're doing and the effect it will have, that means it is already tried and tested. And so already done. The best you can hope to do is match what someone else already did. To do something remarkable, there are times you have to take a chance on the unknown. Maybe even do something that seems utterly ridiculous.

My daughter who just turned three is excellent at Monkey Ball DS. Nobody ever taught her how to play it. Nobody even taught her how to turn the thing on. And yet she figured it all out herself. The menus, the play system, that she needs to get to the goal and pick up bananas, how to move the ball and how much to move it. Experimentation. That curiosity and speed at which we can figure something out is amazing and yet it seems to be something we lose as we get older.

We begin to stick with what we know. Until we're that old person who can't work a Sky remote.

Unless we decide consciously not to lose it. Allow ourselves to experiment.

[koopatroopa90]

This thread needs renaming!

[kryss]

The "Dogg Thang's Daughter is Freakishly Good at Monkey Ball DS" thread?

Or the "Eclectic Scientific Research/Existentialist Debate/Sean Bean Thread"?

Damn, that Sean Bean gets around...

[charlesr]

Maybe even do something that seems utterly ridiculous.

I have many pairs of black socks in a variety of coloured toes.
Most people (I'm guessing) when faced with this would spend quite a while pairing them up after putting them through the wash.
Not me.
Instead I just throw them all in a drawer and wear them at random (the toes are inside shoes, so who cares).
Not only does this mean I save time pairing them, but I also only have to throw one sock away if I get a hole in it, rather than the pair.

Why be ordinary when it's so easy to be extrodinary (even if no-one else knows it )?

[Super Grover]

I have many pairs of black socks in a variety of coloured toes.
Most people (I'm guessing) when faced with this would spend quite a while pairing them up after putting them through the wash.
Not me.
Instead I just throw them all in a drawer and wear them at random (the toes are inside shoes, so who cares).
Not only does this mean I save time pairing them, but I also only have to throw one sock away if I get a hole in it, rather than the pair.

Why be ordinary when it's so easy to be extrodinary (even if no-one else knows it )?

Anyone with OCD tendencies certainly isn't going to go around with odd socks on, irrespective wether anyone can see them or not!

[Charlie]

I love much of what you say Charlie. But the search (if it even is a search) for happiness from within has bugged me in recent years. The reason - if we're happy while those around us are living in hell, that sort of makes us assholes. At least, that's what I think it would make me. For me, I do want to improve the world. I want to make things better, if even in small ways, for those around me and those even nowhere near me. And I mean real improvements, not just finding inner happiness or contendedness because I think that's a trap - that allows awful stuff to happen to us and others, even if we're so blissed out we don't notice. It allows others who aren't on our happy trip to take advantage of us. And we won't act when they do because we want for nothing, which lets others take everything.

I'll give you an odd example of how I started to feel this. I got a flashback to the Muppet Babies (remember those?). It was all about the great things you could do in your imagination and I thought, well kids don't need help with imagination. That comes naturally to them. So who is this aimed at? And then I pictured a kid living in the worst conditions, maybe even captive. For that kid, the imagination can be an escape. Just like our contended wanting for nothing - it reduces the importance of the external world.

Well I reject that.

If our situation needs to be better, I don't think retreating into our own heads is the thing to do. Oh, it may well make us happy but it allows that situation to continue. Not just to us, but others. It feels like self-induced blindness. No. That's when we need to face the external world and resist the **** and make it better for everyone. That Muppet Babies kid needs to get out of that situation. And, to be honest, this world has a hell of a lot of improving to do before we get to a point where I'd think I had any business feeling content.

Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of what you're saying but only in a sort of small slice of our life amount. Like, we can use it to help us, get us through our days and understand ourselves better. I think that's all great. But when it becomes a replacement for facing the world and improving it, for me personally I think I'd feel all sorts of wrong about it. Good thoughts though.

I understand your point of view and concerns, but the only area of the universe we have any certainty of improving is ourselves so, if we wan't to make the world a better place, it's as good a place as any to start. I don't feel I'm an arsehole for learning to be happy when there's so much suffering in the world. My being unhappy doesn't reduce their suffering. Indeed I'd argue happy people make the world better, if only in a very small way, by simply being happy themselves.

Also, I don't consider finding contentment as a way of ignoring the real world, or a way of living inside the imagination and shirking reality. If anything it magnifies reality and sets the imagination free because a calm mind is better equipped to see things as they really are. It allows one to see reality in her intrinsic beauty, allows one to glimpse her beauty in the everyday, in the things and places that, for years, we've taken for granted. But then I genuinely believe the world cannot be bettered, to me it's perfect, it's a paradise planet and provides everything mankind needs to be happy and content, provides everything to nourish our bodies, minds and souls. It's the world of man that needs tinkering with, that needs improving, but in that field the only individual I have a right to tinker with is myself. And you yourself. And so on.

Ultimately until, as Plato said in his Republic, philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers, there will always be suffering because those in power make bad decisions and are more concerned with increasing or retaining their power and wealth than helping the citizens they supposedly serve. But I don't see that idealistic scenario approaching anytime soon. I firmly believe people need to cultivate happiness themselves, take power over their lives, rather than wait for somebody else to come along and do it for them.

[Dogg Thang]

Exactly. And taking power over our lives, for me, means struggling to improve. Learning to just be seems for me like so far from that, it seems like the whole opposite end - it seems like giving up control by retreating within. I see us improving our lives, not simply our perception of them.

As for our rights, I don't know if I agree there. That idea that we can only tinker with ourselves (ahem) only works if every single person on the planet subscribes to that. If just one doesn't, then all those who do are royally shafted. Goodbye paradise planet. Now if you can get every single person to subscribe to it, fantastic. I honestly don't think the fact that it's difficult is ever any reason not to try so I totally support you in your mission, because it would rock. But I guess for me, I see many steps needed along the way and those steps are out here in the external physical world. A world I want to make better.

Thing is, we're both idealists. Both striving for better and we both believe in better. I too believe this world can be a paradise. I believe we're capable of amazing things. So, whichever of us is moving in the right direction to get there, it really doesn't matter because, if we do ever get there, we all win.

[kryss]

Anyone with OCD tendencies certainly isn't going to go around with odd socks on, irrespective wether anyone can see them or not!

Yeah I was just there thinking "that's...just wrong..."

[charlesr]

In a way that's a small part of my point. Previously I was obsessive about matching them. But one day I thought "Why on earth is this important? It's not! I shall change".

However, you could now say I'm OCD about them not matching. I try and do it randomly, but if I do pick two that match, I get a massive to try another one. However, I resist.

The other part of the point is really that even making a small change like this can seem like quite a big change, so if we find such insignificant stuff like this hard, it goes to show just how hard it can be to make significant changes in our lives. But we all have it in us to make the changes - we just need a bit of Charlie's quiet focus time to show us what's really important and needs addressing.

[charlesr]

Out of interest does OCD always take the form of tidiness / order? Why not insist on untidiness / chaos instead? Is one of them easier than the other?