Vapymid

@Meelis13 - No. Just no. You just can't run away from yourself - no "shield" will ever help, will only make it worse. Stop taking every bad thing happening to you, every word of criticism or every mistake, as the proof that you are a failure. That is what puts you down and drives you into tears and misery. It's the thought that all that mockery and criticism may actually be true that hurts you, right? Shit happens to everyone - including to your family members. They snap occasionally and take out their frustrations on you. Not fair? Maybe, or maybe not... Put yourself in their shoes - they have their own problems and priorities and they see solutions in their own ways. They are frustrated when they think you reject their short term "fix" that they know would work and don't see an immediate payback from your chosen alternatives. All you gave them for now is "trust me". And that is a tall order when your family is trying to make ends meet. So - give them a little slack too. They have their good reasons to be nervous and fear of your failure. But it's your life, first of all, and you've made your decision and you stuck to it. Now you just do what you set out to do and don't - under any cicumstances - let yourself believe you are a failure. Because then you will be - and they will be proven right. You have already shown you are made of tougher stuff than many - giving up on an easy solution and sticking to your guns. Remember that before you allow yourself to sink in your self-misery. But also - look outside of your comfort zone. It's really a crap time for being an inexperienced IT consultant. Maybe you need to see what else you can do in the meantime, while still keeping your dream alive. There is no shame in that. The shame is only in giving up on yourself. Regards

Rubby rub? Geez, that's the cutest name for it I've ever heard... But, yeah - was my first thought too... Regards

There are special screen-protectors which make it impossible for people around you to see what's on the screen unless they look directly over your shoulder. Like this one here for Nexus 6... Regards

You've spoiled all the fun, Kydure Regards

Et tu Brute? Surely Ursa means a female bear? Regards

Well, I think that's what Jeb's point is - the first stirrings. Far too early to come to a final conclusion about oneself. I personally think that the whole "asexuality", except for a few pathological cases, where it is caused by a disease or a disorder - is a made up construct and a fashionable fad which appeals to adolescent minds as it's something allowing them to claim a unique "coolness" and "difference". This is really NOT the case. But again - it is very fashionable to complain about increasing sexual pressures in the society. Every generation seems to be proud of considering itself more "sexualised" than the previous one, and, at the same time, complain that the next generation is being even more "sexualised". But the simple fact is - there was no internet in my days. Porn was in great deficit in the Soviet Union. But that did nothing to clear my preteen and teen mind from thoughts of girls in all sorts of compromising positions. I did not need porn for that - it was all in my head. Though, any porn that has comeby was revered and treasured and treated as a holy relic A couple of hundred years ago - if a girl would not marry by 16, she'd be labled a spinster. When humans were living in caves - girls would be expected to start bearing children at 12 - 13. In the Middle East, in some countries which are considered Western allies - 12 is the age of adulthood and lots of girls are married off at that age. Yes, life is getting in general more informationally intense, which is interesting for me - in terms of when will we reach some kind of a limit or a saturation point when a large percentage of the population will become overloaded by the flood of social information and there will be a bounce back. But that thing about nebulous gender is yet another one of those made up "hide-behind" labels - a fad that will defninitely die away in a few years. Well, again - I believe that most of that is just an expression of typical adolescent ideas and desires and self-identification attempts. It always was happening since humans became homo sapiens and porbably from before... The difference now is that it's much easier to express and share these thoughts with a vast audience... In my time I would draw something and only a select few friends will ever get to see my doodles. These days you can put in on the 'net and scores of people will see it - but it doesn't mean that these things would not have been thought about if not for the internet. If you see what I mean... Regards

As far as I am concerned - any man who's found himself named Jeb should direct his complaints to his parents for naming him with a feminine name Oh. I actually only ever heard about one man with that name And he is a politician - serves him right then Regards

Well, if someone is using a confusing name or avatar - that can hardly be your fault, ah? And if they don't like your guess of their gender - they will tell you. Regards

Not to say that emotions are the way for an intelligent system to make decisions in the absence of precise information. And in real life there is ALWAYS a lack of precise information. So - good luck being a superintelligent computer with no emotions - you will always be beaten by puny humans using emotions to make decisions where your computer self-obsessed mind will be circling in an endless loop, unable to decide and calculate what is it you are needing to do. Be my guest... Regards

The reason I confine addictions to those affecting healthy people is because in unhealthy people such behaviour is caused by some other disorder or pathology and any obsessive behaviour is a symptom then, rather than the problem. And if we remember the original premise of Helio's post - that we must voluntarily deprive ourselves of comforts to harden ourselves to the possbility that these comforts may be taken away - such pathological cases are not applicable here... As for the various obsessions - well, I still stand by the need for moderation and common sense and that it needs to be developed in people through education and parenting. But abstinence or self-privation as a way of generating immunity from wanting the creature comforts - I disagree with the idea that it is needed at all and I contend the notion that it can ever be effective. Oh, the buddhist monks, hehe... Don't get me started... It's easy to be dismissive of physical needs when your code requires all others to support you in every way. And - I just won't ever believe that celibacy exists amongst monks. Sorry for being an old cynical dog here but... Every time police gets involved in any crimes involving monks - they invariably find stashes of porn all over the place... And look at the Western priests - how much their proclamations of celibacy are worth? Nahhh... whenever people declare that they have attained an unattainable goal - it means fraud and deception are involved. EDIT: Because they are self regulating. A healthy body makes you want to eat when you need to, drink when you need to, have sex when you haven't done it in a while. By doing any of that you can't make your body want to have it more than it already does. If you take a shot of heroin - your body, which didn't need it before, will make you want more and more. If you wank all day - all that'll happen is you'll get sore and go for a beer and won't be able to think about sex for a few hours/days/years - depending on your individual body. You get a relief when you are taking a leak but you can't get addicted to pissing... Oh, and sex is not just for mixing two sets of genes together - don't deceive yourself. In humans and in many higher animals sex is a required function for creating social bonds and cohesion. You remove sex from humans and the society will collapse immediately - not through the natural ageing and lack of replacement but from breaking down of social bonds. Love and sex are not separable and you take away one - you take away the other and so you take away the main driver of the human civilisation. As far as cybersex is concerned - I think it might be an interesting separate subject, actually. But - I don't think for a minute it will replace real sex and real relationship - not beyond a fringe percentage. After all - dildoes and vibrators, no matter how widespread now, never stopped people from wanting real partners. Well, they show you the boobs to give you the message that those who buy this or wear that have girlfriends like this. So, if you buy that stuff from them, perhaps you won't need to work anymore and can relax on a beach with a mojito and have plenty of sex with smilng and cheerful females. And the size of the breasts in question - well, they only have a few seconds in a commercial to get your attention, so - size does matter... Regards

Addiction to me is when you take an average healthy human being and subject them to an experience and it generates certain changes in their organism that make them uncontrollably crave that experience. You can't take a healthy human and stuff him with food so much that he would start wanting to overeat all the time. A healthy human will not uncontrollably crave sex having experienced it for a few (or many many) times. Drugs are addictive. You take a healthy average human and give him drugs and he WILL get addicted. But drugs are not for recreation, weed or not. So they are not part of the "comforts". And I beg to differ - you can't suppress your sexual desire. Unless you use medication. Certainly not by abstinence. And yes - as I also said, everyone has their own level of sex drive, which also changes with age and circumstances. But you can't regulate your hormones just by willing them off. And, sorry, you're maybe right about big boobs being a fetish - certainly, for some it is. Everything is a fetish for someone - for a tiny fraction of the population. But it's not the reason for wide-scale use of them in commercial promotions. Cybersex will only be increasing in popularity but it will not be a fetish either - and it will be designed to mimic the real thing. So, once the customer base expands beyond a bunch of sex-deprived myopic nerds - cyber sex partners will be designed to look like an average human. Regards

No, it doesn't exist. But a lot of people would like it to exist because it is very useful for promotion of their agendas... Regards

Well, there is a bit of confusion here... Eating is not addictive with the expection of very mild chocolate and caffeine dependencies that can develop, but they have negligible impact on anything. There is no such thing as sex addiction. It just doesn't exist. And drugs are not recreational activities - drug taking is an illness. So... yes, Americans should eat less. But that falls within the scope of the "moderation" that I mentioned before. As far as sex is concerned - sex drive is not dependent on external factors, it's internal and individual for every person. The "sexualisation" has very little to do with sex drive and actual sex and rather more with the social promise of greater sex availability. That promise is invariably false but it helps with sales. If you try to get yourself used to not having sex, all you'd achieve - you'll just get so horny that you won't be able to think straight... Drugs - one must not do drugs, period. There is no moderation there. Note that I don't include alcohol into "drugs" category, even though it's very fashionable to do so in some circles these days. No - firstly, you can never truly get used to something like that. And secondly - the chances of you having a cancer are very low, just like the chance of you having to live in a post-apocaliptic world without water and electricity are very low. It is a waste of everything to try to condition oneself to something that has a very small chance of happening in the first place. However - if you are planning to volunteer for humanitarian service in Syria, there may be a point in trying to prepare oneself mentally ahead of time. And finally - I don't understand the mix up between fetishes and "sexualisation". I don't exactly know how fetishes develop - I don't have any - but I suspect that when someone is artificially prevented from access to the opposite sex in the formative years of puberty, it can create associations between the suppressed desires and certain objects. However, what you are saying about big boobs - that's not a fetish. It's more of that social promise I referred to earlier. When you had Joe Blow oggling Playboy and the glitsy glamorous women with artificial boobs and then looked back at the saggy tits of his eternally angry missus - he associated the bikinis and large tits with the lyfestyle which was so different to his own and so desirable. However, with the availability of the internet amateur porn the interest in artificially looking female form has declined dramatically, which shows to me that most people are turned on by "normal" people and not by some grotesque exaggerations... Regards

*hugs you and cuddles and doesn't let go* Everyone knows here - you didn't deserve any of that... If life gives you all this now - it will make it up to you threefold. It will give you something wonderful... Soon... *holds your hand* Regards

Well, I don't see it all as a necessarily bad thing. Controlling people, making them conform to some set of rules is absolutely necessary for a successful world. And if you can rely on self-control and moral values - that's a very good and efficient way of doing it. But the problem is that, inevitably, those people who are in control are tempted to turn it so they can benefit from that personally. Which is what happens with all religions and with all governments too... So... I suppose, the point I am trying to make is that people should realise that religions consist of these different parts and be wary of the potential for corruption. Also - it is important to understand that every religious book is written by men and not by spirits or supernatural beings and there is a very earthly reason for why they were written that way. One should be very careful when trying to apply these writings as if they were the absolute truth. Because, of course - they aren't. Filtering the underlying set of core values from the fluff which only serves to support the interests of those who wrote the books - that is the difficult part, though... Regards

I am not pessimistic. I am being reallistic and maybe a bit cynical. I know that societies cannot function without an ideology and if you try to build a society without one it will be taken over by the most base and brutal and aggressive ideology that will come by first. So - religions are important. But we must not forget about their purpose - which is to control people on the moral level. Compare with the purpose of the state, which is to control people on the legislative and fiscal levels. That is why the separation of religious and secular authorities is so important for a progressive society. Can't concentrate all power in one pair of hands... Just - don't forget... Even in your Protestant faith... The money to built the kirchen has to come from somewhere too, so it's not all just about spiritual self-improvement. It never is just about that... Regards

Only a small percentage in any religion deals with the matter of God and theology. About 90% of them is pure ideology. Ideologies are for cotrolling people, so - you establish the ultimate authority figure - God in the case of a religion. Then you define who is vested with the power to translate that authority to the common people - the clergy. Then you codify the behaviour you want and set the loyalty tests that your adherents must pass on ongoing basis, and - this is important - you set out how those adherents are supposed to financially support the clergy, who can't be expected to work for a living AND do the communications with the Boss on a full time basis, can they? Finally, you define that failure to observe the rules means disobeying the ultimate authority figure - God - and that will entail a severe punishment commanded birectly by Him (through the clergy, of course). And - there you go. You have a religion for yourself. And the question of what or who God is, what is the purpose of life and everything - well, it gets somewhat sidelined in the process. Regards

One should have measure and moderation in everything but it is futile to deprive oneself of every comfort just so that IF something happens it might be easier to cope with it. Well, firstly it doesn't work that way. It's like giving yourself a chemo treatment just on the off chance that you might have to endure it in the future if you get cancer. It will feel crap the first time and if you will have to get it for real - it will feel just as crap. Then - modern "comforts" are something that is necessary for the complex society to function. We can't afford to waste our time on fetching water from a kilometer away, going to outhouse to take a dump, set up a campfire every time we need to make a cup of tea. Our society needs productivity and to maintain productivity we must have "comforts" - power, water, canalisation, communications, transport. Also - clean and safe food and water - we cannot afford having huge cities of people knocked down by disentery or cholera. And - these comforts are signs of our progress and achievements and obsessively preparing for their disappearance is preparing for failure. Better make sure that we won't fail in the first place. Oh, please tell me more about this one... Cause I heard about it many times but I still don't understand the concept... Regards

I'll still be able to type... even if you do that. But no, sweetie... there is no way how you can justify blaming yourself for any of that. So you just shouldn't. And in any case - we'll just do it again, properly. All that's happened is that we've lost some time. Regards

Jeb, Jassy, darling - it's not your fault. Not in the least. And it definitely won't affect your family at all. It has no bearing on them whatsoever... It's my fault above everyone else and almost equally - your mother's. But no one sane can blame you for any of that. And if anyone tries - I'm going to speak to them... And I'm not going to be nice... Regards

Hmmm... people, don't tempt me... *licks his lips* Regards

Geez - everything new is a well forgotten old... This drawing style has come straight from 1970's, which in turn came from 1950's and that one from 1930's... except it has a bloody smartphone in addition to the usual chiken... Okay, have no idea who Ed is and have no intention of finding out... Regards

Oh, hey - no suicide pacts here, you two. I want my Jeb alive and well. I have other plans for her... Regards

Well, both Boris and Gove have sold their souls to the devil to win this one and... obviously, Boris got a raw deal... Or maybe he didn't offer enough of his soul and Gove did... By stabbing Boris in the back. But, something tells me - it is not over yet. And Gove will soon see well enough what is the price of doing deals with the Devil. Mwahahaha Regards

Ah, well... you never know how these things would pan out for you... We were being delayed - sitting in the plane, waiting for a takeoff clearance, which just wouldn't come because of a strike by the French air traffic controllers. Then, at last - off we flew and a few minutes into the flight the captain announced what has just happened behind us at IST... geez... and no way of letting anyone know we're okay until we landed over 3 hours later... But - just a few more minutes of delay and I would have been stuck in all that mayham... But it's so sad - what's happened there... Because of some ignorant morons who don't even have enough brains to tell religious fantasy from reality - so many people have lost their lives, families torn to pieces, loved ones heartbroken. These people are vermin. So stupid they can't even understand that they've put their faith in a Satanic cult... They call their master "Allah" but their "Allah" has red skin and a forked tail but they are blind to it because they are thinking that blowing themselves up in public is the best chance they have of getting laid. And it's as simple as that, really... @Jeb - so happy you're back to your cheeriness, sweetie Sorry for the scare... Regards