How do you do it?

I'm sure he'll weasel out of it.

Is this true? What is the time line for this? (I don't want to derail this thread. So if someone can point me to blog entries about this I'd be much obliged. My blood pressure cannot handle Blender at this time.)

Oi!

not craving possessions wealth,power, recognition and admiration is really not a bad thing..
It's pretty freeing for me..it cuts a lot of the clutter out that blocks the really good things in life..that's how it feels for me anyways..
it doesn't make you lazy not craving those..something will come along that you will look forward to and enjoy..
you're just in a slump..it will break sooner or later

By qualifications and some experiences I am a programmer and by other experiences I am a network administrator and "International Trade Expert" (international logistics.)
I seem to have made the mistake of relocating into a country where they have a nice little recession going on and have no interest in checking my foreign references.

I did manage to get a job for awhile but realised that
1) I didn't have enough time to get a better job.
2) That with their high staff turn over and the way they treated us, I wasn't going to get a decent reference.

It was certainly character building and not too bad for fitness though.

What is with this recession anyway? I can't believe how irresponsible the government and media were. They hyped up something that should have been down played. What changed? Some numbers. The buildings are still there, the people are still there, the demands are still there, the fields and the crops all the physical things were still there. Nothing had disappeared.
I think most of this recession was psychological and I am disappointed that people bit into and bought it. Interesting thing: Where did it start? With the banks. Who is going to own all the debt it is creating? The banks.
Yay for those people who will have to buy their homes back out of a mortgage they already paid off.

I think it's psychological too.

Kinda like money. The only thing that gives money any kind of power, is that everyone believes in it to some extent. When people stop believing, it reverts to little scraps of paper.

I've got a wad of Peruvian Inti's from the 1980's somewhere, that most people (especially Peruvians) quit believing in... it's worthless paper now. Too many broken promises and financial buffoonery... and there you go, a destroyed system.

This has been happening for hundreds and hundreds of years, though. Seems like it's human nature to work a system until it breaks, then do it again.

There are some people like Warren Buffett who try to buy intrinsic value, like railroad companies ~ insofar as rail is probably going to be an optimal solution for what it does, for decades to come, and thus tangibly as good a bet as you can make.

But it's real hard to hold onto that strategy, during gutwrenching recessions and times where everyone else is getting dot com rich.

I know the recession in America was very psychological..only it wasn't just the banks or the government or the media that brought it on for ours..Everyone had their part in it..
When the public believes that hard currency that is in your hand is going out of style and that not living off of credit is to be looked down on..then something is wrong..

Most of those people saying that a few years back did feel the bite..they put all their trust and everything they thought they owned in the hands of gamblers..
instead of buying what they could afford they decided to see how many payments on different loans they could shove into one bucket and pay the minimum on per month..

instead of having a long term plan it was..lets build our credit up so we can jam as much stuff on it so we can pay off the American dream and have it some day while we look like we are living it today..
it was haste to live it now instead of build and work for it piece by piece..

you could buy a house with 6 months of having good payment status on a credit report..

I have a hard time just blaming the banks for our recession in America..Sure they laid the bait out there but the ones getting the loans were doing the arm twisting to live way beyond their means as well..

the psychological part to me was..omg i need it now pay for it later..

The banks are the crack dealers and most of the public were the crack heads..
The media and the government are making that crack look good again to them and some are staying on the pipe believing it is good again..

they'll get over extended again and the second wave of this thing will hit and then maybe they will learn that nothing earned is nothing gained LOL

There is much good advice in this thread, and my own:

1. Accept that the world is populated by very corrupt, negatively impacting people. But also accept that there are "good" people here too and how wonderful it is to find and connect with those few souls.

2. Know thyself. What, hopefully something, is of interest? Helping others, learning something new, astronomy, SL, knitting? Then do it and become an expert on it if possible.

3. Maintain a good diet and health if at all possible.

4. Have an outlet (preferably something legal) for those moments of "ZOMGWTFBBQ!!! stupid people @ #$%(* @#$%) @*%)"

5. Be genuine and make someone smile or laugh once a day.

Chinese banks..

While those things do help they do not cure. Depression is a physical event as much as anything else.

Oddly enough, I don't --feel-- depressed. Not sad or suicidal. I don't seem to be laughing or making jokes less.

At this point, I must add that, I am quite a dark and twisty person. Catching out deviations from my norm and working out if I am depressed is quite a task.

If you have to ask yourself - you probably aren't. At least not clinically.

Maybe existentially.

Maybe the idea that life is futile is true on a very large scale, but on the scale of our daily lives it's false.

It's like this bit from Woody Allen's "Annie Hall":

Doctor: Why are you depressed, Alvy?

Alvy's Mom: Tell Dr. Flicker.

[Young Alvy sits, his head down - his mother answers for him]

Alvy's Mom: It's something he read.

Doctor: Something he read, huh?

Alvy: [his head still down] The universe is expanding.

Doctor: The universe is expanding?

Alvy: Well, the universe is everything, and if it's expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything!

Alvy's Mom: How is that your business?

Alvy's Mom: [to the doctor] He stopped doing his homework!

Alvy: What's the point?

Alvy's Mom: What has the universe got to do with it? You're here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!

Doctor: It won't be expanding for billions of years yet, Alvy. And we've gotta try to enjoy ourselves while we're here!

Right, now toss a-hedonism into the stew.

Not surprised that it isn't depression. I'll share a story.

I came across something of the sort in my life, fairly early on. The whole go~to~college, get~job~wife~kids, then retire~and~die seemed... I don't know, so... cliche' somehow? Pedestrian, typical, perhaps even unimaginative?

This manifested in... not rebellion, but in a sort of 'my life, my rules' scenario once I'd got my degree. I ended up at a research lab, getting samples from all over the world ~ places like the Atacama desert, New Guinea, Central America and suchlike. It was a wild time. I'm surprised that I lived through it, looking back.

At the end of the day, though... it too was just... exhausting and even a shade boring, once I got the hang of it. As someone so eloquently put it in a song about Bangkok: "You've seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town..." I got very bored being Indiana Jones, after a while.

Oh, all these things impressed people back home; I came back with tales of being shot at, stuck in a waterless desert, lost in jungles, negociations with tribesmen to get out of sticky wickets ~ you name it. It turned out to be very impressing to people who just got a boring cubicle job in their hometown for instance... but having lived it, it wasn't impressing me. It wasn't enough. And thus, one discovers that nothing is ever quite enough. That's a big secret right there.

Eventually though one does things like marry one's girlfriend, discover a pragmatic need for steady money, and so forth. Typical things. Just as ants do what they do, and cats have rather well known modes of behaviour, well, in the same way the arc of a human life is basically predictable. Work, eat, sleep... have an address somewhere... get married or don't... grow old and die.

Until we can stop being mere humans... that's what it's going to be. No matter how unique or special or whatever you are, you'll be dealing with groceries and laundry just like 99% of the rest of the world. Just gotta accept it.

* * * * *

I personally don't ascribe to any need to be famously unique or longlastingly well known for generations ~ seriously, who cares? Does it matter to Mark Twain, for instance, now that he's dead? Going out of one's way to satisfy some desire for fame or immortality or whatnot... it's not that big of a deal, really; more a means to enslave oneself to some inner childish need, which if done for it's own sake is about as useful as reality television.

As such ~ there's no cure, there's no motivating factor. At which point, recognising yourself as a human, look at what makes other humans much like you do to stay happy, motivated and engaged.

* * * * *

In your case, this is a bit of a projective stretch on my part, but I'd *imagine* you would enjoy helping willing students with your subject of expertise; you probably like seeing a complex job well done, and so forth.

Also ~ it might sound horrible and ridiculous, but here's another that works wonders: community service. Yep, no joke; it brings people together and they usually have a grand old time doing it. When you get home you are too tired for ennui, and your mind is engaged. I never would have gotten into this on my own; I was sort of drafted into it (long story) but if someone asks you if you'd like to help out on something... just go. Consider it like gym time if you are cynical... but just go. You won't be disappointed 90% of the time.

Best of luck.

I have volunteered at a deaf school, (they loved my charades, I didn't realise they would use me as a substitute teacher o.O) I also volunteered at a school for the physically and mentally handicapped from poor backgrounds. They had to qualify for all three. I discovered that I don't care and I am mildly disgusted. I volunteered for a holiday at a morgue, thought I would like to be a pathologist and learnt just how monotonous that job is. I have also volunteered at an oceanarium, I can see myself doing that again, the seal pups were interesting to watch develop and they are cute; the penguins not so much.

I have done so many things it is a little freaky. The trouble is that I am only interested as long as it intellectually challenging. As soon as I get good at it, then I drop it and move onto the next thing and it doesn't take long for that to happen. Besides the turbulence in my life from socio and political factors, my job history is pretty spotty because of that.

It is only in extremes that I feel anything, so there is very little that I repeat for just the pleasure it gives.

ahedonistic —unable to experience pleasure.

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Now something else that is bothering me lately. I will bury it in this thread because I don't want it getting back to the person concerned:

I was given gift certificates for my birthday. I went and had a look at the shop, it is huge and has something of everything. The quality was mediocre and the prices were high. I don't like anything there nor do I want or need anything from there. I have pretty much determined that I want to try make anything I want from now on so that I can sell copies if I desire.
Now, they are actually far more likely to want something from that store ... but how the heck to I return them or spend the certificates on them without offending them?
At some point they are going to expect to see what I bought and I will be empty handed. I also know what a chunk of L$ it was for them and I don't want to see that much wasted. To add to all of that, it has put a price / value on what I must get them when their birthday swings around.

Darn it. Turning out to be the worst gift I ever got.

If you've got a psychological quirk that's causng you real-life problems, you probably need to see a real-life professional about it. It may turn out that, well, it's just a quirk... or it may turn out it's something you can get help for. Who knows? Treat it like a potentially interesting problem to solve.

Or maybe you've already been down that road, in which case I'll steal your socks while you're throwing things at the interfering ferret.

Alternatively, maybe you can find a job where you're supposed to deal with new and different problems every day. If you find one, let me know, there's a reason I'm an over-energetic and easily distracted small mammal.

anhedonia. I think the doctor was meant to be a buffoon.

I have felt that way too, and it lasted months, nearly a year.

I remember the things that brought me out of it, quite vividly. It was like the sun finally broke through the clouds. But everything that happened was peculiar to me. I had different questions and a different emptiness. I wasn't depressed. My life went on, I still went out with friends and did things... but there was one big thing missing. I'd had a very big and for me cataclysmic religious/spiritual disappointment and went in a short time from being a very involved believer to being almost paralyzed with the impossibility of knowing whether anything beyond this life was knowable at all.

It was awful. The only thing comparable was my father's death.

But I remember the moment when it all changed. I was looking out the window of a train and I saw a tree, and I realized somehow in that moment that all the stuff in my head was just too complicated and not worthwhile. I realized I had to take things more simply and deal with the things that were in my sphere of influence.

I don't know what makes the difference. I don't know why that moment changed things for me.

I look at my mother's friend who is kind of on the verge of collapsing into herself. I'm not sure which way she is going to go. But I can see that little steps I take can bring me to where she is. I don't want to go that way.

Life is a mess, but we are the ones who have to clean it up.

The ahedonism is genetic; my mum has it. Both parents suffer(ed) from depression but in both cases it was substance abuse, weed for him and alcohol for my mum. However, she has her treated and now her brain / hyperthalmus has been induced to produce the endophins, seratonins and dopamines that she needs.

As to the ahedonism, it is rare and untreatable apparently. They don't even know if it is psychological, a brain, gland or nerve disorder. I do feel things but they have to be in extreme to get through to me.

Edit: Which is why I stress that I only do thinks as long as they are cognitively challenging. /Edit.
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Now what do I do about the gift certificates?

I have this issue with gifts in real life, but not in SL. It's just a way to enjoy others creativity. If you have an inability to feel emotions maybe the store products aren't as mediocre to others as they are to you. If you are concerned about hurting the feelings of your friend (which tells me you do have feelings after all) I would just pick something that seems less mediocre to you. Where's the harm?

In real life I do have issues with gift giving. Even in a recession, if we have the computing power to access SL, we are fairly affluent compared to much of the world. We don't need more stuff. Why give each other more stuff? Let us give of ourselves instead. That is more precious than useless stuff and far more appreciated. I prefer people give to charities or causes than to me.

This does not hold true for me in SL where personal taste and creativity are a part of giving of yourself. Does that make sense? I'm having trouble forming my feelings about it into words.

Yes, some what.

lol, let me know also, because tedium (due to lack of challenge) is one of the strongest sources of depression in my life too!

Just buy something with them. Hang onto it, bite your tongue and relax. Get something not so much... valuable per se, but relevant to the gift giver.

I am going to buy a load of dances, stuff them in their hud and benefit from them every time we dance together.