Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Seed Discussion Forum
successfull seed graduates
cleveland:
Ginger-Antigen,
I suspect you are one of the obsessive people you write about!
It's interesting - in my own family, I can see my brother, who's obsessively driven to succeed, to push the limits, and to win. He's a very successful journalist, and he leads an exciting life. He gets a kick out of travelling to Iraq in the midst of war or infiltrating a White Supremecist training compound. I prefer less sensational past times - playing piano, drawing, reading. I think we inherited slightly different needs for stimulation, excitement, drive. He's nationally known - while I'm respected by a small circle of friends.
My parents are obsessively driven people - extremely intense, self-obsessed. They've both been terrific successes, celebrated by all, as well total failures in one way or another.
Most of the hard core drug/alcohol users I've known are obsessive types - they go from being devils to angels with the same verve. So Art Barker, down and out alcoholic, becomes Art Barker, savior of america's youth. Do you follow?
I think at this point in my life I've had it with heroes and gurus, I am kind of drawn to the quiet people who tend to keep out of the spotlight. Maybe it's due to my own experiences.
So if you define success as acclaim, power, money - that's one way. But there are other successes that are more inward. Because I have largely 'failed' to win the big outward stuff I have looked more inward, it's more my personality.
To each his own!
Antigen:
--- Quote ---On 2004-12-14 04:33:00, Ft. Lauderdale wrote:
Possibly its me, but I have a hard time following you.
--- End quote ---
Simple, straightforward and explains a lot. Sounds like a good theory, maybe it is you.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
--Albert Einstein
--- End quote ---
Ft. Lauderdale:
Antigen - as usual you avoided the question. How old were you thelast time you stepped foot at the Seed? Is this a difficult question? :???:
Antigen:
--- Quote ---On 2004-12-14 07:28:00, cleveland wrote:
Most of the hard core drug/alcohol users I've known are obsessive types - they go from being devils to angels with the same verve. So Art Barker, down and out alcoholic, becomes Art Barker, savior of america's youth. Do you follow?
--- End quote ---
Yeah, exactly that!
Stripe, I'd stick w/ the obsessed doctors too!
My point is that the obsessed doctor and the obsessed addict are basically operating on the same mechanism. The big difference is in how people view their obsession.
Nother example. My 15yo spends a whole lot of time at the computer, playing games, chatting w/ friends. Some might say she's obsessed. And there's a lot written in pop media about internet addiction and such. No one's offering to pay her for it at this point.
My husband and I started out the same way 10 or 15 years ago w/ local BBSs. No one was offering to pay us for that either, but it was just so damned much fun. Challenging, too, since we couldn't afford to buy good machines but, instead, had to build them from scraps and bartered items.
Now we get paid to do this. Not huge sacks of cash, but enough to support our family fairly well w/o having to commute, punch a clock, buy work clothes, etc. So instead of describing us as obsessed geeks w/ a serious problem, people use kinder terms like driven, dedicated, hard working. Shit, Bill's boss has been calling him "Super Warb" since his first week on the job around 10 years ago.
My point is that these behaviors that practitioners of Stepcraft frame as illness in need of treatment are not. Bad choices? In many cases, undoubtably. But pathology? Well, ok, but then we have to admit that our brilliant surgeon or system administrator is also pathological. It's like the wife who told her shrink that her husband thinks he's a chicken. But it's not a problem cause they needed the eggs.
If triangles had a God, He'd have three sides.
--Old Yiddish proverb
--- End quote ---
GregFL:
Brilliant observation Ging.
I have often said the amount of true addiction in people is vastly overstated. Oh sure it exists, but mostly people just obsessively consume and compulsively do things.
This is why cigarrettes are so damn hard to kick. If nicotene was the horribly addictive drug people claim it to be, then we could just administer nicotene orally or via skin transfer (patch) and cure most everyone of smoking. We all know we can't. Why not?
I submit it is the delivery method that people become compulsively attached to. The smoke, the oral fixation, the warmth, the comraderie of other smokers, the rebellousness of it.
Sure smokers are addicted to nicotene, but the compusion to the delivery method in my opinion is a much bigger draw. Given the choice of cigarettes without nicotene or nicotene without cigarrettes, hands down nicotene would be the loser by a HUGE margin.
I could go on and on with examples here, but in my opinion stepcraft and its various incarnations is nothing short of sorcery, that is it only works because people believe it to and it replaces one compulsion with an obsession, the obsession to belong to an exclusive group and rise up thru the ranks.
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