waaaiiiit a minute, new years isn't for another 2 months

but my halloween resolution is to start a mushroom cult

ha someday I actually will

liam, that would be cool!

i'm sure its a good movie even if it does't live up to the standard set by the first one.

"in spite of the above, let me reiterate that pedophilia WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF OUR SOCIETY is unacceptable."

ontheroadagain, I think this makes my stance pretty clear. for the record, I have absolutely no intention or even desire to have any sexual relations with any child.

my point in arguing this thread has little to do with my views on pedophilia, and much more to do with my view that there are no absolute rights and wrongs.

and as for your example about fucking someone through the eye, I can relate to you an example that IS PRACTISED in several societies that is almost as extreme: female genital mutilation.

In several African societies, teengage girls have their clitoris cut off without anasthetic. At the minimum, the girl will experience intense pain and loss of sexual pleasure, at the worst the girl will bleed to death (its happened several times). Yet, for the people in that society, cutting off a girl's clitoris is RIGHT, and to not have it removed is WRONG.

and girls, as we speak, continue to voluntarilly go through this procedure because even THEY beleive it is the right thing to do.

you mean people actually do drugs at raves?! and all this time I thought it was all about the music!

very nice design

*hand pookie some cough syrup*

but don't drink too much or you'll end up like fred

its been 5 days since Scream and I'm still feeling the afterglow, it's cool

"There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.

She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else." .....

Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, `I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."

-Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 4, by Lewis Carrol.



What's interesting is that Carrol wrote this book before knowledge of psychedelic mushrooms became widespread. Most likely, he had been aware of the mushroom's power by transmission through folk legend.

I am posting this because many people on this board are intellectually gifted and are probably suffering from some of the problems mentioned below. I know that in the past I have experienced much of what this article talks about, and had to work through it. I would have felt alot better if someone had shown this to me a few years ago though.

"In a world in which emotional health is defined in terms of contentment, ability to relax, satisfaction with self and with life, and lack of inner conflicts, it is no wonder that the perfectionist is perceived as neurotic. . . All gifted individuals are perfectionists in something."
Linda Kreger Silverman PhD.

To be gifted is very often to be classified as neurotic. To be gifted and not to know it is to perceive oneself as neurotic or worse. Here are some of the ways in which gifted people become confused with neurotic people:

Non-achievement
Perfectionism
Alienation
Identity
Existential depression
Self-damaging behaviors
Intensity
The curse of the blessed

Non-achievement. Whether we’re talking about the child with the high IQ who plays around in class, or the adult with the brilliant strategic insight who can’t stand another meaningless meeting, gifted people frequently and ceaselessly underachieve. They can be the despair of their friends and colleagues. Over and again they are told: “I don’t understand it! You could be running the place if you’d only get your act together.”

“Getting their act together,” however, is not something gifted people are likely to do as long as it means conforming to someone else’s half-baked notion of the way things should be. It’s not that they don’t understand what’s going on, (though if they’re into self-blaming they may hide the truth from themselves) it’s that they understand too well.

When you can see that your teachers, your bosses and your colleagues all lack the vision, intelligence and courage to do what’s needed, you give up. You know you’re not going to be able to move the organization the way it needs to go so what’s the point?

There is a point, which is to honor yourself by doing what you can rather than demanding of yourself that you achieve the impossible. But that has to do with the next sign of gifted ‘neurosis’: perfectionism.

Perfectionism. Perfectionism is not necessarily the bad thing that many therapists would have us believe. It is actually an essential motivator for those who seek true excellence. It is a way of avoiding something most gifted people dread: the pain of being mediocre.

It seems probable that we humans only strive for what we know intuitively we can achieve. Accordingly, not many people aim for perfection. Some do, however, and they fall into two groups: the gifted and the hopelessly misguided. It is important to know which group one is in: coaching can quickly help you decide.

The evidence that perfectionism is useful can be summarized in one question: “What of human value has been achieved by people whose goal was just to be good enough?”

Can you imagine an Olympic athlete setting out on years of dedicated training with the goal of being less than perfect? or a world class actor who merely hoped to remember most of her lines? or a serious painter who would use a blue “because it‘s close enough to green” just to finish up a tube of paint? Of course not.

Striving for perfection is appropriate for gifted people. At each stage of their development they will strive anew, their goal always shifting as their own achievements redefine perfection.

Very often, their drive for self-perfection can manifest itself as self-condemnation. This is a serious matter only if it reaches a point where it immobilizes the individual in a net of 'shoulds' and 'musts' .

It is because perfectionists experience pain at their failure to attain their own high standards that we are often advised that perfectionism should be put aside in favor of the pursuit of excellence. This moderating notion may be comforting for many, but it is the pursuit of perfection that benefits both oneself - through the gratification of self-fulfillment - and society.

Coming to terms with one’s perfectionist drive is hard enough. However, there is nothing like being a perfectionist for contributing to another piece of gifted ‘neurosis’: alienation.

Alienation. It is hard to find a group of like minds or even a friend or partner when your attitude and way of being are so demanding and so at odds with much of social convention. No wonder you blame yourself, condemning yourself for your inability to ‘just fit in’.

It is hard to fit in with people whose values and intuitive understanding of the world are so very different from your own. As a gifted person you are one of a tiny percentage of the population so it’s appropriate that you should feel left out.

How you come to terms with the challenge of not-belonging has a lot to do with how successfully you manage the next challenge: identity.

Identity. It sometimes seems that gifted people have more difficulty discovering who they are than almost any other group. On one level, the reason for this is obvious and results from two facts:

Gifted people tend to be better than average at many things.
Humans gain a sense of identity, in part, by testing a number of things and discovering what it is they’re good at and enjoy to the exclusion of other things.
It’s very hard for gifted people to reach the rejection stage of this selection process because their testing can take them so much further into excellence that it can seem as if they’re doing the right thing. After all, if you’re so much better than the next person at the same task then ‘society’ will tell you that that’s what you should be doing. So why does it feel such a pain?

The challenge for gifted people is to push themselves beyond the ‘good enough’ barrier and so discover what they really enjoy and can sustain into the future. Which leads neatly into the next challenge for gifted people: existential depression.

Existential depression. This is the classic “what’s the point?” form of depression which I regard as a totally understandable knee jerk response to the condition of the world we live in. Like most such responses, however, it does not stand up to a more thoughtful examination.

Before this examination can take place, it is frequently necessary to work through the cynicism, rejection and raw hurt that a gifted individual can build up through years of painful existence. There is usually also a significant store of anger that the gifted person has been hoarding since experiencing the frustrations of childhood.

All of which adds up to a non-clinical depression which is the inevitable result of seeing the truth but being powerless to change things.

Again, there are strategies for dealing with this depression which involve a combination of intellectual and emotional factors They are certainly more effective in the long term than those ruthless forms of self-treatment which gifted people resort to when they feel particularly trapped: self-damaging behaviors.

Self-damaging behaviors

These behaviors frequently take the form of eating disorders, sexual acting out, drug and alcohol abuse and many forms of self-harming.

Some of these behaviors are genuinely life-threatening and may occasionally require medical intervention. However, long after medical intervention has ended, the psychological dependence on the behavior can continue. This, for example, is what makes Alcoholics Anonymous claim that there is no 'cure' for alcoholism.

This dependence can be reduced almost to insignificance by developing an inner strength based in joy and appreciation of one's true strengths. It is precisely this recognition and approval that was lacking at a crucial time and which led to the development of the behavior in the first place.

The process of moving beyond these behaviors can empower gifted individuals and enrich their lives. However, the shift takes substantial dedication to the process and a readiness to redirect some of the enormous energy that others experience as: intensity.

Intensity. Gifted people are intense. This is because things matter to them very much. And why not? If you can see the emperor has no clothes, shouldn’t you shout about it and try to catch someone’s attention? And if society smiles benignly and ignores you, shouldn’t you shout even louder?

It is this intensity, fueled by a highly developed sense of values, that leads many gifted individuals to throw themselves enthusiastically into good causes.

The gifted are to be found everywhere in social, political and ecological causes and even in cults. In this way the gifted person hopes to kill two birds with one stone, combining an outlet for humanistic energy with the joy of belonging to a group.

Very often, however, this strategy fails because they find that group dynamics tend to prevail over good intent. Then the cause can become secondary to the need to establish hierarchies and alliances and all the other bits of human impedimenta that effectively stand in the way of progress.

And so it goes on. The gifted individual feels driven by irresistible inner motivations yet has enormous difficulty in directing this force in a way that is both productive and meets social norms. Meanwhile they can also feel they are letting themselves and others down. Truly, they are experiencing: the curse of the blessed.

The curse of the blessed

It can be hell to be born lucky.

If you are beautiful, people rarely see beyond your features and behave toward you as they imagine you are, not as you really are.

If you are rich, people rarely see beyond your bank balance and treat you with resentment or false friendship, depending on their natures.

If you are brilliant, people rarely see beyond your intellect, revering you and denying you the simple pleasures they imagine are beneath you.

If you are musical or artistic, athletic or poetic, the story is the same: it is hard for you to touch base with reality, to know who you really are, because those around you are not grounded when they are with you.

Many of the trials of the psychologically and intellectually gifted are experienced by another group, the societally and physically gifted. Those born with wealth or position, or born beautiful or with natural athletic prowess have great difficulty finding their true selves. They can never know what they would have been if they hadn’t been born rich or handsome.

Unless they take steps to accomplish it, they can never experience the confidence of having done it through their own efforts.

Like anything that comes too easily, and whose existence seems too closely related to pure chance, these forms of giftedness can be very damaging to self-esteem. They give rise to self-denigrating comments such as: "I'm only here because of my looks", or "If it hadn't been my father's business I'd never have made it", or "It was just luck: I was born that way."

Like everything else where gifted individuals are concerned, these challenges can all be met provided diligence and commitment is applied.

Summary


The challenges facing gifted people arise directly from the exceptional qualities that mark us out as genuinely different.

Sometimes, as with the rich, privileged, athletic or beautiful, the difference is obvious. With psychologically and intellectually gifted individuals it is not so obvious. But the results are the same and can lead to very similar and potentially self-damaging adaptive behaviors.

hey, now that you mention it, that sounds awesome!

hello kids, here is your problem for today:

Eight candykids are in an e-tard pit. They arrange themselves in a massage circle so that each candykid is giving another a massage. How many possible ways can they arrange themselves? Whoever gets this question right first goes home!

ps. i am still cracked out from friday night

my first born will kick the crap out of you

i second that!

just for the record, i meant that *some* people self-medicate for depression with mdma, certainly not all. however i think that most of the people that heavily abuse this drug do self-medicate.

i wish i saw this last night, cuz i defitenly want to hear about your trip.

i don't know if any society in the future will accept childhood sexuality. i know that some have in the past.

however, if there ever does arise a society in which childhood sexuality is accepted, I beleive that it will be seen as natural and acceptable, and that no harm will be caused to the children.

very nice work!

i must humbly admit that i rock.

when i grow up, i will make everyone in the world my slave. BUT i will treat dem gooood

apparently ketamine is still used as an anesthetic on humans in certain cases, together with a tranquilizer so the patient doesnt remember the trip

its all about the fuck you attitude, it rocks

wow thats like megan in a time machine

BAHAHAHA thats awesome

however clearly i am not a burger, more like a hot dog

its nice, but i think intimidating if you come to the site for the first time.

like: theres a million links and which one do i click on!

chelsea; i hear ya!

especially when the moon is full, and the night looks so bright because the snow reflects the sky.

the first snow of every year is beautiful. after about a month of this, i'll be cursing the weather.

pedophilia is certainly wrong within the context of our society, there is no question about that

however nothing is absolute. our actions, behavior, emotions, even are thoughts are a result of the values and beleifs imparted upon us by society

let me illustrate by a somewhat related example:

children are taught that to appear naked in public is wrong and shameful. therefore, many children have an intense fear of being seen naked. as a child, i remember having nightmares about showing up to school naked and being laughed at, and apparently this is a common dream for kids in our society. if a child, for whatever reason, DOES accidentaly wet his pants in school, for example, and the teacher pulls down his/her pants in front of everyone, that child is likely to experience strong emotions of shame, embarassment, etc.

yet is there anything intrinsically WRONG with being naked? did not our ancestors (in tropical climates) most likely spend all their time with no clothes? do you think they were ashamed at being naked? of course not. clearly, it is the social atmosphere that instills in the child a sense of shame at being naked.

this example can be extended to several other situations. clearly, it is the influence of social norms that dictate what a child should feel in any number of given situations. i would anticipate that in a society in which childhood sexuality is the norm, that children would not be ashamed or embarassed at all to engage in sexual play with each other or with adults. everthing depends on the context in which we are dealing with.

in spite of the above, let me reiterate that pedophilia WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF OUR SOCIETY is unacceptable.

battle of the raves!

i may miss out on both of them cuz i'm not sure if i'll even be in montreal then.

i'm high on life

seriously.

For Us By Us

will someone please take out the sharon? i mean trash

^^ and this from a happy hardcore dj!

haha its all about the guerilla marketing!

yup i rememebr docsavage in line as well

i beleive people self-medicate themselves often with mdma, especially people who are depressed. the problem that mdma is not an effective anti-depressant because you can only take it occasionaly for it to be effective. prozac basically has a similar effect to mdma, except MUCH milder so its feasible as an every day drug

ooo ur bitchiness is 2 much for me

and rave on FUCK YEAH!

sharon is soooo right

i am SUCH a candykid.

haha the proof of Fred being the coolest is the dialogue in this thread

Welcome back Sammy!

looking foward to chilling wit ya...next idj?

^^ BAM!

i agree

this is the 2nd day in a row of having an incredible afterglow. if your wondering why, see my scream review.

objectively, i'd say the party was good but not great. a bit too mainstream, not all the music was that great, and of course the lineup.

subjectively, it was among the most amazing nights i've have partying, because of the incredible amount of amazing people i met, as well as the drugs i took (shrooms and mdma for the first time). so this review will be highly personalized and even a bit of a trip report.

i got to the party late, around 2am, as i wanted to see my friend jimmy spin a hardcore set in some house party. luckily i saw steve halfway in the line and he let me join his group (thanks!) so I had to wait 2 hours rather than 4 or 5. in retrospect, i'm actually happy for the lineup because i got into several great conversations with people.

by the end of the lineup, i could sense people were starting to get really pissed. i kept anticipating a riot breaking out, which never happened, which proves once and for all that punks are FAR superior to ravers when it comes to things like setting cars on fire. and i wouldn't have minded a little destruction at that point.

after getting ditched in the lineup by jeff (u bastard =) the security had such sympathy for me that they let me in right after (HA!). which was incredibly lucky cuz the mush i took kicked in right after i entered the place. i would NOT want to be tripping in that line.

so i got in right in the middle of astral projection's set, which was among the best trance sets i have ever heard. hard, melodic, euphoric, it was simply awesome. the energy of the room became my energy, and i danced like crazy. and the smoke and lasers, on mush, were fucking incredible.

after astral projection, i went upstairs to the hardcore room (but not before taking my mdma). some people had amazing, ghoulish costumes, which created a great atmostphere for hardcore. neophyte's set was very good, and i went crazy inches from the speakers, feeling the vibrations shake and rattle me every which way. it was VERY hot in this room, and at this point i was peaking on mush, and for a short time i started badtripping, afraid i was overheating. fortunately i was able to calm myself down, and then the mdma kicked in, which obviously ended any negative thoughts.

i started walking down the stairs back to the trance room, and as i looked over at the sea of people dancing crazily, i froze. i was beginning to peak on mdma, and still tripping from the mush, and the combined experience overwhelmed me with an intense euphoria unlike which i have ever experienced. i felt the wonder of having seen a rave for the first time, and i felt gifted to be able to be a part of this movement, which only came into being some 15-20 years ago and will someday exist no more. it was an incredibly ecstatic experience, and i felt near-ego loss: I was no longer just me, i was everyone. every breath filled me with the combined ecstasy of everyone in the party, and for several minutes i just stood there, awestruck.

the next two hours is a bit of a blur. sometimes i would be dancing, sometimes just standing amongst the crowd, lost in deep thoughts and intense emotion. very abruptly, i suddenly realized that the best of the experience was over, and i was just above baseline. at this point, i felt enourmous gratefullness for what had taken place. physically, mentally, and emotionally i was drained, raw, and vulnerable. i felt happiness but in a very tender way, as though i could not contain my emotions within me. this feeling continued untill i left the party, at about 11.

on st catherines outside the party i ran into cathou and her friends, who i was happy to see. the party drained me so much that i actually passed out on the sidewalk as cathou panned for alcohol change, and she had to shake me to wake me up. it wasn't the direct effects of the drugs that caused me to pass out, as those had long passed, but the sheer intensity of the experience. on the way home (which also happened to be in the direction of the afterparty) i met the dalmation guy, his girlfriend, and someone else, who were amazing people, and i was happy to invite them home to listen to some music and veg.

as soon as they left (around 2ish) i fell asleep for a good 5 hours. i was amazed that night at how many people i saw that i knew, how many people i met for the first time, as well as how many i know that i DIDNT see simply because the party was enormous. to everyone i saw, THANK YOU, because you made the night incredible. oh yeah, and the drugs too.

speaking of which, here the technicalities: 1-1.5g of good mush (i had to eyeball it, no scale) followed about 1.5h later by one mdma. the spacing of the two drugs apart allowed me to experience each one's peak individually, while the other one would be either coming up/down, which in my opinion is the best way to do it. the combination is excellent: the mush amplifies the empathy and euphoria of the mdma 1000 times, while the mdma enhances the mush in ways that i can't explain. i wasn't just in love with all the people around me, i was in love with their SOULS. however i would not recommend you do this combination unless you are fairly experienced with both drugs, as it is very intense, and can be dangerous as the mush completely alters your sense of time, making it even more difficult to drink a proper amount of water. wear a watch, time yourself, and make sure to drink aprox 500ml of water for every hour of dancing.

and oh yeah, if you've actually read all of this, i am SINCERELY IMPRESSED.

I never said I consider behavior that is the norm to be "right", but obviously the society in which that behavior is the norm would consider it right.

Similarly, any sexual practice which is not normative will be considered "sick", just as homosexuality was seen 50 years ago (and, as jeff pointed out, continues to be seen in some parts)

If you consider cousins to be family, then my grandparents were "inner-family fournicators" and you know what? the society they came from (iraq) considers this to be perfectly normal, and they do to, because this is how they were brought up to think

in our society, the norm is for people not to have sex untill the mid-late teens at least, and even then, only with similar-aged partners. but honestly, do you really beleive that most grown men have never seen a 12 year old girl and been attracted to her? of course they have, its just that 99.9% of grown men learn to repress that attraction to younger girls because society considers it wrong, and the 0.1% of grown men that act on that attraction are the ones that are considered sick.

its a fact that most people think about sex around once a minute. but imagine if you met someone that mentioned sex every minute? that person would be considered perveted, because its not societies' norm to talk about sex, even though everyone thinks about it.

good points fred

btw i still think bestiality is illegal

if you read what I wrote carefully, all i said is that what is considered "perverse" by society has more to do with that societies' sexual norms then what is actually harmful. I didn't make the case specificially for or against pedophelia.

BUT now I WILL bring up an argument that I hope you at least think about...

In ancient Greek society, considered by many to be "enlightened", it was common practice for young boys to have sex with older men in a sort of tutor-pupil relationship. In our society, of course, such a relationship would be seen as perverse, but it was considered normal at that time. Now, do you think that all those boys grew up having psychological problems? Possibly, but I doubt it. Because the only reason such a memory would be repressed in the first place, is that it is considered socially unacceptable, and the child feels guilt/shame/etc. However, in a society where that behaviour is considered normal, there would be no need for it to be repressed, and there would not be negative emotions associated with the act.

"Btw, stop acting like you are constantly on speed."

HAHA u just made my day, honestly. The fact is when there is good music I will feel great even when sober, I'm sorry if you have to take drugs to feel like that.