To be honest, it’s not that great. Hah hah.
Did the Therapy Thursday thing today. Talked about something I had not gotten around to talking about here yet,. namely how I have had that massive psychological wound at the center of my soul on my mind lately.
It’s such a central part of me and has been there for 46 of my 50 years and it is most definitely the source of the deep and terrible weakness that pervades my being and that keeps me from being able to pull myself together and get anything coherent done.
It is, therefore, my central mental health issue. It is the ur-Wound from which all my other issues flow, and lately I feel like I have been just kind of staring at it in a deep, brooding funk, contemplating its central role in my long slow downfall.
And this is progress, I think. It means I am bringing this weeping wound of mine into my conscious mind on an ongoing basis, and that is a good first step towards defusing the enormous emotional payload of an issue so you can deal with it with your conscious mind without it tripping your circuit breakers.
You don’t have to do anything with the issue. You don’t have to deal with it. You don’t have to try to solve it. You don’t even have to think about it.
You just have to look at it. Spend time with it. Get used to it.
You don’t even need to do it all in one go. You can just whip it out at odd moments and do it for a minute or two then put it away again.
It’s dead simple and very effective.
Anyhow, back to my suffering.
It is a hard thing to write about because it’s so big and so deep a part of me.
Think about it. I got this wound from being raped when I was 4 years old. That means that all the development – and lack thereof – that I have had in the last 46 years of my life has be built upon this deep and terrible injury, and that has warped, twisted, and polluted almost everything about me
That doesn’t change my determination to heal the god damned thing. I feel confident that at this point, the whole thing could disappear in a flash and the rest of my mind would be strong enough to hold together regardless.
And if not, who cares. My mind ain’t working that great in its current state of semi-sanity, so it’s not like I have a lot to lose.
Maybe going batpoop loco for a while would be the best thing for me.
More after the break.
I thought this was quite well done :
Like I said in the comments, it is on-style and in-era and I am tres impressive.
Some of those references, though. Oy.
I mean, Douglas Frigging Fairbanks?
Yeah, there’s one for the kiddies.
I’m 50 and I barely recognize the name.
And I was raised by television!
Why I don’t trust anti-virus or PC optimization programs
Because they have every incentive to lie to you.
Think about it. They sell you solutions to problems – problems THEY and only they tell you exist. You have to take their word that you even have these problems, and then they want you to buy their anti-bogeyman software for $20/month.
Shady auto mechanics only wish they had that kind of advantage over their customers.
In theory, I could write an app where all it does is generate a random number, tell you that’s how many viruses or broken registry entries or whatever it’s going to fix, shows that number counting down while generating random disc activity to convince you it is doing something, then tells you it is done.
Or worse, it tells you that you have all these problems but refuses to “fix” them unless you commit to pay them that sweet, sweet monthly cash,
I have seen programs that do that exact thing. Being the hard-edged cynical bastard that I am, I did not fall for them.
But think of all the vulnerable people out there who lack my level of mental kung fu and who are therefore open to being manipulated into paying real money to solve phantom problems because, well, better safe than sorry, right?
And it’s “only” $20/month (or whatever), and surely it’s worth it for the peace of mind!
And then you completely forget all about it because the money is charged to your credit card (or whatever) automatically. They get the $ without having to do a think.
It’s basically digital extortion. An electronic protection racket.
In fact, the only flaw in the scam is that there is actual malware out there and at some point your customers will expect you to actually be able to get rid of it.
That’s always the problem with any protection racket – eventually people actually need you to protect them.
I have AVG anti-virus installed. The free version. Real threats DO exist out there, especially with the sudden explosion of scammers, so I figure I need SOME kind of protection as I wander the Web.
But I won’t be paying for the “premium” version any time soon.
Call me hostile and suspicious, but nobody gets between me and my money,.
Try to rip me off and you will see this Ferdinand the Bull turn into el toro loco in a heartbeat. I’m a friendly, genial, lovable dude… unless someone is after my money.
Even growing up in my highly intellectual family, I was always light years ahead of the rest when it came to spotting scams, advertising bullshit, and other ripoffs.
I guess it comes from having the sort of mind that is always trying to spot life’s landmines before he steps on them.
I’d be one hell of a good judge on a show like Dragon’s Den. Maybe too good, because I would cut right through the bullcrap and expose the flaw in people’s business plans and/or inventions in a heartbeat and that’s not good television.
They’d have to make me go last.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.