What is your turning point?
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Trust me, being open and beaten is not better than being in the closet and at peace v_vChased said:
My imaginary, most likely won't actually happen turning point would be this:
I've been in a few martial arts competitions (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and something called Sport Jiu Jitsu which is sort of a neutered, light contact form of MMA), but nothing near as awesome as described in my admittedly carried away fantasy.
I'm in an MMA match against an opponent who seems to be just barely ahead of me in terms of everything - strength, skill, speed, etc. He goes for a triangle choke. I stack up and get my head as high as I can to weaken the grip of his legs around my head, slowly compressing my throat. And as I do, I unload punches on him as hard and fast as I can. My eyes grow heavy. I throw more punches. I exert more strength trying to stand up. My vision dims. I thrash about madly, throwing more punches. My face turns purple. I put what's left of my strength into one well-placed punch, which connects squarely with his jaw.
All I can see are lights above me. My entire upper body is numb. Below me, against my back, lies a canvas. I see a referee looking down at me. My entire body aches as I lethargically summon the strength to stand. To my left, I see a broken man, fresh blood flowing from his jaw. Breathing, but not conscious. Doctors are tending to him.
My arm is held by the wrist and raised up high. An oversized golden belt is placed around my waist.
All I can see are lights above me. My entire upper body is numb. Below me, against my back, lies a canvas. I see a referee looking down at me. My entire body aches as I lethargically summon the strength to stand. To my left, I see a broken man, fresh blood flowing from his jaw. Breathing, but not conscious. Doctors are tending to him.
My arm is held by the wrist and raised up high. An oversized golden belt is placed around my waist.
Probably when I realized that my life is meaningless, and that I'm not going to account for anything. Not much of a climax, but it's definitely a turning point. I was a happy-go-lucky kid before I realized this. Now I'm a depressed cynic.
Seconded... I'm not telling my parents I'm gay because I know that they'll hate me for it and, in all likelihood, disown me. So I've decided it's best to stay in the closet and let them think that everything is fine.PatSilverFox said:
It would be a pretty boring story considering I'm only graduating college in 3 weeks. The interesting part of my life is just beginning. If I'd have to choose, I'd say the birth of my little girl last January.
You mean I have to pick just one climax? let's see....oh, oh you mean the point where the story gets exciting and more alive, in that case, no there was no climax, no turning point not even any rising points
Edit: We watched our lives on the screen, I hate the ending myself, but it started with an alright scene
Edit: We watched our lives on the screen, I hate the ending myself, but it started with an alright scene
The fool thinks he knowsZekksta said:
The wise man knows he thinks
That's what it means to say that knowledge is the root of all ignorance, it is the understanding that nothing can ever be known. We can determine things which seem to have a high degree of probability given past events (that is the process we call science), but even science doesn't know anything for sure. It is not impossible that the physical laws we believe govern the universe could suddenly stop, and, as anyone even moderately versed in quantum theory would no doubt happily tell you, there are no certainties.
Regarding the specific issue here, can you know the "self"? The old saying, which I shall paraphrase here, is that much in the same way that you can never step in the same river twice, you can never meet the same person twice. Sure, you can step in water that happens to be running in the same spot two times, but the water is made up of subatomic particles, which are unlikely to ever return to the same spot in the same formation. The river is in a constant state of change because there is no such thing as a river, the idea of a "river" is just a way to conceptualize a formation of a certain type of particles moving.
People are the same. Even beyond the purely physical level on which the cells which make up my body are born, live for a period of time, and ultimately die only to be replaced out of cells made from the foods I have consumed, the mental and characteristic traits that make "me" change too. The shape of my brain changes as new experiences shape different neural pathways, forever changing me, even if it is only in ways that seem small. I am not today who I was yesterday, and I am even further from who I was the day before. And, of course, I shall also be a different person tomorrow. Certainly you can not tell me that you are now the same person you were five years ago?
Even traits which do not change, are often more arbitrary than we first realize. The fact that I am called by the name "Robert" is not written in some book of ultimate truth. I am called "Robert" because my parents called me that, and I guess it caught on because other people called me "Robert" too. It has been repeated to many times that I have come to identify with it, but if they had called me "Dave" would I not identify with that name?
Clearly, the entity called Robert is composed of many features, a physical body, psychological and societally imposed traits, but which of these things is not subject to change? My body will change, my mind will change, everything will change, and so if there is no one specific thing which I am, then how can I ever hope to know myself?
I would challenge anyone who thinks they know themselves to wait, even just for a year, and then ask themselves again, if they knew themselves?
I'm going to stop you right here, because this is really the point upon which this debate hinges, and while you're free to disagree, I would contend that there is no such thing as an indisputable fact outside of a closed system. Because we really do not understand the nature of reality, perception, etc... we can't claim to know anything beyond the shadow of a doubt. When I say the word "know," I tend to use it as one would use it in a logic class, that definition of "know" is related to soundness. The core of any logical argument (a statement of knowledge) hinges upon its being sound, for an argument to be sound it has to have all true premises, and it has to be impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. But you can only make sound arguments within the context of a hypothetical plain, because the plain in which we exist operates not according to traditional mechanics, but by quantum mechanics.Zekksta said:
Let me ask you a question. If I were to say "If I run at a wall as I am now, and hit it full force, there is no way that I will simply pass through it," would you say that that is an "indisputable fact"? If you would say that, then you really owe it to yourself to look into the world of quantum mechanics, because while the improbability of my passing through the wall is ridiculously high, there is still the infinitesimally small possibility that a perfect alignment between the subatomic particles which make me up, and the subatomic particles which make the wall up, will result in such a thing happening. That is to say that an argument composed of the premises "the vast majority of things which hit walls do not simply pass through them", "I will hit a wall" and the conclusion "I will not pass through the wall," is not valid because there still exists the possibility that I will pass through the wall. You can not know that I will not pass through the wall, you can just determine that the probability of my passing through the wall is low.
This kind of uncertainty despite probabilities is an underlying feature of the thing most people call "reality". Since we can not know that the things we perceive are real at all, we can only know things about them within the context of a hypothetical plain. If the couch I sit on is not real but perceived, then the "fact" that it is green is only a fact within the context of a perceived yet non-existent plain. And since we have no way of determining if it's real or not, then I can not "know" that it is green. This applies to all the things which are traditionally thought to have made up the "self" as well. Considering that the single core element associated with all selves, consciousness, is still one of the least understood phenomenon, I would say that the idea that we can ever "know" the self beyond a shadow of a doubt is simply false.
But, of course, I do also have to account for the possibility that I could be wrong.