From: jchien@leland.Stanford.EDU (Jennifer Crystal Fang-Chien)
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas Ashers!
Organization: The Land of Earthquakes (Southern Cal)
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 09:15:48 GMT


In article <1992Aug17.201647.21919@leland.Stanford.EDU> underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:
>In article <1992Aug17.071944.4063@leland.Stanford.EDU>
>jchien@leland.Stanford.EDU (Jennifer Crystal Fang-Chien) writes:

>>	But unfortunately, Lucifuge doesn't explore if there exist
>>activites he hasn't tried, perhaps by asking Mr.Butler and 
>>serious asking himself.  Instead he immediately assumes he's tried all
>>activities.  
>
>No one can try all activities, for there are too many.
>There are a thousand and one possibilities, but that doesn't mean
>that they all hold promise.

	*amused laughter*  Sorry. I had to.  I think Dwight's
(unintentional) misunderstanding of what I mean to impy is interesting.
Using some common sense, one can determine which possibilities
are probable in decreasing depression.
	criteria could be as simple as: what activities have
I enjoyed in the past?  what have other people suggested that
sounds plausible?  what sources of stress in my life could i recognize
(and therefore be aware to deal with)?
	With Dwight's reasoning, one could imagine, that after
I awake tomorrow morning, I could never get out of bed, because
there are thousands of possibilites of what I could do, or how
to get out of bed at all.  This reasoning is obviously an
excuse to avoid thinking about any possibilites whatsoever.

>Implicit in that paragraph is the assumption that there is 
>always at least 1 additional path which is better than that
>last path on which you f*cked up or on which life f*cked you
>up.

	Now, this is self-contradictory.  Didn't he just
say there were "a thousand and one possibilities"?  To any
life crisis, if one can say that there is *not* 1 additional
path that has not been tried, when there are so many, would be 
incredible.  True, however, to the person in the crisis, there 
*seems* to be no other path.

>  Let's label each of the 1001 possibilities
>by a distinct integer--the greater the integer, the better the
>possibility.  The set of integers has a maximum.  Take the
>path with the greatest integer; then there is no other path better
>than the selected path.  Q.E.D.

	This logic seems reasonble, however ...

>Because once the best path has been chosen and it leads to a dead
>end, what's the point of going to another path?  This may sound
>inflexible, but it's reality.  Accept it.

	This would be true *if* the best path were chosen.  Now
Dwight is assuming here that one will always be able to choose
the *best* path and be fully aware of it.  How many times have
we chosen what we *thought* was the best path, but later
realized that it was not?  And perhaps if we'd been more aware of
our possibility for fallacy, we could have tried another path,
instead of choosing passive acceptance after one path.
	Actually, most of us feel that we have tried many paths,
but upon examination, it has all been within the framework of the
same negative viewpoint.  Anything negative is more likely to stagnate
than something more balanced or more positive.  A negative viewpoint
does not take advantage of the situation, but rather says, "oh,
i guess that's all i can do."
	Dwight also made a point in another post that he does not see
an all-positive viewpoint as being very commendable.  Well, I do not
see why an all-negative viewpoint is very commendable either.  If
one were to see both the positive and negative aspects of a situation,
it would not seem fatal.  That is the problem, of seeing events as
predominanatly negative, instead of trying to get a balanced, realistic
portrayal.
	I also do not advocate "denying" the negative aspects of
a situation, or one's feelings about any situation.  As Dwight
says, simply accept it.  However, Dwight goes on to advocate that
acceptance = defeatism.  I see acceptance as seeing it for a fact.
That it exists.

>>> It doesn't do fuck all for me for instance...
>>
>>	Has one ever tried to understand what was meant, instead of
>>ardently denying?  Considered and tried the approach?
>>	No?  Of course it doesn't work for you.
>
>Wake up.
>

	I find this strangely curious.  Instead of answering
seriously whether or not he has tried an approach with more positive
aspects to it (not to say *entirely* positive-only), he simply
avoids the question.  I find this response a self-evident,
"No, I haven't tried it."  Or perhaps, "I don't want to talk about
it."

	If his response is "No", then I don't find that Dwight should be
regarded as a source of accurate criticism about thinking more
positively when he has never experienced this himself.

	Speak now, or forever hold thy peace.

Jennifer
Newsgroups: alt.suicide.holiday