A month ago, I simply snapped. Everything came together in one second when everything had built up too much for me to handle anymore and I took a deep breath and cleared my mind for one second--long enough for me to have this epiphany, along with others. In those following seconds I decided to quit smoking. Done. I decided how to go about finishing work that needed to be done. I did some push-ups that I was previously unmotivated to do. Done.

Then today, I realized that on that day, I had discovered part of what was controlling not only my habits (like going out for a smoke every half hour), but my entire life. I was in my philosophy class, talking about how we really don't have free-will because our actions are actually controlled by subconscious motivations (which were created by, basically, the shitty things that have happened to us in the past)--according to Freud. And then I saw that I had realized one of my "subconscious motivations" a month ago. I realized that they, more obvious to me than anything else in my life, controlled me--I was a slave to myself. I saw it, I just didn't have the words for it. And it's interesting how simply hearing the idea in words makes it click much more.

So I've decided. I'm going to go to therapy this summer. I've seen that my own constant self-analysis is the wrong way to go about finding out who I am. And for the rest of the semester, I just won't sweat it. I'm gonna do what I need to do for the next six weeks and then, once again, I can continue my search. But until then, it's just easy-going.

If you are a FlashStuf visitor or have some ideas that could really take us in this direction, just drop a comment.

Whatever the case may be, it's a shame people see things this way in everyday life. I was listening to a country song yesterday; in it, one of the many lyrics "we don't lock our doors, when we leave the house" to which I responded "you don't live on the east coast"-- half-way just being funny but the other half being serious. Because although I've never had someone break into my house or steal something out of it (that was a lie, a worker who was building the extension on our house stole my mom's class ring that was sitting out), it happens everyday. Now, everyday in the sense that it is commonplace, as commonplace as say, teenagers getting into accidents. And at least to me, it just seems like there's an "I can get away with it" mentality among the masses.

Now by running an entertainment website, you basically open up a public playground. People can bring their children and sit and enjoy, socialize, see the scenery. Those children can also play among the equipment and enjoy hopping around and such. But it's not only the parents and small children that visit the playground, kids of all ages can. And being a playground, there is no supervisor to make sure you abide by the 4 feet or smaller rule. Anyone and everyone has free reign (until the cops get called, but that's later). Oh, and those cameras sitting idly by on the wall? Oh pay no attention.

I have a playground graffiti wall of sorts on my site. It doesn't serve much purpose except to communicate with the other visitors on the site in real time. I let people post whatever they wanted (to start to know what to expect), but ended up putting a list to filter words after more than a few cases of the N word. Time went on, people stuck to randomly typing letters and saying hi to others that were on the site at the same time (props to them), and I continued adding the words that would come up every once in a while, while still allowing the few damn's and shit's stretched through there.

Well when the redesign was done, the chat section went back up and I quickly got a slew of random and pointless posts on a daily basis. However, since the very beginning the user's IP address has been logged with each post. With my new and improved Admin center (which I already used to check the chats), I grabbed the IP address and made a blacklist that's checked with each post now, simply stating the person can't use that computer anymore if they want to keep posting on the chat page. It all may seem fine, too, until they go to hit post. Hey, enjoy everyone else's input but if you're feeling contributive, well there's no room for any of that.

Confidence seems to be a major issue with people these days. Most seem to grasp the idea that confidence is a good thing to have, it is a sexy thing to have, and it makes people "love you more." But they also realize a lot of the problems with it (so they think), and there are tons of problems with it. Now, not "it" as in confidence, but "it" as in being confident. Problems like how other people will react to you- this is where they get divided.

We'll start with the much larger percentage- the people who will try to bring you down (no matter how large or small your confidence is). The ones who are so insecure, they have to bring you down to make them feel a little better about themselves. I haven't been in a single room where I can't find people like this.

Then you get the much more rare kind- the people who will be attracted to you. Just seeing how confident you are in the way you carry yourself can attract someone. It's powerful. Of course, these are so rare because we have too many people who are taught from early childhood that they need to get along and be accepted by others. We're not insecure from birth, we're made that way by the environment we live and grow up in. Our society says we need to look a certain way. Women need to wear makeup to "look good" because that's what they were made to do. Give men something to look at, because the only way they're going to be judged and possibly mated with (now that they can look pretty with the help of society in charge and makeup to help), is by what their face or tits look like. Ya know, it's our fucking society that has gotten so many people down this road. And what I recently heard a confident person tell me is beginning to make sense. We have these set of rules that are layed down to us over the course of our life. And one of the big ones is looking good.I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask, what if we grew up in a world where we weren't taught that our main goal in life should be to find someone, so we won't be lonely. What if, instead, we were taught that it was okay to not have friends, to not even like people. Later in life, we could be taught, completely unbiased, that some people live their lives, and some people get married. You have a choice to do either. Would we even feel a strong need to date someone? Would we feel the need to have sex all the time? Would we feel the need to be around another all the time? A little speculation here: I don't think we'd feel the pressure to be in a constant search of a partner. There would be no need to date someone, as in there would be no need to go through a procedure to then put a title on a relationship between two creatures. Would we need to have sex? Of course we'd still want to. But I doubt we'd feel the pressures we do today. We'd naturally feel we want to reproduce. No one needs to learn that. Now. Would we feel the need to be around someone else all the time? Without a single doubt. It's in the very basic things that make us a human being, that make us an animal. And that is why something like confidence simply attracts others. It is something at that basic level. It isn't man-made like money, it isn't superficial like looks. It is something that exists in it's natural form if you can truly get it.

And that is, of course, the dilemma. Because nothing I just mentioned is the way things are, we are left to regain this previously erased behavior. With the way things are it takes an experience, a person, or a person explaining it in a way that truly clicks in your head to really get this idea across enough to change you. If you don't have any of those and you're not motivated, you'll have to wait until one of those falls in your lap and you listen. However, you can always put your mind to it enough to at least get started.

I look at these people try and talk and make plans through comments. For wanting to "talk" so much, enough to take time out of our day to compose a message to a person that everyone in the world can view, we must not want to talk that much. Maybe I'm missing the whole point of this social networking thing, maybe it's supposed to desensitize communication between everyone. Of course! Give everyone a way to easily find anyone, so they can go ahead and talk to them from a safe distance! Don't want to actually let them see you talking, of course.

Maybe I've grown out of that stage. I always thought it was bullshit, but not quite as much as I do now. I spent the last month and a half with a girl two years older than me and the difference between her and people, kids (relatively), my age, is astounding. They all do it. They leave comments, they want to make plans. They "miss" someone else, they want to hang out. They go back and forth over the course of a few hours trying to figure out schedules, when they're free, what they'll do. For chrissake it may not be as new as the internet but we humans have a faster way of communicating (screw cable speeds) called the telephone. It doesn't compare to talking face-to-face, but it allows you to hear someone's tone, a little more emotion, than simply CAPS and :)'s.

I don't know about anyone else, but language can hardly do justice to what I'm thinking. If the basis of all communication, words, can't even get 100% of the thoughts people think, well we have face-to-face conversation. We can see emotions. When we can't be close we can talk on the phone. We can't see, but at least we can hear emotions. When the phone is just too much human interaction for us, we have the computer. Instant Messaging (at least it's instant) and the likes of Myspace and Facebook take care of us hear. Problem is: we have to read emotions now? Oh, we're using our eyes. To interpret with our own minds the words and punctuation another person used to get the idea across. It's not hard to see how much the communication is degraded.