Missing Members

Started by Cato, October 24, 2011, 07:14:12 AM

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Mirror Image

Quote from: OrchestralNut on April 12, 2022, 07:25:43 AM
Incredibly sad news.

I've battled depression my whole life and have gone through a handful of really difficult times. I have managed to always find a way to get through it, but it has never been easy.

I count my blessings that I am currently doing very well now with a new medication with zero side effects (first time I can ever say that).

One of the biggest challenges of clinical depression is maintaining that remission period and remembering to continue the things that have helped you get out of the abyss.

Although I feel cured, history has shown that I slip back into it around 8-10 years.

Life is worth living, but at times it can most certainly feel like it isn't. For me, I have to work hard at it and continuously.

Working from home has been a major boon for my mental health. Unfortunately, I am ordered back to work in the office full time starting next week. That will add to my stress levels, which tremendously challenges my mental health.

It's great that you're doing much better, Ray. 8) If you need anything then don't hesitate to ask!

Brian

Quote from: Florestan on April 12, 2022, 07:21:12 AM
Also, there's a lesson I learned from both Drasko's case and amw's predicament: never ever anymore will I assume too much, if anything at all, from anyone's posts here about their character and personality; never ever anymore will I reply in an ironic, snide or sarcastic way to anyone in any circumstance. In this respect I deeply regret my behaviour towards some people here, first and foremost amw and hereby publicly and sincerely apologize.

I hope that all those who have not learned (or who have forgotten) this lesson will learn it now. Thank you for this post.

vandermolen

Quote from: Mirror Image on April 12, 2022, 10:28:57 AM
It's great that you're doing much better, Ray. 8) If you need anything then don't hesitate to ask!
+1
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

amw

Quote from: OrchestralNut on April 12, 2022, 07:25:43 AM
Incredibly sad news.

I've battled depression my whole life and have gone through a handful of really difficult times. I have managed to always find a way to get through it, but it has never been easy.

I count my blessings that I am currently doing very well now with a new medication with zero side effects (first time I can ever say that).

One of the biggest challenges of clinical depression is maintaining that remission period and remembering to continue the things that have helped you get out of the abyss.

Although I feel cured, history has shown that I slip back into it around 8-10 years.

Life is worth living, but at times it can most certainly feel like it isn't. For me, I have to work hard at it and continuously.

Working from home has been a major boon for my mental health. Unfortunately, I am ordered back to work in the office full time starting next week. That will add to my stress levels, which tremendously challenges my mental health.
I was thinking of you in particular with some of my earlier comments. Glad to hear that things are going better at the moment, at least on the medication front. I hope the office work doesn't impede that too much—remote work has been helpful for me as well, although not quite as stress-relieving as I'd hoped.

Paradoxically enough, anxiety (including office-related stress) can sometimes have a magnetic counteracting effect on depression, increasing motivation at times when one is particularly struggling with avolition; it doesn't do this in a healthy way, obviously, but if one can figure out a way to manage anxiety and fear once it's set in (for many people, anxiety can be rapidly reduced through activating the diving reflex, for example), it can provide just enough energy to get one out of bed and ready for a trip to the office. I don't necessarily recommend this unless things like medication or therapy prove ineffective, though.


Quote from: Florestan on April 12, 2022, 07:21:12 AM
Also, there's a lesson I learned from both Drasko's case and amw's predicament: never ever anymore will I assume too much, if anything at all, from anyone's posts here about their character and personality; never ever anymore will I reply in an ironic, snide or sarcastic way to anyone in any circumstance. In this respect I deeply regret my behaviour towards some people here, first and foremost amw and hereby publicly and sincerely apologize.
Truth be told, I owe you an apology as well. I have a tendency to be kind of mean to people, and though it may be exacerbated by bad mental health days, that doesn't excuse it. I do actually have a good deal of respect for you—while at times some of the things you say (mostly unrelated to me) have bothered me and I've tried to put you on ignore, I've always found myself taking you off the list a few days later to read your posts about music, and to discuss various musical topics of interest. As such, all of the snarky and baiting comments I've made towards you (or in general, really) have been out of line. Hopefully if I can stick to my goal of not bringing up politics it'll be easier for us to get along (& the same applies to anyone else I may have offended over the years).

As much as my brain might insist most of you are faded old photos or paintings of composers, North Star is a cloud, Brian is a cartoon duck, etc. (and perhaps I'm perceived by some participants here as a moonlit beach in New Zealand), we are all real people here, with very different life experiences that led us to be the way we are. For example, I have an unusual insensitivity to heated language in discussions because spirited debate and argument (sometimes with wine involved) have always been the bread and butter of my family, treated almost as a competitive intellectual sport. Nothing said over the dinner table or kitchen counter counts as a personal insult. But the internet is not my mom's kitchen, and the onus is on me to remain sensitive to the needs and preferences of others.

Florestan

Quote from: amw on April 13, 2022, 08:11:33 AM
Truth be told, I owe you an apology as well. I have a tendency to be kind of mean to people, and though it may be exacerbated by bad mental health days, that doesn't excuse it.

No apology needed, really. I've been way meaner to you than you have ever been to me.

QuoteI do actually have a good deal of respect for you—while at times some of the things you say (mostly unrelated to me) have bothered me and I've tried to put you on ignore, I've always found myself taking you off the list a few days later to read your posts about music, and to discuss various musical topics of interest.

Hah! Too funny! I have the same experience with you. I've put you on ignore several times but always eventually took you off the list because it'd have been stupid to deprive myself of your insightful and knowledgeable posts.  :D

Okay then, now that we're even let's agree to disagree politically (although when it comes to the war in Ukraine we agree on many things) and let's concentrate on music alone (or other arts) in our future exchanges. We do have a lot in common in this respect.

Friends?  :-*

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

amw

Quote from: Florestan on April 13, 2022, 08:40:23 AM
Hah! Too funny! I have the same experience with you. I've put you on ignore several times but always eventually took you off the list because it'd have been stupid to deprive myself of your insightful and knowledgeable posts.  :D

Okay then, now that we're even let's agree to disagree politically (although when it comes to the war in Ukraine we agree on many things) and let's concentrate on music alone (or other arts) in our future exchanges. We do have a lot in common in this respect.

Friends?  :-*
Sounds good to me! Talking about music is in any case a lot more fun and interesting from my point of view. Politics are (for me at least) much more of a bad habit picked up over the kitchen counter as a teen, sort of like the Ashkenazi Jewish (& various other ethnicities) version of secondhand smoke inhalation

Madiel

Funnily enough you're 2 of the people I enjoy the most for musical discussion on the forum.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Brian

The angry shouty duck is a reminder to myself to not take any of this too seriously, because if I get too heated in an argument, people will think that avatar is actually me  ;D ;D

Florestan

Quote from: Madiel on April 13, 2022, 02:57:12 PM
Funnily enough you're 2 of the people I enjoy the most for musical discussion on the forum.

Thank you, the feeling is reciprocal.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Brian

I wonder what happened to King Ubu, who was one of our most knowledgeable jazz lovers and very generous with recommendations and insights.

Mirror Image

#3670
Quote from: Brian on April 17, 2022, 01:20:10 PM
I wonder what happened to King Ubu, who was one of our most knowledgeable jazz lovers and very generous with recommendations and insights.

Lone gone, I'm afraid. I asked about him not too long after his disappearance and no one knows. Probably found another forum or, better yet, got an actual life. ;) ;D

P.S. I'll be your jazz buddy any day of the week. I spent 15 years listening to nothing but jazz and I learned A LOT about the genre as a whole. If I were to give myself a specialty (or specialities), it would be Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington (esp. late Ellington like late 50s until his passing), Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk. These are the cats I'm most knowledgable about.

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: vandermolen on April 12, 2022, 12:10:50 AM
I recommended this to a psychotherapist friend of mine who had a severely depressed client in a mental hospital. His client apparently found the book very helpful. I know that any book is not the answer to the vicissitudes of life - but you never know. A book that I have found helpful is the 'Wisdom of Insecurity' by Alan Watts, in which he points out that in Dante's 'Inferno' the way out of Hell is through the centre - I have found this weirdly comforting during difficult periods of my own life:


Is the book good even for non-believers? Thank you, Jeffrey!

vandermolen

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on April 18, 2022, 09:02:22 AM
Is the book good even for non-believers? Thank you, Jeffrey!
Neither book is Religious Manabu.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: vandermolen on April 18, 2022, 12:36:27 PM
Neither book is Religious Manabu.

Ordered. Thank you, Jeffrey!

Spotted Horses

#3674
Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on April 18, 2022, 09:02:22 AM
Is the book good even for non-believers? Thank you, Jeffrey!

Alan Watts was a Buddhist speaker and teacher, so the book is written from the general viewpoint of Buddhist philosophy.
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: Spotted Horses on April 18, 2022, 06:44:59 PM
Alan Watts was a Buddhist speak and teacher, so the book is written from the general viewpoint of Buddhist philosophy.

Sounds great! Thanks for the info.

vandermolen

#3676
Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on April 18, 2022, 01:17:32 PM
Ordered. Thank you, Jeffrey!
My pleasure Manabu - I hope that you you find the book/books helpful. If you get the chance let us know what you think. Arthur (Spotted Horses) is quite right about the Alan Watts book, although it also follows the Taoist tradition. I often consult the Tao Te Ching for inspiration  :)

There's a famous book 'Dark Nights of the Soul' written by the Spanish mystic St John of The Cross, but the one I meant is written by a contemporary author, Thomas Moore (not to be confused with the English theologian, Thomas More, executed during the reign of Henry VIII !)
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: vandermolen on April 19, 2022, 12:21:15 AM
My pleasure Manabu - I hope that you you find the book/books helpful. If you get the chance let us know what you think. Arthur (Spotted Horses) is quite right about the Alan Watts book, although it also follows the Taoist tradition. I often consult the Tao Te Ching for inspiration  :)

There's a famous book 'Dark Nights of the Soul' written by the Spanish mystic St John of The Cross, but the one I meant is written by a contemporary author, Thomas Moore (not to be confused with the English theologian, Thomas More, executed during the reign of Henry VIII !)

Yes, I have a few books by Watts. Looking forward to reading the book by Moore. The book received very good reviews on Amazon.

Mirror Image

Getting back to missing members, I really wish Peter (Moonfish) would return. I miss his contributions.

vandermolen

Quote from: Mirror Image on April 19, 2022, 06:20:27 AM
Getting back to missing members, I really wish Peter (Moonfish) would return. I miss his contributions.
Yes, he was a familiar name at one time.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).