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Cutting Oneself

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Cutting Oneself

JayDe01
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Posted 05/12/08 - 01:20 AM:	#26
I didn't mean my statement in an evolutionary way, I think the survival instinct is something born into people, and has been since the beginning of time. I think if we weren't originally 'packaged' with the survival instinct, it would be too late to learn it, we would have not eaten or drunk or generally not bothered to keep ourselves alive. And in reply to JAC's questions: what should he pursue that is 'natural' - i am not trying to lead into a life direction of natural living. I am just wondering how right it can feel to cut yourself? As I have not cut myself. But I do not deny the fact that injury can bring with it a sort of surreal feeling.

Benkei
Self-hating Dutchman

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Posted 05/13/08 - 05:23 AM:	#27
JAC, I suggest you read the following article as well: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/07/healthscie... I think in any case that it might be worthwhile for you to figure out where this "emptiness" you described comes from. Is it a temporary existential funk or more deeply ingrained? Are there other activities you value as much if not more than cutting yourself? If so, why aren't you concentrating on those instead? Why do you feel the need to fill emptiness and what is wrong with simply accepting that and not filling it with cutting yourself? Just a few questions that popped into my mind after reading the article. If you cannot answer the questions, or suspect you're not being truthful to yourself, I suggest to have 2 or 3 meetings with a psychiatrist, see if you like the general idea first. If so, a good one tends to be very helpful in formulating the questions you're dealing with and finding answers. This might seem like a big step but I have made use of a psychiatrist several times to enable me to appropriately deal with situations at work for instance. I see them more as an independent third party, a consultant, I can dump everything on in complete confidentiality.
- How are you doing? - I'm doing good. _ No, Superman is doing Good, you're doing well. You need to brush up on your grammar.

unenlightened
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Posted 05/13/08 - 10:58 AM:	#28
Benkei wrote: This might seem like a big step but I have made use of a psychiatrist several times to enable me to appropriately deal with situations at work for instance. I see them more as an independent third party, a consultant, I can dump everything on in complete confidentiality. Perhaps one could see/use philosophy forums the same way. JAC wrote: I'm expressing an accomplishment to myself. Something about the fear of doing it, the courage it takes to overcome that fear, the pain and yet the pleasure, the idea of death which goes with blood and yet the life that blood represents. All these conflicting ideas culminate into one vivid celebration of human existence through the act of self-injury. It's not an individual phenomenon; it seems to be a fairly widespread response to modern society, and perhaps to modern philosophy. Perhaps it is an attempt to reject the passivity, dependence and disembodied nature that is imposed or at least facilitated by modern life. When Freud was developing his theories, hysteria was the psychological epidemic; times change, and 'weirdness' has fashions like anything else. It seems like an intellectual's condition; I can't imagine a butcher or a sawmill worker expressing themselves in this way. How to demonstrate that one is indeed more than just an endless stream of disembodied, unoriginal, and ultimately pointless thoughts and impressions? "When you cut me, do I not bleed?" And yet, JAC, the sad thing is that although you do indeed bleed, you are still talking to yourself - still passive. I think what is needed here is not an independent, third party, but a responsive second party. The world does actually need you, but you are too busy 'celebrating human existence'.
The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

PontificatingChauncy
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Posted 05/13/08 - 07:20 PM:	#29
I always feel uncomfortable watching depictions of people cutting themselves. Although I do eat my scabs after I accidentally cut myself and if any blood comes out I drink it. And I've attempted non-cut-related suicide twice in the last year. Early in the year, feel a little better now.
The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. That thing is a chauncy

Benkei
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Posted 05/13/08 - 11:00 PM:	#30
Glad you're feeling better, PC.
- How are you doing? - I'm doing good. _ No, Superman is doing Good, you're doing well. You need to brush up on your grammar.

Wat Tyler
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Posted 05/26/08 - 01:49 PM:	#31
ah cutting oneself! why would an individual, whose prime objective (like any living being) is survival, decide to purposefully threaten that? firstly a life of comfort, might I say extreme comfort, that we westerners all enjoy, means that a cut on the hand, finger, arm etc is no longer life threatening. You are not at a high risk of infection or of blood loss so you can therefore experiment knowing full well that you are not going to die from it. Because, I presume, that your objective when cutting yourself is not suicide rather it is something else. Yet when we hear of cuts and blood we still hear that old instinctual echo in our minds that tells us that cuts and bleeding is harmful, therefore bad, yet we could do it just as easily as you because we have, more or less, the same comforts. But we don't do it although we could and by all means if one wants to why not? You my friend, creator of this topic, do it because you can. You are experiencing a rush from the power that your mind now possesses, you are exploring your inner self, this power that is giving you such a thrill is the power of your mind, because your mind can now harm the body without an instinctual revulsion to it. You are fully aware, in your mind anyway, that you are doing no real long lasting harm to yourself although your body is still unsure. You are experiencing the power that the mind now has over the instinctual drives, instincts used to be the pillars of our living but now it is something else, that something else is reasoning. You are experiencing the power of Reason. In other words you are completely normal and you're simply experimenting.

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