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AcidX
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Boring Update and Wisdom or something

Posted by AcidX - April 3rd, 2017


Time for a new post. How are we all?

Following my recent discharge from hospital, after my fairly horrific accident, it seems a good time for a little update. I'm currently about 15 months into an estimated 5-year recovery but deemed well enough not to need Hospital checkups and be making a steady recovery. I no longer need crutches or walking sticks, all that I'm really working on now is getting my balance and some of my flexibility back. It's still quite painful and who knows what long term effects will remain. Certainly lots of pain which wasn't there before.

Also, check out these new toys I got for drawing/animation reference. Aren't they sweet!?
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This post, I'm gonna talk about what I've learned since my accident. It was probably the hardest time in my life and I'd already had my fair share of trials and tribulations, learning plenty of life-lessons along the way.

The most important thing I learned, is The Value of Friendship.
As cliche and unoriginal as that sounds. I'm very cynical, very sarcastic and neurotic to my core. Most people mistakenly interpret that as me being an asshole or not caring but in reality, I just don't trust anybody. I care deeply. I am passionate about all things. To the point where, I get emotional over stupid things and people being untrue. Like Rick Sanchez: I'm all about the much greater, four-dimensional factual picture; over anyone's feelings, opinions or emotions - none of them last forever. So I don't have many friends. Often through choice. Even fewer true friends, that I can rely on. The creative field is a battleground, at the best of times, and people are always waiting to fuck you over in this game. Look at the great talents being censored and penalised all over the internet right now. Stupid jealous losers hacking talented people and trying to get them shut down. Usually because a difference of opinion or outright lack of substance. So, friends. Who stick by you and help you. Those are the people to really cherish. Unlike the work colleagues I'd thought were my new friends... who abandoned me, didn't visit in their own time or spend any of my recovery with me. Yet, still expected me to work from home for them when I couldn't even dress myself, let alone walk or carry things. Fools. I was ready to give a lot of myself to that company and had any of them been in my situation, I'd have at least visited them every few weeks. Cunts. Now extremely glad I didn't waste my energy with them and correctly assumed that they had all obviously talked shit about me. I wasn't on the agenda since the moment I entered hospital. As if my pain, loneliness and suffering just wasn't quite enough for those shitheads. This contrast really helped me appreciate my true friends. One of my good friends in particular... He would come and help me up the stairs to bed every night, when my leg was swollen up and I couldn't haul my way up there alone - for about 3-4 months! I didn't ask him to. I didn't give him anything at the time. He just did it, coz he's a fuckin br0 and knew the state I was in. Knew how close I came to my demise and was happy I didn't. So make sure you got one of those friends, or better still.. that you are one of those friends. Without it, I wouldn't be making this recovery. Just being there, for someone who feels like they have no one... Is more than enough. They might look like they don't appreciate it or struggle to vocalise their gratitude but put yourself in their place. They have a lot of shit going on under the surface and your presence alone reminds them to carry on. Of course, this can come from your family too but you can't choose your family, so I focused on friends in this case.

Bringing me neatly to point two. Psychological trauma, bordering on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Again, without my best friends and family around... I'd have given up. I wouldn't be making this recovery. I might not even be alive. Even with all that, there were times when I had breakdowns and wanted to guzzle handfuls of painkillers, then never wake up. People are always talking about the importance of mental health and how widespread things like depression are. To a degree, I would say, that's just life. A lot of people have an easy ride through it and the minute they hit hard times, they aren't prepared for it. The hormonal imbalances. The self-loathing, self-depreciation and complete feeling of hopelessness. If you're not prepared or strong enough, that shit will crumble your entire reality. When I hit peak manic depression nearly a decade ago, I literally lost my voice. I became so repressed and reclusive that all my social skills shut down. I didn't even think anything of it and wasn't til looking back five years on, that I realised just how much that damaged me and my entire life. Yet, thanks to that, I was able to pre-empt this trauma and asses it. Almost knowing what to expect. Back in school, I'd dealt with some of this as a young child. I soldiered through and somehow built up throughout my teens. Had the time of my life making shitty Flash cartoons on a crappy Trust drawing tablet, on a shitty PC that barely had a 1Ghz single core processor. Despite all the crap I'd been through and not really knowing what I was doing, I had a great time. Despite people trying to shut me down, bully me and send me viruses every day... Life was great. I used to laugh at people wallowing in their teenage emo depression. Which feels slightly bad, looking back but... That's just it. You can't let this stuff consume you. Fear will consume you. Face your fears. Only you can conquer yourself. Don't let emotions and certainly not the actions of other people defeat you. Yeah. Psychological trauma sucked for a while. It sort of disappeared as the intense pain faded and mobility came back. I still have the occaisional night terror. Surreal existential dreams. Once you learn to embrace these struggles, it's not so bad. That's all you can do. It never goes away but you will look back when you've grown stronger and just wonder why it ever mattered in the first place.

Third lesson.. Money ain't shit.
I shouldn't have to be saying this but we live in an age where people care more about their possessions and material things, than they do for each other. This proverb has been told enough times. It's where you at, not where you been. Money makes the world go round. You can't take it all with you... etc. But fuck! There's more to life than money!! More to life than grinding your ass off in a job for some douchebag, who will use you and take all the credit. That's someone elses dream, not yours. More to life than paying bills. The world doesn't end when your bank account is empty. You don't go to jail, unless you're severely bankrupt. Embrace your freedom. Fuck money off. That fear of going broke is all that's keeping you in your place. You're more than a cog in that machine. The only reason people like me even want money, is so we can actually be included and compete in this scummy capitalist society. I only want money to buy new equipment, get some weed or keep a roof over my head. It's so that our voice can be heard, our opinions shared. Not because we want more money, or more material things. If that was the case, I'd make porn or commit crimes. Easy money right there. I sure as hell wouldn't be trying to make it through life with an honest, creative career. Don't base your life or ambitions on money. If you do, then you already fucked up and are a terrible person. Currency is the bane of humanity and just another way you're letting yourself be controlled. I hate that money has been the only ever thing holding my creativity back for years. It won't buy you freedom, it won't buy you happiness. It'll just buy you more confinement, more responsibility and tighten the vice grip that the government has on your balls. The more of it you've got, the more of it they're gonna take. It's quite literally a false economy, given that a good 90%+ of the worlds money isn't even physical anymore. Do whatever you do for the passion and love, not the reward.

After last years shit-show of politics and conflict... First people saying Brexit would never happen.. Then people saying Trump would never win... Guess what. They both happened. It feels great to be on the winning side for a change but they are empty hollow victories, in the much grander scheme of things. I have some hope. Hope that people are waking up to the constant bullshit and lies we're fed from mainstream media. Hope that people are fed up of our propaganda. Yet I know deep-down it's all fuelled by confusion and rage. Rather than informed and educated decision making. I was lucky to be exposed to all this thought from a young age, being an active user on the internet before smart phones and dawn of the web 2.0 idiot. I've been lucky to see the story from both sides all along and if things carry on the way they're going, that hope will be lost. Future generations won't have this privilege and might as well be tuning into the radio for it's spoon-fed headline brainwashing bullcrap. Watching things like Kim Dotcom's lawsuit taking forever and people facing extradition over plain old data... People forgetting about the Panama Papers leak and Iceland's greedy, corrupt off-shore bankers finally being jailed because of said leak... It fills me with doubt. Doubt that the wrong people are still calling the shots. Doubt that anyone in charge really has the interests of the common citizen close to their heart. Doubt that anything we do makes a fucking difference. Doubt that any of this is sustainable at all. Doubt that anyone really knows what we're up against. We need to be more like Iceland and out protesting by the million. So... As Tom Fulp is always saying... Support NewGrounds. Make this the place for creativity and opinions to be shared. It's the only community that hasn't bent and buckled under the pressure of societies expecations. It's everything, by everyone. It's expecting the unexpected.

Some of the other things I learned in this period included...

  • The importance of good posture.
  • The importance of fruit (or vegetables, if you're into that).
  • The unimportance of sugar.
  • Books are still great.
  • Building scale models is fun -- and also useful as artist reference.
  • Bitches would rather fabricate a bunch of lies and convince themselves it's all truth, than spend their time with me.
  • Bitches would rather go behind their fiancés back, destroy a childs future and get with a married man, than date me - an actually single crippled and lonely neckbeard.
  • Bitches would rather get engaged to their asshole ex than date me, then immediately regret their short-sighted stupidity, when it collapsed within 3 months. Waste.
  • Bitches will be bitches and the bitches do indeed be cray. They also seemingly want me to be full of this angst about them, while I just wanna live a life with no stress and no drama.
  • Videogames are a great distraction from extreme pain and severe immobility.
  • Weed is second-best to Morphine, as a painkiller. Arguably better, as too much won't kill you.
  • Brownies are fun to make and even more fun to eat. 
  • Never put anyone on a pedestal because we're all the same.
  • Repression and hate are a waste of your very limited energy.
  • Love don't cost a thing, invest it wisely and generously.
  • Net Neutrality is the utmost important crisis we face. Defend Net Neutrality at all costs.
  • Surveillance won't prevent terrorism or crimes, only make the general public more vulnerable.
  • We the people hold the power, not "them".
  • Disconnect. Get away from the digital world, get outside or away from all this noise somehow.
  • Smartphones and technology are dividing us more than any amount of politics.
  • Fear is controlling us and forcing us to endorse things like genocide, in foreign lands, to spread western influence.
  • All this suffereing and turmoil is because of the banks. Money. Corruption. Currency. Because that's what Power is these days.
  • Rockefeller is dead and hopefully Money Culture along with him.

Ok I knew most of them last ones already but they definitely needed reinforcing. Anyway, stay tuned. Working on lots of exciting stuff, as always. This time, things may actually materialise as... All the barriers preventing me before and destroying my morale, are no longer there. Anyone who read all of this... Why? But also thank you.

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Peace out bitchez!


Comments

I'm happy to hear your ok.

That may be odd coming from a stranger, but my father died in a violent car crash that I watched from a distance; it wasn't anyone's fault and there was nothing I could of done once it happens, but I've always felt very guilty about not stopping it.

One thing I learned from all of this is that most people live in a bubble. They think nothing can happen, everything is ok, and that the ending will always leave the "cast" of their lives as they where in the beginning of the episode like some dumb sitcom. It takes shit to happen to wake people up. It really sucks for a while, it never fully goes away; but the most important part is that overtime it'll make you stronger then you could possible have imagined.

Failure can teach a man a lot more then anything else if you aren't too proud to learn; this is how I feel about this.

Good luck and endure; I hope my words where of some help.

Hey as I say, sometimes it helps just to know someone is listening. Whether they're a stranger or not.

That sounds pretty horrible just having to witness a fatal car accident like that, let alone losing a loved one at the same time. I can't even imagine how hard that must've been and feel even more helpless with these attempts to offer some consolidation.

You're right though, I once had a conversation with a lady who had worked in a care home - type of one where old people whose families forget them, go to die. She said there were two main types of people there. Those prepared for it and those who get terrified, act like they never saw it coming. Luckily, I'm the former. I've lived a life without regret and left nothing unsaid one way or another. I've done what I can, so needn't be afraid when I get there.

Trust me, my little bubble popped when I was 8 years old and my dad left. Life was very different for me from then on. Maybe even before that, having experienced Meningitis and other life-threatening infections at a young age. It made me who I am now and taught me at an early age to forget about "what could've been". I've always felt hyper-aware of things around me and get pissed to see sooo many self-absorbed people living out stupid dystopian fantasy lives where they are all that matters. They really could benefit from putting themselves in other people's shoes and viewing the world through different eyes every once in a while.
Sadly, dumb blind people like that will keep making the wrong political votes and supporting the fascist agendas that cause all this suffering.

Peace man and thank you for also sharing your own wisdom.

I'm severely bankrupt.

It's a good way to be. Life on the edge!

Skimmed through the previous post on the crash before this, and man that looked insane. :| What did you crash into, though? Another vehicle (if so how did it go for those guys)? Some other obstruction?

Good to hear you're recouping! And keeping creative. And attaining new wisdoms. On your fruit loot pointer: there's a lot less sugar in vegetables, so I'm more into those whether I like them or no. ;) Also do think having good idols inspires you to be better, so I like to put someone like Jackie Chan on a pedestal; remind me that's the kind of person I aspire to be. I'm still following that Kim Dotcom trial too, crazy how long it's been going on, though he seems to be making the best of his situation too. Yeah, cash is still king (people don't think about what that really means), but with cards and digital currency... our entire economy's a lie. I keep waiting for it to break down, but as long as we keep consuming maybe that just won't happen... feels like the Earth itself is the real deadline. Once we've exploited it so much our very existence is threatened, maybe there'll be something less superficial to unite us; set us on a better path.

Good read! Stay strong.

Thank you for the comments and kind sentiments! Here's some pics of the other car and general damage http://imgur.com/a/1GGgG . Of course, he was fine. Barely even a scratch. Actually started threatening and raging. I was terrified he was gonna pull me out my car, when I was still too stunned to even move!! Didn't even realise I was injured or in pain until the ambulance crew came. insurance claim is dragging onnnn though. Still.

Sure, I like certain vegetables. As long as they are cooked... Also enjoy cooking fruit too. I wouldn't be too worried about naturally occurring sugars. They aren't like isolated sugar or more synthetic ones, like Fructose corn syrup and sweeteners, which fuck with your insulin n stuff. The sugars in fruit and veg are balanced to the other nutrition in them so are almost good for you. It's just so damn hard to get away from sugar these days! Can't seem to get a drink without also drinking about 30g of sugar or more.

Sure, we should definitely respect people who achieve great things and even try to emulate them ourselves! This was more general, talking about "regular" people in our day to day lives; not putting someone above us just because society tells us to or because your friends want you to. It's important to remember we're all equal. We're just human beings.
Also, Jackie Chan huh? :) Did you ever read about the time Adam Philips (yes chluaid!) ran the Jackie Chan fanclub?? :P
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4706sd/who_was_your_saddest_celebrity_encounter/d099pq4/ great read.

The Dotcom trial is fascinating. They are clearly dragging it on and on, in hopes that some new law will be introduced. Then they're gonna try sting him on that. They already switched from a copyright case to a fraud one lately. Which is totally illegal; that's the FBI for you. I can't wait to watch this documentary when it's done with film festivals. It's great that he's set out on multiple new ventures, even in his current position.

It's always great to find people who understand the importance of our one and only planet; over our feelings and money, or whatever bullshit people are forcing into the spotlight. High five!

Short of alien overlords coming and saying they will wipe out humanity if we don't co-opoerate.. I think the best thing we can hope for is another plague. Something that really skews the population numbers and brings people together. Sad to say that but... We're headed for something tragic either way. I'd just rather it be a peaceful resolve rather than yet another bloody war-ridden one.

oh jesus. I recently tore a ligament in my arm unveiling my pain threshold. I couldn't take that amount of pain again. But my injury is like a mosquito bite compared to what you went through.

that's some sweet art dude...from reading your anti-capitalist sentiments why would you feel that a Trump victory is indicative of being on the winning side? He's all about making America "rich" again and the GDP. The lesser of two evils is still very evil in that regard. And you can bet your boots that he's going to be pushing for legislature that's going to diminish net neutrality.

Surveillance would curtail terrorism/crime but is a crime in and of itself and would essentially permit the government to commit terrorism against its own people (that happens to a certain degree anyway)

i'd say wealth isn't evil, it's the desire for wealth which is evil. Capitalism at its core is just paying a fair price for a service. there's nothing inherently wrong with the system, but plenty of corrupt people within the system who use others as a means to an ends.

As technology evolves capital becomes redundant...but the development rate is moving to fast for society to amend its moral compass. Hundreds of years ago slavery was justified. Hopefully in a hundred years it becomes morally unacceptable to pollute the Earth for future generations and treat everything with a means in itself. If not, then the human race and Earth can only maintain a couple more generations until a devastating collapse.

don't know, Cyberdevil's comment appeared in my feed and here I am...

Haha.. All pain is still pain!! It fades in time. Or.. Sort of doesn't, in my case. It's just nowhere near as bad as it was at the time.
Take recovery seriously would be my best advice. Your doctor isn't giving their professional opinions for a laugh :) Also do your physio exercises, if you've been given some of those. Then just eat properly, rest well.. etc.

I don't feel Trump winning is a real "victory". I just didn't agree with Clinton bribing Sanders out of his campaign (with mystery 'leverage') and trying to steal all the support he had. The "victory" here is that people saw through it. People didn't want to endorse that corruption and fuckery. The general population don't want to be represented by lies and deceit. The small victory, is that regular people are as fed up of it all as I've been this whole time.
Although, he did cancel TTIP/TPP which is great. Until the next one appears.

What seems weird... Which people don't seem to get... If you want to make our nations rich again... Just stop pouring money into bombs and wars? Put someone in power who actually does want real, genuine change. I'm not even anti-war, it's just laughable that our biggest expenditures are excursions in foreign lands, which some people have never even heard of. Even less people know why we're actually at war. Then everyone's sat there, moaning about the state of our own infrastructures.

Surveillance hasn't been proven to do anything to be honest. France has surveillance on encrypted comms. Look what happened there, with all the shootings. It didn't stop shit because the real criminals and terrorists are always 5 steps ahead. They communicated over unencrypted regular old phone calls! You might catch out one or two amateurs but actual organised crime is precisely that. A business. It needs to be tackled like one. Spying on business is great if you're competing with it but we're trying to shut it down. We need to cut it off at the source.
All surveillance does is make the general public more vulnerable. Especially when you start storing this data; it will be sold and maybe hacked/leaked into the wrong hands. It's a bad, baaad way to go. Luddite dinosaur politicians, thinking the web has some magic portal to the bad guy hangout because they don't understand it. Don't the NSA still have yet to catch a single act of anything it's meant to protect against? That's over 15 years they've been spying on us, learning about us and..achieved nothing they set out to do. That's over half my lifetime.

The desire for wealth is definitely what's evil. Greed has always been evil and a problem, as told in many proverbs. It's scary these days, when lots of money also means lots of power and influence. It doesn't mean someone with lots of money is inherently a bad person but someone with lots of money and bad intentions could easily do way more damage than any amount of terrorism. Arguably, we already are. To our oceans.

Lets just keep hoping that people wake up and as you say.. In 100 years time... All of todays practices of killing the planet and dividing our citizens will be unjustifiable and illegal!

Wellp, thanks for joining in 8^)

Fellow PTSD sufferer here. I feel your pain of not trusting (or finding it difficult to trust) others; that's one of the things it can do in some cases I guess. Also, hello.

Yo safe for reaching out dude.
It's a horrible mistress is the old PTSD.
It was worse when it still hurt just to move my leg. Waking up in cold sweats, after sleep paralysis and flashback night terrors.
Or having dreams where I was fine then waking up and twisting slightly wrong, pain shooting back and all the reminders setting in.

Hell..the not trusting people is from over a decade ago and lifetime of being bullied lol that's a whole other set of traumas, for me :P sort of helps though. Keeping people at arms length is a good means to avoid letting them fuck you over. Just as with my ex-colleagues. Turns out none of em gave half as many shits about me, as I did them. Certain members wanted to use me and give me a shit pay, to do everything they couldn't do ...including actually being good at their jobs.
Yeah.
PTSD.

Man what a difference on the amount of carnage on yours and the other car! :|

Cooking fruit hmm, interesting, didn't even know you could do that. Yeah you're right Fructose corn syrup and sweeteners are a whole other level of bad, but people who get by on fruit-only diets don't fare too well either, gotta have a balance. It seems to be worst for the teeth btw, without any calcium or other minerals (can be found in plenty of other stuff than just milk) they just wither away... I'm drinking a lot of coconut water lately, btw, barely any natural sugar at all (and nothing added). They exist but yeah, 'mainstream drinks' are a whole other thing...

True that. Also man that'a a depressing account to read (hadn't read it earlier no)!! Would suck to meet your idol and be treated like that. I thought Jackie Chan was one of the most humble guys too.

For sure. High five back at ya.

When that wave of Ebola came about a couple years ago I thought that might be it... but turns out we survived after all! It does feel like we need something like that to get back on the right path, but when something that seems to be 'it' does come around I start second-guessing those thoughts, wouldn't want people I know (nor myself) to be taken in by the seige... but of course that's human nature, don't want to let go of what you have, and don't realize what you have until you lose it (or at least until there's a chance you might and you can imagine what it might be like). Reminds me of how i read about Samurai, on how they started each day by envisioning their death, so they'd be able to live each day to the fullest; like it might be their last. Always ready. Sounds a bit overly morbid to live like that but... there's some wisdom to it at least. Yeah, hope so too. I've been starting to wonder if maybe the human race will dwindle in numbers simply because of apathy. If we reach such a point that birth rates plummet, and people just lose interest. Seems first-world countries have already started on that route.

Sorry for the late reply btw, somehow this thing got buried below a mound of other bookmarks...

you complete us too :}

fam

Wow!!! I'm glad you are ok. It's been a few months. How are you now? Your post wasn't boring at all. It was very insightful, and I agree with a lot of what you said.

Heylo sweet , I forgot to reply to this. I was busy with so much stuff back then. I am doing so well now! I can run and climb -- and still recovering (jus under 2yrs to go)! Already recovered better than I ever thought possible.. It is amazing. I hope you are well too.