With weight, I'd just remember one thing. The scale isn't the only thing that matters on fat loss -- what if you lost 5lb of fat but gained 2lb of muscle? Might be disappointing to see you only lost 3lbDay 608 (20 months!)
@Androg, thank you so much for that beautiful and thoughtful post yesterday. It really made my day and I very much appreciate it. I've been thinking a lot about it, and have much to say, but don't have time at the moment to write a long post which it deserves, but I just wanted to let you know it meant a lot. Thank you.
Thanks @GBS! It's hard to believe, but true.
Well, I just discovered something called a Body Fat Percentage to Weight Calculator, and all I can say is, where has this been all this time? Anyway, it's good to know what I need to do to actually get to 15% body fat, but it's also a little disheartening to say the least. It looks like I need to loose exactly 20 pounds to get to my goal, and that is without losing any of my current muscle mass. Although this is a little humbling, it's also good to know EXACTLY where I am and what I need to do to get there. Fuck, why can't there be a Porn Mind to Recovered Mind Calculator?
Best all
Congratulations my brother. You are the light of this forum. God bless you Blondie. You keep doing your thing champ .Day 608 (20 months!)
@Androg, thank you so much for that beautiful and thoughtful post yesterday. It really made my day and I very much appreciate it. I've been thinking a lot about it, and have much to say, but don't have time at the moment to write a long post which it deserves, but I just wanted to let you know it meant a lot. Thank you.
Thanks @GBS! It's hard to believe, but true.
Well, I just discovered something called a Body Fat Percentage to Weight Calculator, and all I can say is, where has this been all this time? Anyway, it's good to know what I need to do to actually get to 15% body fat, but it's also a little disheartening to say the least. It looks like I need to loose exactly 20 pounds to get to my goal, and that is without losing any of my current muscle mass. Although this is a little humbling, it's also good to know EXACTLY where I am and what I need to do to get there. Fuck, why can't there be a Porn Mind to Recovered Mind Calculator?
Best all
Hell yes, please someone invent this. On a serious note. The science around our neurochemicals in our brains is still in stone age time. I wonder what is possible / is known in 100years from now. I wonder if porn is treated more like hard drugs especially for peoeple below 18.Fuck, why can't there be a Porn Mind to Recovered Mind Calculator?
Hey @swimmer97, yes, who knows, hopefully at that time they will start treating it like the problem it actually is and not just ignore it. And you're right about the science behind this, we really are just on the tip of the iceberg when it comes to knowledge of this stuff.The science around our neurochemicals in our brains is still in stone age time. I wonder what is possible / is known in 100years from now. I wonder if porn is treated more like hard drugs especially for peoeple below 18.
Thanks man, I will.GL on your weight loss journey. Please keep us updated. Keep killing
Hey @Androg, I would definitely agree, there needs to be a solution here in one way or another. I would say though that the "horniness" I was talking about recently was still porn induced, which I think has subsided a little over the last few days. I'm still horny like always, but I'm doing okay, what was going on there (the last week or so) was definitely the old porn pathways coming back for a moment and sexualizing everything, which is still surprising this far out but not that crazy.I'd like to return to the issue of habituation...because it seems vital to know if there's a solution to the conundrum. If there isn't and the only option is to remain miserably horny all the time - in or out of a relationship - then it's harder to rationalize stepping away from porn use/promiscuity (as a short-term goal)...even though there are unquestionable personal benefits from stepping away from them in the longer term.
Yes and yes. And the energy just thinking about it is mind numbing. I hate to think how much time I've lost thinking and over analyzing this relationship and what I should or should not do about it.For one thing, turnover in relationships is exhausting and distracting despite the thrills of seduction/being seduced. It gets in the way of more meaningful contributions or one's life's work, whatever it may be.
I agree with this too. Any kind of pleasure in the moment, if it removes pleasure and contentment in the future, is really not true pleasure in the truest sense of the term. I don't think I would leave this relationship just to "get some!" although yes, that's tempting sometimes when you have the option, and yes I know you're not implying that. And I also see and understand that sex is just one of the many pleasures of life and it's not the meaning of it, and we need some higher purpose than just having fun with our cocks out.My hunch is that the only way past the screaming insistence of our mating neurochemistry and its plans for our love lives is to incorporate into our partnerships some higher purpose, whether it be, for example, service to others or clearer spiritual perception. If the relationship is primarily based on pursuit of passion (physical gratification), with or without conservation of sexual energy, then the outcome is likely to be stagnation...or pursuit of more passion/dopamine as we try in vain to scratch our itch. And we know sexual novelty reliably raises dopamine, so it will remain on the menu, creating restlessness.
I think this last paragraph is my main "problem" and it's what I need to figure out, although to be honest I'm really tired of trying to "figure" this out, that is, the relationship part. As far as my purpose goes, that is also a work in progress but it is becoming more clear these days. What I'm going to school for is definitely a passion of mine, and I should be able to get a job with it afterwards, although I'm still not 100% sure that will be my main thing for the long run. One of my main problems is that I still don't have a clear vision of what I want just yet, although I know I'm heading in the right direction. I'm kind of a late bloomer to be honest, both by personality and because of circumstances from my childhood, which I won't be getting into here. Needless to say, although I'm forty and more mature than most of my peers at school, in some ways, I feel I'm in the same situation in life as many of them, that is, just trying to figure out life for the first time and not being stuck at some shit job, although I'm not under any delusions that anyone ever has it completely "figured" out. I don't feel bad about this truth per se, but it is the truth of the matter and it was one of the driving factors of my porn habit in my 30s, just feeling sorry for myself and my situation. Of course, on the flipside, I don't really know if many of the things 'society' or 'people' care about are really my cup of tea, that is, marriage, a large savings account, a house, kids and a white picket fence. There's nothing wrong with those things per se, but they've never been terribly important to me, possibly because of my previously mentioned circumstances, but also from my own values which I hold very dear to my heart. But this leads me to my relationship, and what I should or should not do.I mention this only because your service to this forum is so inspiring. It's clear that part of you is reaching for this kind of larger service anyway. Is your current partner someone with whom you could engage in some larger, joint project? If not, perhaps that is the cause of your restlessness, rather than mere sexual novelty. In any case, I wouldn't jump ship until you have a clear idea of what your life purpose is and how she may, or may not, fit into it, or you may well be on a distracting merry-go-round rather than a path to greater contentment.
I've been to several weddings over the last few years, and I always find myself asking, how the fuck to people do that? That is, walk down the aisle so giddy and ridiculously happy. Don't they know there's a 50% chance it won't work out? Do they not see if this was a business investment it would be considered the stupidest business decision ever? Don't they know someone will probably cheat or want to during the modern world's insane life expectancy rates? Don't they know that one of them statistically speaking is more likely than not just settling down because of fears of being alone and NOT because of something called "love" or "having found the one"? Don't they know that monogamy might have worked when we all died at the age of 60, but not with the future predictions of brain, heart and 12" cock transplants at the age of 160? Do they not realize that modern marriage is just a clusterfuck of Disney bullshit, Hallmark and Consumer Capitalism, with many men just wanting to lock down sex for "love" and quite a few women wanting the "wedding" but not the actual marriage?
Yeah, I think the biggest problem with marriage, is not necessarily the idea of it, or even that you're "supposed" to be monogamous, but just the fact that it hasn't changed in its basic assumptions and outlook, while the whole wide world has utterly changed around it. It worked great, or mostly great, when everyone was encouraged to get married at a young age and divorce was looked down on and culturally shamed. Thus, it "worked" in the sense of what marriage has always traditionally been, that is, giving birth to the next generation through a partnership that might have been fulfilling, but more times than not, was pretty average at best. This whole idea of "romantic love" or finding "the one" and all the sentimental nonsense that goes along with the institution these days, not to mention the religious "morality" thrown in as well, just didn't exist for many cultures throughout the world in history. However, now that the world has utterly changed, and I'm not saying it's all for the better by the way (though I'm glad women have more freedom to be honest), the old ways of doing things simply don't work anymore, or at the very least, they need to be seriously rethought.Loved reading this by the way. I feel every argument. I see lots of parents from friends that were the greatest honeymoon parents and still are divorcing after X years in marriage. Not even considering that awful economic side of marriage, i think that it is actually doing more bad than good when you put on these invisible handcuffs. Maybe my perspective will change but for now i see it as something simply not worth. I think its healthier for both sides to enjoy the feeling of beeing free. This feeling of being free again i think makes it easier to stick to one another even tho this sounds like a paradoxon.
This is trueI think you're right...as long as lovers don't have children. If they do, then statistics seem to say that kids with united parents fare better...on average.
Exactly, which is why the rich can afford the "chaos" and the plebs cannot, think Elon Musk, Hollywood elites and all the rich people I've ever known. Their lives can be utter chaos sometimes, but the difference between them and the poor is they can actually afford it, the rest of us not so much. For most of history, the elites have pushed "traditional values" on the plebs, because at that time it was expedient and useful for them, now it seems "chaos" is more expedient for power grabs. To me this isn't a matter of morality, it's more about realizing the world is not the same as it used to be, and acting accordingly. The world has changed: condoms, birth control, easy divorce, a culture that praises women leaving a "bad marriage" while telling men to "man up" if he does (the conservatives). We're not playing by the same rules anymore, and men need to know that.Otherwise, they are stuck taking care of their female children forever because casual sex is so unstable.
I think a normal father should want that. But I do think some fathers, especially on the more patriarchal side, get too evolved in the daughter's sex life. Women aren't children, they should be able to have sex and be responsible for their own actions just like us men should be able to. Having sex before marriage, or having more than one partner, doesn't mean a woman is a whore (not saying you think that). These extreme dichotomies on both sides are really annoying and do no good for the conversation.I’ve always been under the impression that it was fathers who want their daughters to marry, and remain chaste until they do.
Same here. One might say I'm philosophizing about this, or one might say I'm utterly talking out of my ass! To be honest, this is all conjecture, though it is something I've read a good deal about. It's a subject that really interests me and I find the question "How did we get here?" very pertinent for myself when it comes to not just "fixing" the porn problem, but also, why do we even have to fix this in the first place?I was just hypothesizing about where these rules come from. And my sentences were intended to be read together.
It is very messy and there's a lot noise on both sides that gets more attention than they should; however, I think for most of us in the middle, who have good and noble intentions, it's not hard to see the troubling signs brewing up ahead. Some might see it because of their religion, or some such as myself, more in a pragmatic historical sense, but either way, we've tasted the goblet of truth and it's hard to go back now.That said, I hope something larger is at work here, and that the painful breakdown of society may help us rethink things radically...just as you apparently think. I certainly don't think the genie can be put back in the bottle. Nor do I think that would be the most beneficial outcome. But the situation is very messy just now.
Just to be clear, I don't have a problem with marriage, my concern is the cultural around which the institution of marriage finds itself in today, thus my warning to young men. Marriage is beautiful and necessary for most of us, maybe even for ol' Blondie one day, but the problem is that marriage is an institution that needs to be supported by the periphery cultural institutions that it inhabits, and that has completely changed over the last 60 years or so. Like I said, some of those changes are a good thing, but some of them probably not so much. Therefore, my warning to young men is just be conscious of this fact, because, just as you thought it was okay to look at thousands of naked women over the years and society even backed up your bullshit lifestyle, don't be deceived that your "perfect woman" has not ALSO been affected by the society that she lives in, especially when it comes to what exactly is a marriage and the expectations behind it. If you just want to hook up and have fun (which I personally don't have a problem with) great, just be careful and respectful, but if you really want to get serious with a woman, then your standards need to go way the fuck up. We live in a culture that says women are always right and men are by default always WRONG. Modern men hear this shit is just laugh and think it's funny. It's not. Thus, if you happened to marry one of those ladies who thinks this (and unfortunately even many good women do), well, you might just find yourself and your "perfect lady" five years down the road in a real shitstorm, that's all I'm saying. Choose with your mind and NOT your dick.Personally I don't think marriage is the problem. In my view, the problem is the widening distance between men and women, and the growing distrust between them. Perhaps marriage has always been an economic "deal," but while it served some larger purpose, it may have "worked" for most, as you say
Truth. The "hook up culture" basically consist of the top 20% of men and the top 50% of women. However, since they're just hooking up, their sex life is not very consistent, of course, for everyone else, it doesn't exist at all.Rates of sexual activity are, in fact, plummeting with each generation. It's like watching someone pull down a zipper, quite apart from the gender-bending phenomenon.
Yes I believe this is possible.And yet, from personal experience, I can say that given a union dedicated to a higher purpose, one that is not selfish, it is not so challenging to stay in a satisfying intimate relationship. Both partners tend to be willing to look past the random resentments of daily life because they have a larger goal in mind. That goal used to be having kids, and for some it may still be.
I'm still working on this one!But the goal need not be physical progeny; other creations are possible too. That's why I urge people to think about what their life purposes might be and how their unions can satisfy both spouses at that level.
This is beautiful @GBS. I'm glad he's found someone he really loves.One of my sons is off to university in the autumn. We were on a dog walk the other day. He told me that he and his girlfriend have had a grown up chat about how they will deal with their relationship when they are apart and in different institutions. At one point he said…”it wasn’t difficult to decide what we should do because we love each other”. I patted him on the shoulder, told him he was a hero, and we started talking about our deep love of football (what you crazy yanks call “soccer”)!