Olska post # 1248 from the Candy thread :
"Lakey,
I think your analysis and opinions -- and very likely your enjoyment of life, though since all I know about your life is what you tell us here on the board -- are encumbered by two factors:
1) denial
2) arrested development
both of these are characteristic of addicts (though they can also be found in people who are not recognized as addicts), and of the two denial is the better known and most easily recognized, while arrested development is less obvious to the untrained observer, and so it too often escapes attention and remedy.
What am I supposed to be addicted to? I guess you mean posting. I have made 3211 posts since joining in Feb, 2009. I average 4.1 posts a day, does that sound like an addiction? How about Zinjifar, 17,200 posts, Dull Old Fart 14200, Alanzo 13,300, Vinnaire 11,900, Helluvahoax 6,311. You single me out at 3200 posts but say nothing of Alanzo and Helluva. Helluva writes some long and complicated posts as well, as does Vinnaire. Your bias in singling me out as being addictive is just overwhelming!
I suspect, from what you have told us about your life, and from the way you "reason" and the way you write here, that your development was arrested somewhere around the time you got involved with scientology. Possibly this happened BEFORE you got involved with scientology, and you then hoped that scientology would help you with the symptoms of which you were aware and for which you had no remedy.
I say this because your behavior on this forum is rather typical of adolescence -- a determination to be "right" while at the same time wanting to please people, which most people outgrow long before they reach your age; and a reluctance to grow up, which you seem to equate with "growing old," as though growing old were some kind of horror.
I have no determination to be "right". I am often wrong and I am one of the few on ESMB who will admit when they are wrong. My motivation is to get to the truth. I have no interest in pleasing people. I feel most people have a lot of good in them and thoroughly study other peoples' posts to see how things could be the way they say. If they do not agree with me, I could care less.
I enjoy being 71, I am making far more new friends than ever and I feel I am growing spiritually, mentally and socially. I thought I would be feeble and shriveled at this age and instead am having the time of my life! Your comments are 180 degrees wrong.
Along with that, you seem to believe that you "know best" as though the rest of us are pretty stupid, in the way that teenagers and some young twenty-somethings are often sure that their parents are just the stupidest people they know, and that they (the teenager) are so waaaaaay far ahead. That's how you're writing comes across.
I don't "know best", not by any means! Some of the ones who I learn from on this thread are Roger, Hatsheput, Ted, Carmelo, Candy, Mark Baker, Faceinthecrowd and Leon. They are probably smarter than me, who knows and who cares? There are many others as well.
On the Sharone thread, I learned some things from my opponents, Gottabrain the most, Veda, Markus, Sharone, ItoldyouIwastrouble, DB and yourself just to name a few. There are a few who's posts were just annoyances, there was nothing really there to learn from. With those people I put them on ignore.
Further, much of what you write is about your apparent obsession with youth -- with trying to look young, being so pleased when people flatter you by telling you that you look twenty years younger than you are (actually you don't, in your photos you look every bit the age you are), remarking on how young other "old" people look (how good Candy looks even though she's past 60, etc. when in fact Candy looks like a woman in her sixties, which she is).
This is a youth based society. Look at all the money being spent on cosmetic surgery. I would never get that done. It is just a game attempting to look young. I usually get guessed from 54 to 62. You and my daughter both think I look 71. Big Deal, its just a light hearted game, inconsequential. Now keeping one's mind agile and youthful, that is another matter. I think it behoves all of us to work on that!
Coupled with this and threaded through your posts is a kind of "worship" of women -- you often admit to seeking their guidance and direction, as though you need their help to manage your life; while you seem to be quite competitive toward other men, determined to "win debates" with them thus proving your manhood (?), rather than feeling comfortable with them as your peers and simply sharing information or ideas.
Throughout my period in school through college and while I was single, nearly all my friends were men. At CCLA, I had two female friends, Bev Carter and Susan Todhunger. Those were my first platonic female friends.
Now that I have raised a family and my libido is lower, I have made a recent spate of female friends, Candy, lh, my old opera singer friend from the 70's. There is so much to learn from being around women. Except for Bev and Susan T., I missed this my whole life, never having had a sister. It just so happens that at this juncture of life, I have more female friends than male friends. There is no particular significance attached to this. Certainly, I am not doing this to win debates or demonstrate my manhood. That is really grasping at staws. It is a silly theory just 180 degrees from the truth.
Lastly, the length of your posts, and the volume of posts you submit, and your obsession with "hits" and "stats" on the threads you engage in, are indicative of internet addiction, an affliction similar to video game addiction -- both of which are common in adolescents in today's world.
The volume of my posts is low, 3210 posts since I joined February 15, 2009. I average only 4.1 posts a day. Some are short, some are medium and most are long. I just take as much space as I need to try and get my point across. Alonzo who sides with you has 13,300 posts and Helluva has 6311. Are they also in denial and do they also have arrested growth? How about Zinjifar 17,200 posts? Wow, you see things through the prism of your biases.
If you are truly interested in improving the quality of your life, you might want to further investigate.
Or not.
I am interested in improving the quality of my life but I am sure not going to be taking advice from you on how to do it.
EDIT: I see you've edited and changed your post since I quoted it, not a problem, but I'd like to point out that the quote you attribute to Helluva was actually from a post by Markus. Thought you'd want to know."
