EFFORTPOST Adventures of Pinocchio and mental health

I was going to post this with my skydiving story tomorrow, but I thought I'd get this out the way first instead of making a 10-page post that covers a bunch of unrelated topics. I've also got a manicure appointment for Monday and a trip to the psychiatrist on Tuesday. Maybe I'll wait for Tuesday to cover skydiving, manicure, psychiatrist visits, and gynophobia in one go. But who knows? I was supposed to write a Holly biography months ago but that hasn't happened.

The Adventures of Pinocchio

I recently read this text and it had an incredible impact on me. I don't know why this is the archetypal book about lying because very little of it actually concerns the deed. Minimal scenes feature the whole nose-growing gimmick from the puppet.

The overwhelming majority of the text is in fact Pinocchio getting lied to and repeatedly swindled. Far more than “don't lie”, the underlying lesson is “don't be exploited”. As the book highlights this is a position you can mostly avoid by living the straight and narrow life, and doing as you're taught.

I related to this book a lot because I feel like I made the same mistakes the puppet did and faced some of the consequences. Since childhood you're told that it's pretty simple what's expected of you - get a respectable degree, get a good job, marry, and start your own family. When you're in your early twenties this sounds like SHIT. You gotta put on a button-down shirt and be a normie professional? Heck no, I'm special, I'm asexual I'm going to be a famous novelist I don't need your outdated boomer crap. You're being heteronormative!

I was swindled a million directions by folks promising me happiness and riches through all these alternate paths. It's false. The first thing I was told was the correct one, and if I had just continued doing that I would not be facing none of the problems I'm tangled in now.

This is not to say that no other life will give you fulfillment. There are good reasons sometimes to not be a normie - you're gay, you're incapable of monogamy, you're horribly disabled, you're a genius whose time is better spent on a project. But the truth is that it is exceptionally rare and unlikely that you will succeed with these paths. Being a boring normie will bring you the most happiness in almost all cases.

I'm witnessing this now with my parents. They're not perfect people, but they did the normie road, and they're feasting on the fruits of their labor. They both retired in their early 60s and they're financially well-endowed. My dad buys sports cars for fun and picks up random hobbies like playing the keyboard. My mom gets to enjoy finally resting after a long life, and she has no financial issues to worry about. They also have each other in old age.

Holy frick I want that life. I want to retire at 60 and have a loving wife to grow old with. I don't want to work until I die, I won't want to rent until I die, I don't want to be poor when I'm old - that is all suffering, intense suffering, but you don't even anticipate it when you're in your 20s because your brain's not fully developed. Well, some people are mature enough to plan out their lives. I'm not one of those people.

Ultimately, Pinocchio is a puppet in multiple ways:

a) Physically - which needs no explanation

b) Socially - he strays from the straight and narrow, and refuses to work, and it results in him being a puppet to those offering him the promise of an idyllic life. If he just worked and earned his own money, he would be no slave to those around him, and there would be nothing they could offer him to control or tempt him.

c) Biologically - he is a slave to his impulses. He is lazy and hedonistic. Being a slave to these drives causes him to avoid work and seek pleasures however troublesome they may be. He becomes a human when these impulses no longer control him. This is the point where we stop being puppets - when the base impulses of our brains no longer manipulate us. If you can get angry and not be driven to violence, you are not a puppet. If you're lazy and you still go to the gym, you are not a puppet. You are a real human - the opposite of an NPC.

So I want to be a good boy, a real boy, a human. How much of me has to die for this to occur? Is it a matter of change, or a case of simply finding the right situations? The truth is that it is probably both. I am in need of social skills, but I also need opportunities to be a human, and they don't exist sitting in front of my computer.

My favorite quotes from The Adventures of Pinocchio

1. You scoundrel of a son! You are not even finished, and you already disobey your father! That's bad, my boy - very bad.

2. Woe to those boys who revolt against their parents, and run away from home. They will never do anything good in this world, and sooner or later they will repent bitterly.

3 I know I have been a very bad boy, and that the talking cricket was right when he said, “Disobedient children never do any good in the world.” I have learnt it at my expense, for I have suffered many misfortunes!

4. My boy, never trust people who promise to make you rich in a day. They are generally crazy swindlers.

5. I have learnt that to earn money honestly, you must know how to do it with the labour of your hands, or with your brains.

6. How many dreadful things have happened to me! And I deserved them, for I am obstinate as a mule and deceitful as Lethe himself. I always wanted my own way, and never listened to those who loved me, and who had a thousand times more sense than I had. But from now I shall lead a different life, and become an obedient boy. I have learnt the lesson that disobedient children never prosper, never gain anything.

7. I wanted to be a good for nothing, and a vagabond. I listened to evil companions, so I have always been unlucky. If only I had been a good boy, like so many others - if I had been willing to study and work, if I had stayed home with my poor father - I would not be here now in this lonely place.

8. He was ashamed to beg. His father had told him several times that only the aged and the crippled have a right to beg. Poor, really poor people in this world - those who really deserve help and pity - are those who , by reason of old age or sickness, are no longer able to earn their living by their own labor. It is everybody else's duty to work; and if they refuse to work, and are hungry, so much worse for them.

9. Remember that every man, rich or poor, must find something to do in this world; everybody must work. Woe to those who lead idle lives! Idleness is a dreadful disease, of which one should be cured immediately in childhood; if not, one never gets over it.

10 Boys who study always make those who don't small by comparison, and we don't like it.

11. “What can I do to deserve to become a man?” “It's very easy; you begin by being a good boy.”

12. Children who love their parents, and help them when they are sick and poor, are worthy of praise and love, even if they are not moels of obedience and good behaviour.

Being overwhelmed

Life isn't perfect, obviously. You'll do things you're not supposed to do, either by mistake or on purpose. You also can't control random events around you, or the actions of others. Consequently, disappointment is impossible to avoid.

Knowing this rationally is different from experiencing it. There's a deep pain and desire for suicide if someone hoots at me on the road, or if a social interaction doesn't go perfectly at work. The stress is unbearable, and it fills me with intense self-loathing - imagine a bucket of viscous, steaming hate being poured into a vat, and that's what it's like in my head. It feels like my very essence and core are evil, and my continued existence is an act of malevolence.

I deserve to be punished for my badness, my sinister flaws, and my inability to justify my existence. The perfect punishment - cutting. Go deep, do it multiple times, until you can't take it anymore. It hurts so bad but that's the point. Wide, white cuts what I deserve. If you're really filled with emotion you can actually do a nice swipe that doesn't just reach the white meat but also slices into it. You're left with a gaping wound, long and wide. This is pretty much stitches territory, but some improvised first-aid will also work, though you WILL scar for life.

Do it to yourself enough times, and you'll be nothing but dark lines. You run out of space, and you just cut over old scars. It looks psychotic though the act of cutting is done pretty calmly and routinely. You pick a tool, a spot to cut, and what aftercare you'll employ. It's rationally implemented, nothing like a psycho slashing away with wanton abandon. Do it enough times, you'll even have the bandages and antiseptics ready for the aftermath.

In the thick of it, weird psychological shit happens. You can forget you did it at all and wake up with a bloody bed, barely believing what you did to yourself the night prior. It hurts in the morning, but you have no recollection of any pain or anguish, even if you remember the cutting event. I really relate to these lyrics in Stan by Eminem:

>'Cause I don't really got shit else, so that shit helps when I'm depressed

>I even got a tattoo with your name across the chest

>Sometimes I even cut myself to see how much it bleeds

>It's like adrenaline, the pain is such a sudden rush for me

The impulsiveness, the hunt for the pain I deserve, that desire to continue mutilating myself through facial piercings, it is all captured perfectly in those lines. Being depressed and not knowing what the frick else to do, but the razor blade, it promises relief, and familiarity and comfort.

Can anyone relate to the experience I'm describing? Emotions so all-consuming that slicing yourself is inevitable. It's a choice and not a choice at the same time. At that point, the cut represents everything - that ineffable inner turmoil, every past injustice, all the self-loathing, it's all concentrated in this one cut. It stays white for a few moments, then the blood flows and the excruciating pain hits - what a relief! The pain's not scattered all over my brain, it's just in one place.

My GP referred me to a psychiatrist who'll finally be seeing me next week. I've taken a vow of honesty, so I'll have to admit to drug use if he asks, which I do not want to do at all. I don't want anyone telling me to stop vaping weed because the answer is no, and I'm not arguing about it.

I haven't cut in a few weeks but we all know it's only a matter of time.

Nofap

It's very embarrassing to admit but I want to push radical honesty as far as I can as frequently as possible. I've been on nofap since 26 December for issues I'm not quite ready to delve into yet. Consequently, the thought of ending my inceldom has become an obsessive topic in my head. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing, but it's driven me into a situation where it's at the forefront of my mind and I'm constantly scheming about how to get around this problem.

It feels like having a dirty house - you can never truly relax until you've solved the problem. With fapping, you're temporarily dulled to the truth. You've tricked your brain into thinking your house is clean. If you fap regularly, you can end up forgetting your house was dirty at all. With nofap, there are no more illusions. I need to clean my house (coom) or else I will find no peace.

Taking advice

I had previously mentioned my desire to get piercings. A few rdrama users warned me against it. You know what? I'll take your advice for now, I'm not unamenable. I desperately want to, however, and I can't promise that I won't eventually. I want to feel pain and disfigure myself. Well, better explained, I don't want to, but I crave it.

Consequently, my fifth courage challenge is to drive a long distance to an unknown place instead of acquiring my first piercing. This will be necessary to do tomorrow because the closest place that offers skydiving is an hour away, which is an hour and a half of driving for me. This will be the second-furthest I've ever driven. The first time I did long-distance driving was pre car crash so I didn't have a driving fear yet.

The thought alone terrifies me. I keep imagining myself taking a wrong turn and ending up on the wrong side of the road on the freeway, or trying to make a lane change and colliding with an SUV. Nevertheless, I'm just pushing through the fear and forcing myself to do it. The Payton Gendron quote is ingrained into my brain: “I'm doing it.”

This is genuinely the part that is the actual challenge and test of fear, far more than skydiving. I've decided to do the drive completely sober - well, almost completely sober, I'll probably vape some weed that morning as I always do but that doesn't count, it doesn't impair me. But no pills, alcohol, or anything to calm my nerves. I'm raw-dogging it.

I will bring my vape and hit it a few times when I get to the location because I do want to be baked when I skydive.

Also, fun fact: I named my car Asuka Soryu because it is orange lol

In case anyone was wondering, the five acts of courage I've committed myself to are

1. go to nightclub (complete)

2. go skydiving

3. get a manicure

4. join hiking club

5. drive long distance to unknown area

After completing them, I can take the word Coward off my mirror. A lesson from David Goggins.

conclusion

Well, going to try and get some sleep tonight so I can be ready for skydive tomorrow. I also just want to forget about work where I don't think I did everything the right way and it's stressing me out that maybe I'm a liability. Lastly, I highly advise working out. It feels very good afterward and I think it's played a big role in preventing nofap relapses - just fill up your time, free time is the enemy. You also feel a little more confident at the end even if you aren't brock lesner.

I feel like I'll regret speaking publicly about nofap but whatever. It is done. This is my truth.