Whats frustrating about Victor is his style of communication. His post are written and worded in a way that is vague enough to be bended in any direction the conversation may turn, which sometimes and maybe even often causes them to lose value or read like pseudo-philosphy. I think Victor has a lot of good ideas that are worth discussing, but his style makes it impossible to discuss. So all his threads turn into discussions about why no one wants to be in his threads.
Victor, stop making lame excuses and realize that if you want people to respond to your threads, you have to make them open to a large audience, and you have to make it feel open and wlecoming for other's thoughts. Clarity is key! If you want people to respect you and your ideas, then, ironically, the most important thing to do is not give a shit what people think about you. Express your ideas freely and confidently in a way that will allow people to understand them. Ever noticed how awesome people like that often are? They're fucking sexy. Action through inaction. Also, I don't want to start ranting, but put your ego aside for one second, please! You don't have to make a save every time someone shows a weakness in one of your ideas, and you especially don't need to turn that into a strength, as we say when Jennifer parodied you and you claimed it was a sign you were doing the right thing (or in your words, that you had "arrived"). Parody and criticism are often the hallmark of greatness, but they can also be the hallmark of poorness, too, if a bad thing can generate enough attention despite it's badness. Her parody exposed that your metaphor was not entirely accurate because it could also be directly applied to hard, factual science (in oppose to psychology's catagorization as "soft" science due to a lack of true physical, measurable evidence and the reliance on anecdotal evidence). You arn't just met with criticism and parody, you are often first met with a sometimes long period of complete indifference to your post (i.e. it often take s along time for anyone to respond to your stuff even after many people have viewed it). Indifference is the hallmark of mediocrity, and the criticism that follows I think is sincere and for the most part fairly reasonable (when done proporly and respectfully like I think Edahn mostly did), just as the praise you get is reasonable too (I really do think you have good ideas worth discussing, but you make it impossible for most people to discuss it and enjoy discussing it). My point is, you arn't bulletproof and need to stop coming up with reasons why other people are wrong and misguided while you are an all-knowing sage of some kind. You don't need to make it seem like every misstep is part of your plan of how to experience the forum (i.e. I am experiencing rejection and acceptance at the same time). You almost sound like a 14 year old who thinks they know more than adults and stubbornly watches their ideas and views collapse under the life experience their teachers and parents have (i.e. me when I was 14
And still sometimes today
Maybe I'm doing it right now (and I'm curious as a dog as to how you'll try to use that to dismiss me easily)). You're wasting your mind with this shit! Do you want to have good discussions, or do you want to distance yourself from people and even your own goals (which seem to be interaction and respect). You can be unique and accessible at the same time; it's your ideas that are unique and important, not how you dress them up. This isn't a fashion show. Any problems you have here are self imposed, as far as I'm concerned.
EDIT: I'd like to add that even if I find your style of posting frustrating to communicate with, I really do appreciate the effort to be unique and interesting even if I don't think it's a very effective effort. What makes this forum great is the variation in ideas and points of views and styles.
I think therapy is appropriate in extreme cases. I agree with you that it can be used by some to convince themselves they have something wrong with them and thus actually cause problems, but as others have said extreme problems require therapy to be solved. MBTI is certainly not good for therapy and probably isn't legitimate psychology anyway, but rather an impeccable tool to help understand people and yourself better. It isn't fact or science, but a good theory to help understand people.
Does therapy work? Does medicine work? Yes. They both work when done proporly with the right patient. However, things change. You can cure some mental issues, some emotional issues, but others can still come up depending on what life throws at you. A new catalyst could come up to throw you into emotional breakdown. Just because you cured depression when you were 18 doesn't mean you won't become bipolar or schizophrenic when you're 40. You can break your leg and watch the bone heal, but that doesn't mean you are automatically prevented from any other breakage or health issue. So, I think your statement that if therapy worked we wouldn't need the books should be replaced with "if life was consistent we wouldn't need to produce book after book after book". Life meaning both an individuals life and life in general, like how different people react differently to different methods, especially in psychology.
Good night!
