# A Time Capsule: So We Don't Forget



## ToplessOrange (Jun 3, 2013)

I don't really have anything planned here, this is just going to be a pulp string of thoughts as they come based on one topic that I feel strongly about. It appears as though my interaction with adults always gives me the same vibe: Everyone forgets everything.

Adults seem to forget their behavior as teens and children, and they act like anyone who's younger than them has such a foreign mind. With this in mind, I decided to make a time capsule logging all my experiences.

When I was 5, I think that's when I truly became very sentient. At that age, I was very existentialist and started to wonder why I existed. I reasoned that perhaps sentience, a concept that I had in abstract terms in my mind that fascinated me, was universal to all things, even the things we were made of. I didn't know we were made of protons and hadrons and quarks at that age, I just knew we were made of something that would never go away and that those things must be sentient as well.

By age 8, I solidified myself as a Panpsychist.

I always wondered why I could think or perceive, why time seemed to go in one direction to me. I reasoned that perhaps time turns, but I'm too busy analyzing one segment of it far too closely to notice the turn. I decided that time was a circle.

By age 9, I solidified myself as a String theorist.

The reason I think this is important is that for some fucking reason, adults forget that they had these thoughts. They forget that they were fucking philosophers starting at age 5. They think that before the age of 13, sentience isn't even a thing, that kids can't think for themselves. Yet, I find that children are much wiser, much more intelligent than adults, because they've never had to cross reference their thoughts with others, throwing away what wasn't approved of. They're not practical, they're thoughtful.

I remember at the age of 3, I had a Lego set despite it saying, as I learned when I learned to read, that it was for those who were 7 and up. My parents really did not give a shit if I swallowed it and died, because they're shitty ass parents. I remember trying to build an impossible shape, a paradox, because I saw an image of it. The stairs that went on forever. I didn't understand optical illusions at the time, you see. I was 3.

My father came in and tossed it aside, lifted me up, threw me in the car. I cried, and he stuck a bottle in my mouth. I took it, and I remember it being very heavy. I threw it outside the car and that was my first spanking. When we were home, my Lego creation was in shambles, and I remember crying, to which my father spanked me more, and he had never done that before. I didn't understand.

I think this is important because people think that nobody remembers anything from when they're a newborn to the age of 5, and nobody thinks anybody can be traumatized by anything at such a young age.

Now, at the age of 16, it seems like adults see me as a sex-crazed sociopath. I don't appreciate it. If I try to have a conversation with anyone that's deep, they think I'm an angsty teenager spewing pseudo-poetry. I can't discuss Physics or Math or Philosophy or anything with depth.

I think it's a self-perpetuating cycle. Teens see adults don't want them to talk about anything with depth, so they adopt the persona and adults see it more. I don't know where it began. I don't know which fucker thought "All teens should be idiots from this point on," but it happened.

I'm tired of people forgetting. I want myself to remember when I'm an adult with kids that my kids will always be intelligent from the moment a single brain cell is developed in the womb, even if they're born with a deteriorating mental capacity disease. I want to remember that every new piece of technology isn't being used for the worst possible utilization just like I don't text with small talk.

I guess none of this actually matters. Nobody will take this seriously. The adults who read this will think it's just teenage angst and pseudo-poetry. I'm just so tired of my generation being stereotyped as something that the majority of us aren't even close to. My ideal world doesn't have teenagers with higher reputations just because they deserve more privileges, they also deserve no right to deflect the blame on being young and stupid. Age has nothing to do with your intelligence. If you're stupid at any given point, you are stupid at that point because of who you are, not because of your age.

I just wish everyone would remember that they were philosophers as children so they could be philosophers as adults to the philosophers as teens.

/rant


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## Glenda Gnome Starr (May 12, 2011)

@TheOminousMuffin,
Thank you for sharing your story. You don't have a foreign mind. You have a beautiful, flexible, wonderful mind. You were three years younger than I was when I wondered what I was and why I existed. When I told people that I wondered what I was, they said, no I was wondering who I was. No, I did wonder what I was and why I was a human and not a cat or a tree or something else.
If you are interested, I would suggest that you read The Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass. It is about a boy who remembers everything from the moment that he is born. At the age of three, he decides that he will not grow anymore so that he can observe the world without the world observing him. After all, who pays attention to a three year old playing a tin drum? The boy's name is Oskar. It is a brilliant story. I think that you might like it.
I am sorry that the adults in your life have treated you so badly. They probably don't understand you because you are smarter than they are. And, because they are Adults, they don't want to admit that you are smarter than they are because it will make them look less omnipotent. 
Even though I am much older now, I remember the way that Adults treated me when I was a kid and a teenager, and I made a promise that I would never treat children and teenagers in the same way that I was treated.
Please keep sharing your philosophy. You have a very original way of viewing the world and I, for one, would like to continue reading it.


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## xlr8r (Aug 14, 2013)

TheOminousMuffin said:


> By age 9, I solidified myself as a String theorist.


I heard string theory is dying. Hurry up with new discoveries. :tongue:

1. You are the exception and not the rule. This is valid for adults too so it is not so strange teens are such way too.

2. In Internet no one knows your age. A lot of places to discuss everything.

3. I can understand your frustration, young people still dependent on parents and teacher can feel oppressed.

Did you try to discuss with your friends and classmates? Are they brilliant as you? Logic at work here. If yes, why need to discuss with adults, if not, you should have understood the point 1 by yourself.


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## ToplessOrange (Jun 3, 2013)

xlr8r said:


> I heard string theory is dying. Hurry up with new discoveries. :tongue:




I mean, I've been thinking about the idea of a coexisting nothingness and somethingness a lot, and I don't know what to call that. It seems like whenever I spend a lot of time developing some kind of theory on something, humanity's already thought of it and everyone's already exploring it, so I'm sure I'll find a name for it eventually. Something like "material nihilism theory" or something of the sort.

I remember reading the INTP Experience, and it used a specific example on trying to figure out why the big orb in the sky made things hot, but then cold, and I remember freaking the fuck out because of how eerily specific it was to my thoughts as a child on the Sun and stuff. What it left out was my disappointment, and frustration, when they taught it in school. A huge problem I have with school is spoilers. I can spend a lot of time working out a riddle, like why the Sun makes me warm. I can develop this system in my head, and before I reach the answer, school opens up a book about weather and the seasons and they go "Rosebud is the sled."

I could've figured it out, okay?

And that's a huge problem I have with school. I'm sure every teenager in the world complains about school, but school spoils things without my consent. I didn't choose the curriculum. A board of people in some poorly air conditioned building 200 miles away decided my curriculum, and the curriculum for the entire state, so I don't have to do anything because they do it for me. As much as I love mathematics, I hate math class. We don't even get to learn why formulas do what they're doing, and I have to figure it out myself by reading the book because the teachers don't do their goddamn jobs and teach. They just make us memorize a bunch of letters and numbers so we can get a good number and a good letter so we can go to college as stupid as we were before.

THAT was teenage angst, in case anyone was wondering. I'm sure I'll grow out of that phase and I'll send my kids to a public school like everyone else and accept it and be all "You'll understand when you grow up!" to my kids, but for now, I'm going to be a criticizing, rebellious, bitching fucker who hates every bit of the education system.




> 1. You are the exception and not the rule.




That really appeals to the Type Four in my Tritype. :blushed:




> This is valid for adults too so it is not so strange teens are such way too.




This felt a bit vague to me. Clarifying, are you saying that adults also have to deal with being ignored because everything they say that's deep is dismissed as something else, like angst? Looks like I'll never get out of my predicament. That's life. You ever wonder about how many living people want death as opposed to dead people want life? 100% of all humans who have had their life so far have ended up dying, while nearly 0% of all humans who have had their death have decided to return to life. It makes you start to wonder, you know? It's starting to look like this whole "dying" fad might have something to it.

Wow, I'm rambling. That's my Ne coming out.




> 2. In Internet no one knows your age. A lot of places to discuss everything.




That's very sound advice, but there's sort of a bonding aspect to sharing my philosophies and such. It feels greatly diminished if I'm simply sharing it with strangers who don't even know my age or people who aren't present. Something about a presence is very powerful. There are many people in my life where I would, if given the choice between that and a five hour long conversation through SMS, cuddle with them intimately for three hours, sharing an idea of mine every fifteen minutes or so. While the latter has far less conversation and sharing, there's that presence and that intimacy, and I sometimes wish I could have that kind of relationship with my parents or something, but they have a tendency to go "Well, logically, since I've been a teenager before, I've had every thought a teenager could ever have, ever, in the universe." It's a bummer.




> 3. I can understand your frustration, young people still dependent on parents and teacher can feel oppressed.




I presume that this implies that once I'll be older, I'll feel more free and liberated, and I'm going to take this optimistic outlook and insight to heart.




> Did you try to discuss with your friends and classmates? Are they brilliant as you? Logic at work here. If yes, why need to discuss with adults, if not, you should have understood the point 1 by yourself.




I think perhaps I've accidentally somehow come off as more intelligent than I actually am. When I said I solidified myself as a String Theorist at the age of 9, don't think that that means I was studying a huge book on Physics and understood everything and decided String Theory was extremely valid. At the time, it was just vague ideas in my head in a system...sort of. Then I read about Panpsychism and String Theory and thought "WOW, that really resonates with my thoughts!" So it's not so much that I was brilliant as it was that I was...well, I'm not sure what it is. I had lots of thoughts.

Sometimes, I feel like simply taking more chances and spewing more theories puts me in a reputation of higher intelligence than I put myself. Objectively, I don't think there's such thing as intelligence, but what I'm saying is that I spit out a lot of theories about everything, Ne. Whenever I turn out wrong, nobody notices. Whenever I turn out right, everyone goes "OMFG YOU TOTALLY PREDICTED THAT GO BE A PHYSICIST RIGHT NOW" That's how Psychics work as well, and I'd hate to be respected as a physicist in that vain considering how much respect I have for Psychics.

There are about 3 people in my life who believe I'm highly intelligent who's opinions I actually don't dismiss, because they don't see my theory spewing. I actually let them in on my little workshop, the factory that produces these thoughts. My Introverted Thinking. They get to see my process, so they get to know if I'm intelligent or not. Interestingly, I think they're all more intelligent than me, and they all think I'm more intelligent than them. I wonder how we submit ourselves to others? I think it's possible that we judge intelligence so as to have an hierarchy. There's always that social hierarchy that comes out in people, and whether we judge by strength or Alpha attitude or intelligence, there are various ways we find to create it. So I suppose I simply want to submit to all these people and they want to submit to me, by that theory. It's an interesting dynamic.

Now that I've made myself aware of the possibility of such a thing, which would set in first: The Placebo effect or Reverse Psychology? Will it become MORE prevalent, LESS prevalent, or stay the same? I can't know because I wasn't aware of it before to have observed it. Oh well. I'm rambling again. Extraverted iNtuition can do that to you.

Anyways, I sort of replied to this already. I want to be able to connect with people of all ages with my ideas, but some kind of hierarchy seems to be at work that won't allow me, and I think the hierarchy is inherently flawed. Thanks for the advice, I'll heed it duly.


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## xlr8r (Aug 14, 2013)

TheOminousMuffin said:


> I mean, I've been thinking about the idea of a coexisting nothingness and somethingness a lot, and I don't know what to call that.




Schrödinger's cat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I think you already heard of it.




> It seems like whenever I spend a lot of time developing some kind of theory on something, humanity's already thought of it and everyone's already exploring it




You are too young and raw to pretend differently. Large Hadron Collider cost billions and it took years and years to build. To confirm a theory of half century past.




> A huge problem I have with school is spoilers. I can spend a lot of time working out a riddle, like why the Sun makes me warm. I can develop this system in my head, and before I reach the answer, school opens up a book about weather and the seasons and they go "Rosebud is the sled."



 
I see your point. Being intellectally active and having pride of it is very positive, but you will surely see how much inefficient it would be if everyone started their discoveries from zero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants




> As much as I love mathematics, I hate math class. We don't even get to learn why formulas do what they're doing, and I have to figure it out myself by reading the book because the teachers don't do their goddamn jobs and teach. They just make us memorize a bunch of letters and numbers so we can get a good number and a good letter so we can go to college as stupid as we were before.




Common problem. Good teachers today are the exception. Do not let them make you lose your love for knowledge.




> This felt a bit vague to me. Clarifying, are you saying that adults also have to deal with being ignored because everything they say that's deep is dismissed as something else, like angst?




Yes. You will learn, maybe, this was a problem for many of the historical figures who shaped the world. Many of them were persecuted and killed.

 


> Looks like I'll never get out of my predicament. That's life. You ever wonder about how many living people want death as opposed to dead people want life? 100% of all humans who have had their life so far have ended up dying, while nearly 0% of all humans who have had their death have decided to return to life. It makes you start to wonder, you know? It's starting to look like this whole "dying" fad might have something to it.




I doubt dead people have some willpower in that.



> I presume that this implies that once I'll be older, I'll feel more free and liberated, and I'm going to take this optimistic outlook and insight to heart.


 

Yes. You will value less the opinion of others.

But do not lose enthusiasm.


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## ToplessOrange (Jun 3, 2013)

xlr8r said:


> Schrödinger's cat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I think you already heard of it.


I believe the Schrodinger's Cat thing talks about simultaneous death and life, but not simultaneous nothingness and somethingness. I'm sure if I think about it later, this ends up being totally applicable. I suppose I'll see.



> I doubt dead people have some willpower in that.


I still think it's a rather interesting perspective that my brain decided to poop out for me to play with.



> Yes. You will value less the opinion of others.
> 
> But do not lose enthusiasm.


Hm, you saying this has definitely made me more optimistic about my future. When looking into my future (hypothetically), I often fantasize about being a parent and what I'd do differently, but many parents who hated their parents have ended up just like them. I was talking to my friend the other day, and we were discussing our hypothetical marriage and it went all over the place. Which holidays we would spend, when we would visit each others families, how we would handle divorce if it was necessary (as in how to bring up that it's quite possible that it's the best course of action), how to ease the transition from finding each other really fucking attractive to not at all (nobody stays attractive forever), how we would handle feelings that we would be happier with someone else, how we would accommodate for each other's fetishes (despite her having way more than me, she was actually more wanting to figure out mine to accommodate to them than disclosing her own in specifics so we could work out incompatibilities), how we would raise a child in the zombie apocalypse, whether to send the child to public or private school...

We talked through as many possibilities as we could until we were exhausted. I really, really want to be a parent, but I also have other long term goals, such as particular careers that I'm afraid would affect my abilities as a parent. There's also how I was parented, which I'm constantly afraid will seep into my own parenting. I think about being a parent a lot, but it's hard not to think about how much could go wrong.

When shootings at schools happen, I always tend to hypothesize that the child is mine, and I think about what I could possibly be doing as a parent that was so neglectful that I wasn't even aware that my child had these urges to go shoot up a school. It seems like I care about my children very much, and they don't even exist yet and may very well never exist.

I know that in my life, I often find myself feeling unloved for very irrational reasons. I have a tendency to ignore it because I have higher faith in what I can consciously rationalize than my more primal feelings, but I wonder a lot about why I have certain emotions. Why do I feel heartbreak? What is the evolutionary purpose for that? Why do I feel unconditional love? I talked about that in a topic I made in the Sex and Relationships category rather recently, I believe (I certainly hope I didn't hallucinate that). There are so many emotions that we have, evolved from hundreds of thousands of years. Oddly, I don't see the practicality in a lot of the things I feel. I don't see how it would've propelled our survival as a species at all.

Based on how I've been nurtured, a result of my environment, there are many things I want in life. I want to be a playwright, perhaps. Some sort of writer. A physicist. A philosopher. A film director. An actor. I've been raised through an environment that's caused me to want certain things, and then there's what I naturally want. I want to be a parent, my paternal instincts are very strong. I want to love and be loved. Sometimes, it seems hard to imagine a future with enough room for both sides of my will.

I am being...awfully open about my thoughts, here.


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## xlr8r (Aug 14, 2013)

TheOminousMuffin said:


> I often fantasize about being a parent
> ...
> I really, really want to be a parent, but I also have other long term goals, such as particular careers that I'm afraid would affect my abilities as a parent.


This is a totally different topic but I think you got it right. Being a parent is a very involving and fatiguing job and if one's mind is towards the infinite, the abstract or the deep, the daily chores can be difficult to bear.

Do not forget the financial aspect of it.


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