I'm still new and don't know anyone here really, but I like it here because it does seem a lot more "real" than most boards I've been on but without being boring or cliquish. In nearly every board I have been on regularly there has been a lot of bizarre power-control stuff going on and I occasionally get dragged unwittingly into something because I just posted what I was thinking and had it misunderstood or wrongly interpreted. Without visible emotions to back up the words, language is doubly important in these forums, the ability to convey it as well as understand it in all its nuances, and this seems to be one of the likelier places for that interplay to actually occur. I especially appreciate the underlying sense of humor here which is lacking from so many other forums and is the reason people are always getting offended by one another.

Oh. Well.

I got a little melodramatic, maybe: I like the things that I do (playing with fire, playing with clay); I have good friends, fun hobbies, few worries; I eat enough, get some exercise. I am just often surprised at the routine, and my ability to function the same when exhausted as when I am alert. In fact, more than mood I was speaking of general sleep deprivation. Is there a connection, then, between depression and sleep, such that what I have been assuming is a mixture of overworked and underrested is in fact some more heinous ill?

I guess it's just that, even though self-diagnosis is certainly all kinds of unreliable, I don't consider myself terribly sane, but I definitely think that I am at best happy, & indeed most often am content or better, all of which fit onto the positive side of the Scale of Life, wherein depression is on the other.

Or you could just be in denial. Didn't Even kNow I Am Lying A self diagnosis usually requires a professional second opinion. Avoid those that have license to commit people. ;)

Don't sweat it Skunks, I didn't read into your post anything about being depressed - I just thought you were commenting on how we can go through life exhaausted and still maintain some type of functionality within our own everyday grind. Sometimes, I too feel like I'm sleepwalking through a day and just "existing" others I am fully motivated and charge on relentlessly. Its just the ups and downs. I must say that there is avery real and definite relationship between depression and sleep patterns though. Coming from one who was married to a depressed pyschotic - it was/is very easy to get suck into the negativity of their reality and lose sight of all the splendor of this amazingly beautiful and wonderous world we live in. Now that I'm out of that relationship, people are teling me that I've changed so much and have a much more positive outlook on things. I have to admit -I am dealing with more issues and stress right now than before, but I feel great and can't wait for the challenge of the next day so I can kick its ass! :)

I really shouldn't post when I am really wasted. What I think I meant to say was, "I like it in here."

I spent many, many years in that black hole that yesman describes. I'm quite happy and stable now but I still find that my days blur together and sometimes I do feel as though I am on autopilot. I don't have a typical job so I lose track of days and I don't really sleep according to a schedule either. But it's different from when I was depressed, when time was at a murky standstill and all I wanted to do was sleep. That didn't sound like what Skunks was talking about, but more the becoming swept up in life and oblivious to time. Maybe? Ah well.. time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so...:)

to me this place is pretty real, how much so didn't really strike me until I was sans internet for a little while and during the cmep_2 (which I need to download the new stuff) when a package showed up in my realy real mailbox of a CD of the things I had missed.. blew my mind really. and although I haven't met anyone from here IRL I have come close, and there are others I expect to in the future if my "sinister plan" pans out. (nothing too radical, although there are more than a few musicians here, and if I get my bar/grill/music venue idea into fact.. then there'll be a spot to play and a warm place to sleep for anyone coming thru these parts) anyway, another thing that strikes me, you people are as real as people I meet in daily life, although you don't have faces, just personalities that come thru loud and clear.. interesting stuff.. and here I thought all those sociology classes were nothing more than mind candy.

Yeah, Go Stillers!!!!

Last week at work, I named a Java class (Ward) after the Super Bowl MVP.

Whoever has to maintain that code is going to hate you. Couldn't you have just put in a "yeah team" comment?

Actually, it was the best name for the class. It represents a running JVM that a "nanny" service must start and monitor.

I did have to leave a joke in a comment:

public class Ward //,Hines #86

real? yeah. i think so. some of you read my rants, don't you? that makes you more real than some of the flesh and blood folks i see every day.

The question is not whether its real, but HOW real is the cellar. To find out just read an entire thread and think about how you "feel the pain" that the writer is expressing - My posts in Y/W O/M or a tribute to a lost father or What does this mean . . . there are too many to list - there is NO question if its real or not. Sometimes its too real to be quite honest. People freely expressing their innermost pain and, yes their triumphs as well, is as real as it gets. This is not always true IRL because we are all biased by looks and appearances - here we can only judge by what we read and the story as it unfolds. There are no preconceived notions or opinions based upon race, color, creed, nationality, dress, wealth whatever. . . . . .

Did he doubt or did he try?
Answers aplenty in the bye and bye
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills

Greatfully Dedicated too eh? Very nice

Y'know, I feel a bit odd reviving a topic, but its only been dead 2 weeks, so...

I may have only been here... less than a week, but I already feel nice and comfy here, even if I am one of the youngest members. I feel confident that when I'm naive and immature I will fit right in (heh, couldn't resist) and when I'm mature I'll, well, be able to hold my own with a bunch of adults. I know I can count on you people for help if I need it, even though I don't know you in person, and I know I would do what I could to help any of you. I'd say the Cellar is as real as any group of people getting together to chat and hang out, 'cept with less alcohol and less "hey ya'll, hol' my beer 'n' watch this!".

...Ah, who'm I kidding, there's a lot of that anyway.

Now, more than ever. :thumb:

Old threads are cool, although I wouldn't call this one "old". Every once in a while, someone will come along and read through the archives, responding to threads that are months or even years old. Personally, I enjoy it. Jogging the memory, rereading posts I'd forgotten and wondering about posters that have disappeared.

I'm not sure, is nostalgia in or out at the moment?