Your mood is an emotional carrier for your thoughts. Just as copper wire can carry the signal of your voice over the telephone, or data across the internet, your voice and data can become distorted or lost if the quality of the carrier is poor. Poorly shielded copper wire is full of "noise" coming from other users, electrical appliances, and ambient radiation (which is why dial-up never got much faster than 56k--copper blows). This noise can clutter up the data stream and even render it useless. What data really needs in order to be received clearly is a low-entropy carrier, ideally completely level and silent (fiber optics are great), so that the surprise information (data) is clearly recognizable and gets through unharmed.

Now...thoughts and evaluations generate emotions and mood, but there's also feedback in the system: Moods influence further thoughts. It's a loop. So a single misunderstood event or bad premise can spiral into a flood of bad thinking and an amplified shitty mood, sending you into a dysfunctional state where you are not listening and evaluating correctly because emotions rule the body and twist the mind. You can become an asshole...

This is not to say that emotions are bad things by any means. Clear thoughts generate emotions that are "correct." That is, the emotions you feel reflect your thoughts exactly and there is no conflict or distortion. You feel your thoughts and evaluations (even love) in your body, not just in your mind. That is what's so cool about being alive. You're not a computer, you feel everything! Your body might even tell you something correct before it fully registers in your mind. Ideally the body functions as part of the mind, not as its adversary.

But what the mind needs is a low-entropy mood, ideally level, in order to think clearly. No false or meaningless noise. Mood altering substances effectively introduce a lot of noise and wobbly variation into the mood, influencing one's thoughts and evaluations, moving them off-center and away from reality.

Drinking, for example, biases everything toward depression and hopelessness. It is as if someone placed a magnet near the copper wire and ruined the music you were trying download. That's no good...and God help you if you were already depressed to begin with.

Uppers are just as bad...setting aside the delusions of grandeur that come from a false positive bias, the crash will get you worse than alcohol. The exaggerated highs and lows create a pattern of uncertainty that can render your thinking completely inconsistent and ineffective. You become an asshole...

We have enough problems with false premises and other mood affectors that occur in nature without introducing chemicals into the mix. Life is difficult enough without a handicap.

"We have enough problems with false premises and other mood affectors that occur in nature without introducing chemicals into the mix."


Yup

Wassup with these essays ya'll are writing?

Short and sweet people or short and sour whatever floats ur boat!

Moderation is key

KidaDynamite said:

true-i must admit i fell off after the 1st sentence.....

i agree though-i love a drink now and again and getting rip roaringly drunk!

Thanks for that, Teller. Good seein' ya.

shanti0608 said:

no-love is the key!

jonylawson said:

Love introduces more noise than ANYTHING else ever could.

Sometimes I find that a chemical vacation from reality gives me a chance to rest, and then I can face problems with more clarity.

But sure, it's mostly noise and not helpful.

HereToRockYourWorld said:

Ya think?

and...your point is...

jonylawson said:

gotta point there

Good Lord! Teller left the org and has come back as John Tesh!

Lammastide said:

Lammastide said:

Is John Tesh that cerebral?

I have the same problem, oddly enough, when I start smoking. Although I hate smoking I have done it and quit, done it and quit. I don't know how long it will last this time. One day at a time. I hate smoking, even when I'm doing it. It really depresses me and makes me think bizare thoughts.

jonylawson said:

no-locking the door in the handicap stall before you get it on is the key!

clearly I should have said everything in moderation....

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

Same here... am excessive in base nature..... I understand deeply the whole fogging over process....

HereToRockYourWorld said:

Ya dont say!

shanti0608 said:

Everything? everything-everything?

Muse2NOPharaoh said:

Well that is what I have always been told...

shanti0608 said:

Ok well, I can think of one thing you shouldnt have to moderate ....

Muse2NOPharaoh said:

I'm right with you on that one.....

Muse2NOPharaoh said:

would that be love or booty?

shanti0608 said:

Don't seperate the two.

teller said:

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

let me orgnote val the right answer.... we are right here as always my friend... ( Places one finger in front of each eye)