1:40am
To celebrate my sudden retirement from DearCupid.org, I present you an excerpt from Larry Flynt:
“…ask yourself the question, what is more obscene: sex or war?” In the movie, Woody Harrelson, as Flynt, explains that murder is illegal, but if you take a picture of it you may get your name in Time Magazine or maybe win a Pulitzer Prize. However, he continues, sex is legal, but if you take a picture of that act, you can go to jail. The question of which is more obscene is even more arresting considering the consequences of each.
As with my glorious ability to look into the future, and to answer Ariel’s question, “WHY LI?!?! WHY?!?!?!” Well, I’ve tried retiring once half a year ago, but that was really just to reflect on my mistakes at the time. This time around, Eddie made me think of something. I quote a line in his email to me: “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for sending someone over the edge. I’m noticing now the site is becoming more popular with the young kids. I’m not sure I like that as I don’t like to make suggestions to minors about important issues.”
I know I can control myself mostly, but sometimes, my bluntness might actually be more harmful than good. When I was a teenager, I had to look out for myself, though my friends were there, I never relied on them for emotional support, that is until Jonathan came along and actively supported me on a few occasions. However, most teenagers aren’t nearly as self-reliant in terms of being internally strong as I was. Thus, I do not want to contribute to their stress further. Yes, what I say should actually help them, but a lot of them most likely will never understand until they have gone through more experiences in life.
DearCupid.org is a great place to seek help, as broad as its aunties and uncles may be. My time as The Devils’ Advocate should have passed already. I’m still wondering on how Andrew did not kick me out long ago. It’s really uncanny sometimes.
So ends the era of Martini @ DearCupid.org. Of course, I still hope that those who have come here from DC would still visit me here from time to time. 8]
At least here, I can be as sarcastic and as blunt as I want to be without fear that I may cause some young-un to go hang him or herself. Mhmm… 8]
2:00am
Hey Li,
I can’t believe that you are letting ms anti-porn get under your skin like that.Did you not notice you are the only uncle on dc that is not afraid to loose points/popularity by saying what he thinks.I admire you for that.I thought about ms anti-porn and thought she has a serious problem in life and that she needs councelling.She is obsessive with child abuse,it makes you wonder if she was not abused.And as for eddie’s comment sending someone over the edge is crap,people who kill themselves think about it for ages and will do it because they seek attention.Last night I put Ariel to rest at dc as I find it clicky and the questions seem thought up by bored teenages.
Just carry on speaking your mind ,the world needs more people like you.x
Heh, thanks for the encouragement. 8]
Hello, im new to dear cupid and so idont know what was said about your porn comments but i wrote an answer for a woman who was worried cos her husband was using porn and i said that she shouldnt ban it and maybe even join him and my raitngs went down so i guess my answer wasnt liked. i thought my advice was good but i guess everyones different. sorry you’re retiring. i was gonna add you to my favourite uncles list!
Ariel/Nikita: I think my decision to separate myself from that place has more to do with two things:
1) I am spending WAAAYY too much time there and not really getting my work done. Seriously, sometimes it can get addicting.
2) There isn’t just one Ms. Anti-Martini there, but that isn’t the cause for my leaving. Ha! Like I would allow a few dull-eggs to influence me that way. No, it’s actually because when I read through various posts on different threads, including ones where I’ve contributed, I allow myself to step back quite far away to look at things as they go, and I can sometimes see mistakes in that. Like major mistakes.
I think it’s really how I interact with certain people. Some people deserve to be stepped on and probably kicked in the face a few times, but I also have to consider the other lurkers who are reading my posts. Some teenagers as well as adults that I have noticed is that their minds aren’t nearly as refined nor mature, and they might look at my posts too straightforward. Like a lot of people don’t know what sarcasm looks like, or some people don’t know how to read between the lines.
What I have learned looking back at my relationships with my ex’s, especially Cindy and my friendship with Jessica back in the day, is my inability to consider how they feel if I automatically deem their outside influences as stupid. Being considerate of their welfare, their health, and their happiness is one thing, but being completely aware of how they would feel if I attack their influences is another. I never completely understood why they were sad or depressed every time I belittled their outside influences, but this could possibly be because I, myself, never allowed outside things to influence my mind too much. I wanted my girlfriends to be strong on the inside, keep their own minds, and direct their own actions and feelings their own way, not because of how others want her to.
This was very apparent in my first post about Cindy and I on DearCupid. However, I think I know why they feel bad because not everyone is strong on the inside, even if they look that way on the outside. Thus, they need that support line – no matter how superficial it is. With this said, that outside support line ALSO makes up their internal strength.
So I stepped back even further, to look at my connections with my friends/family. Would I still be nearly as strong internally if I didn’t have the spiritual and emotional support from my friends/family? I think I would have taken a totally different approach in gaining that strength. I would have been completely and utterly rebellious and my ambitions would have overwhelmed me. Which would have been negative, but I would still have alternatively achieved internal strength.
A lot of the people that go to DC require emotional and spiritual aid – I might be able to give emotional aid, but considering that the bulk of our youth is now turning to religion, especially Christianity and Catholism, and then using that mainly as an excuse that it’s okay to do what they do, plus well, I’m not a big fan of those two religions [ahem]… What was I saying?
Yeah… so the bulk of them turning into a religion of sorts, they require that help, from those who are biased positive.
I like to be The Devil’s Advocate. Not because I like to argue. No, gosh, I hate to argue, but I am a very logical person mostly, and I cannot stand to see illogic in debates, thus I often find myself being a one-man army against the onslaught of teenagers and married women and some men who think that what i say are totally wrong. I think they totally misinterpret my words. I always ALWAYS try to look at thing objectively – argue for both sides, but when someone continuously attacks me on the LITTLE WORDS, I get really really annoyed. Cuz they’re not looking at the entirety of the issue, and rather they are looking at the small things.
Anyway, as for DC, I might go back there, cuz there are still quite a lot of people who DCmail me asking for advice. Otherwise, I think I should try to keep as low or a profile as possible. Basically very selective on threads. Also I should really keep my temper down too. Not that I blow up, but I should not try to influence an argument. Then I would be no better than the Ms. Anti-Martini trolls. 8]
As for Nikita: thanks, I’ll add you back if you already added me. Like I said above, I’ll go back there to check up on my DCmail every day, because a lot of people have come to me to ask for my help/opinion. 8]
Boo for no more DC! I saw that stupid anti-porn girl spouting off her tom douchery. I told my guy about it and he can’t seem to let things go, either. He went to school for gender and feminist studies and thought this girl was an idiot, so he had to respond. Thought you might like to read his answer…
Anyway, i hope that at some point you’ll change your mind and come back to answer more questions – I enjoy reading what you have to say!! Although I do understand why you’ve decided to stay away, especially the part about spending too much time there. lol
(and the part about religion, too. I feel as though people use that as a crutch because they can’t handle things themselves and/or don’t want to take responsibility for their own actions. I have a TON of things I could say about religion, but I’ll keep my rants about it off of your blog. I mainly just wanted to say that I’m totally with you on that. heh)
Hey Stina… Nice to see you here. 8] I saw your hubby’s post. Very nice. I like his objective perspective, and his past studies of it was a huge bonus. Total props to him. 8]
I’ll go back there once every now and then. I really REALLY have to re-prioritize my work. I’m lagging again! [sigh]
As for religion, hell, you can say whatever you want here, be vulgar and naughty, as well as tell stories on how you managed to get a monkey to mate with your evil co-worker. 8] The only rules of my blog site is that people don’t attack each other because of colour and culture. However, you can defend and argue your points. It makes for healthy debate, and opens peoples minds to concepts higher than their own current beliefs.
ACTUALLY, I have a forum (LINK) on this site that isn’t in use. I am hoping to have some healthy debates there eventually. It might not for awhile though unfortunately, since I only get about 200 unique hits and 4 to 8 of my most active members to come here. 8/
There is not many things that can make me completely satisfied. However having to see people improve their psyche, their spiritual philosophy and such totally and utterly makes me feel gratified. My view on textbook religion is not too tolerant, but when people start to question their ‘faiths’, that is when I kind of wait in the background, hoping that they would adjust themselves to the greater whole and rather to what some book tells them to do.
Eg: in a MSN conversation with a friend from Calgary, she told me how she believes in god but does not follow a religion. To her it’s a spiritual philosophy – something that I also take to heart. I don’t believe in anything, but my heart is open to whatever is out there. I believe that being faithful does not translate to being aligned with a religion. I find religion a hoax, a parody of what may be, and an insult to the ‘truly’ faithful.
If you think about it, the moral structure and stance of a religion is similar to every other religion – mainly, of course Islamic law is questionable through my eyes, and the thing in the bible about divorce is so damn hokey, and if you’ve read scriptures of Buddhism , equality in men and women wasn’t always equal, and so on and so forth. Well actually… Ah nevermind… 8]
ANYWAY, I’m going to have some egg nog and milk now… Possibly some yummy food to go with it. 83
hey li, i’m glad you didn’t retire! i think a lot of aunties would have been sad you left for good! i enjoy reading your posts. i think you’re a very funny guy and helpful too! so keep up the good work!
Sad?!? [laughs] I wouldn’t go so far as say they would be sad. 8D Hmmm… Well, I have to keep my project schedules in check cuz I was spending way too much time there… 8/
I have been following dc quitely for the last 12 months. I do not post much, just read, learn. listen to some comments and disregard others. You were my favourite augony uncle, your opinions stick, because they are unpredictable, fresh, honest and very clever. I still chew over them, along with my bowl of cornflakes in the morning. It is surprising how one can feel that someone becomes a friend, just from reading a website, which is why I have to agree that I am also sad to see you go.
Ah well… Yeah. There has been many times I want to leave permanently, but then people start flooding my emails and stuff about things and I end up back there anyway. It’s gross really. Reasons for leaving is kind of like, not sure to how to explain… 8/
But yeah… 8/