StringJunky

There'll be no smoking paraphenalia in my place by next week. The people close to me know I'm stopping and support me. I have an NHS-trained smoking cessation advisor on hand who I'll be seeing every week. I'll give a running commentary on here for a bit. On the subject of having a setback. My neighbour noted that when people give up and then have one, they give up on giving up, returning to their habit instead of treating it as a temporary blip.

That's an idea but I doubt my GP would prescribe it in this circumstance, especially with Zyban having quite a bad press here for unpredictable side effects. My brother couldn't handle them but I'm not experiencing anything untoward at this point.

Thanks.

I can't see how a difference of 3-7 years, in the adult age group, makes such a difference. What you've done there is set an arbitrary line of restriction that isn't there. What you are very good at doing, I've noticed, is creating and putting obstacles in your way.

I'm currently taking Zyban and due to stop smoking completely this coming Monday. I think I can handle the withdrawal in the day because it's not too hard to find something to do to distract myself but lying in bed at night when there's nothing but my own thoughts, before I fall asleep, might be a big challenge. Anybody have any ideas how to deal with it? It might not be a problem because the Zyban should be fully working by then but I don't know how much yet it will attenuate the withdrawal symptoms. I'm trying to preempt the problem and be ready to deal with it if it turns difficult at that time of night,

Yes.

In this NHS quote they are calling endogenous depression 'physical or chemical depression': About reactive depression from the same page: https://www.nursingtimes.net/depression/1996457.article

Verify what?

Your previous post is classic in that respect. I identify with it because I've had depression since I was 15, on and off. I've just come off two years of antidepressants. There's two basic types of depression: endogenous and reactive. The latter is caused by some stressor and yours is your body image. Mine is the probably the former because it just seems to happen spontaneously and several members of my family have it as well.

You're very depressed.

He's not hearing what he wants to hear, figuratively speaking. And now for something, not, completely different:

It's a language thing, I think. It's like a non-native speaker saying: " You will sit down" instead of "Would you like a seat?"

Right.

I think I see what you mean: a hole in that scenario is considered an artifact and not just a lack of something. Virtual particles are treated the same way?

Are they defined as 'not real' because the measurements are not direct but inferred from indirectly associated/directly associated effects that they produce?

A bit harsh mate. She's only 14 and joined yesterday.

I don't know if it was an oversight but you haven't entered it into the poll.

"Hello Pandora, and what do we have in the box today?"

So, what can we do for you or was just the act of conversing with us about it cathartic in itself? That's ok if it was.

If I felt the way you do and felt ugly - which I have done as a young person - my mind would not be closed to another who was also 'ugly'. Like I said, looks wear off with time. Companionship should not be dismissed and it is the principle ingredient of a long-lasting relationship; beautiful or not.

Instead of having a template in your mind of what you would like a potential girlfriend to be like and then going around looking for such a person, I think you would have much more success having an open mind, getting around meeting all types and just let things happen; you don't know the whole gamut of what people can be like. I had an experience of knowing someone who,on reflection, was quite the antithesis of what I thought I liked and yet I got quite attached. In the end, it turned out we were rather like matches and petrol but the experience opened my mind in a positive way and taught me not to be so closed-minded about what I thought I liked in a person and what they should look like. I have only one thing to say about physical beauty from past experience; it soon wears and all you are left with is what you see in your mind's eye about the person; the mental bit. Assess the person first, not their body.

Happiness is a transient, heightened emotional state caused by an imbalance of the neurotransmitters that produce that feeling; I invariably end up on a downer after. I aim for Buddha-like calm; that is a sustainable and positive state; the feeling of serenity is beautiful and can be more enduring than the roller coaster ride of happiness.

Although what you have written is true and well put together, with one little error, this discussion is about how do we define life, as distinct from non-living things i.e. what is the minimum list of things that describes all living things and makes them separate from those things not living? At the moment, you have misinterpreted the question as a philosophical one about life's purpose for each of us.

I would be rather annoyed. How I love those little slices of death we call sleep and the big one is yet to come. For myself, the idea is beyond the pale and not something I would wish for, having lived up to this point in my life.