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Has something that happened to you brought about radical changes in your life? It doesn't necessarily have to be an event. It can be a person, an animal, a book, a film, anything. What has changed your life? I feel that it would be interesting to see what effects different groups of people. To see how culture, language, age, or taste influences the thoughts of people.
If you're reading this and you have a relevant story/anecdote, please post it. I will do my best to read all the posts and reply to them.
I'll start with my own story.
Some of you may know about me, and the majority of you don't. I recall writing my first blog here on TL very fondly. It was a girl blog where I voiced out my narrow-minded stereotypes that was the product of my low self-worth and self-esteem. I talked about this girl who I'am madly in love with, and I hesitated to use the 'infatuated' here although I wish I can do so without twisting the facts. This girl was far more 'superior' than me in almost every way. She goes to an elite school, and blah blah blah. Chill wrote a response to that blog and became the first person to make me think about the 'spotlight effect' and the 'illusion of transparency' although I originally did not have a name to label these concepts, jodogohoo helped me give these concepts names in my later blogs.
I wrote a couple of girl blogs pertaining to this particular girl a few more times afterwards, but I made the classic 'TL Girl Blog' mistake by talking about talking to her/approaching her too much and I never got around to talking to her. I still see her now, almost daily. She sits right in front of me or at times one seat further away if someone else already occupies the seat in front of me.
Anyway, in addition to the girl blogs, I also posted many MANY other blogs. Most of them were about myself, and not much else. I would ramble on about my thoughts, rant about the happenings in my life, and complain about things I do not fully comprehend (like the education system here in Singapore). What really changed me would be the people who responded to my blogs. The replies that I got more often than not contained good, well informed, non-biased advice.
One of the many reasons why I love the TL community so much is that it does not create this 'Hivemind effect' like Reddit and other online communities. Sure, there are strict rules that must be adhered to, but the way the moderators manage the forums is very tactful. But these responses left behind by the good people of TL, slowly became part of me. Whenever I was thinking about a certain topic, I would recall what I have read on my blogs and it influences me in a certain way that I can't seem to describe. Put simply, thinking about the responses is similar to listening to a crowd of people speak, each offering a peek at their own perspectives on life. This has developed my mind and changed how I think in so many mind-blowing ways.
So if you've replied to my blogs before, thank you. Your comments meant a lot to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5TwT69i1lU
 
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Saccharine and trust, sweetness and light.
I see the name Azera around here more than any other, likely because of how often you post/blog, and the fact that we are in similar time zones. I don't have an anecdote about a life changing moment at present, there will be time for that.
Peace be with you.
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On April 03 2012 22:39 ohsea.toc wrote:
Saccharine and trust, sweetness and light.
I see the name Azera around here more than any other, likely because of how often you post/blog, and the fact that we are in similar time zones. I don't have an anecdote about a life changing moment at present, there will be time for that.
Peace be with you.
I don't really get what you mean with your first line. Care to explain?
Also, are you sure you don't see a lot of Torte de Lini? o.O
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Azera, I really like reading your blogs. They are consistently well reasoned and thought-provoking, and it's really nice to see a poster like you.
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On April 03 2012 22:47 Praetorial wrote:
Azera, I really like reading your blogs. They are consistently well reasoned and thought-provoking, and it's really nice to see a poster like you.
Thank you, you're very kind 
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I don't want to derail the thread, but since you asked:
I've read most of your blogs. I respect your 'per aspera ad astra' worldview, your starry-eyed interest in learning and improvement. Sometimes it borders on sentimentality (the saccharine), which is inevitable if you are as enthused as your writing shows. I then become sentimental myself. You trust others with your stories, anecdotes, etc. It's very heart-warming is all.
Edit - oh, and I rarely leave the blogs section so the Torte is a rarer breed.
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On April 03 2012 22:56 ohsea.toc wrote:
I don't want to derail the thread, but since you asked:
I've read most of your blogs. I respect your 'per aspera ad astra' worldview, your starry-eyed interest in learning and improvement. Sometimes it borders on sentimentality (the saccharine), which is inevitable if you are as enthused as your writing shows. I then become sentimental myself. You trust others with your stories, anecdotes, etc. It's very heart-warming is all.
Edit - oh, and I rarely leave the blogs section so the Torte is a rarer breed.
Thanks for the explanation and thanks for the compliments too, I guess, haha.
Torte used to be an avid blogger, and I think he's just stopped blogging so much because he has a lot on his plate right now.
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I detest the "Hivemind effect" you mention, it's good for laughs and memes but when the hive gets to judge and manipulate people's future its just disgusting, from the singular unit perspective each one of them are unaware of the potential they carry as a mass.
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I'm big on TL blog reading @ work (honestly what's there to do when work is slow?), and you're a big part of my daily blog appetite! So thanks for all the content you've provided us.
Oh, and yeah, any more girl blogs? =P
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On April 03 2012 23:08 bgx wrote:
I detest the "Hivemind effect" you mention, it's good for laughs and memes but when the hive gets to judge and manipulate people's future its just disgusting, from the singular unit perspective each one of them are unaware of the potential they carry as a mass.
I feel that the "hivemind effect" rears it's ugly head in most online communities. One example would be Reddit. Someone who let's say is rather 'neutral' about things, doesn't hate pop culture, or what-have-you's, browses Reddit for a week or two, will be convinced that he belongs to the upper echelon of the Internet population. However absurd this may sound, I firmly believe in this. This person will start to hate Nickelback, Skrillex, 9Gag, etc. What is even worse is that he will hate the PEOPLE that listens to the previously mentioned artists and the people that browse 9gag.
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On April 03 2012 23:10 OpticalShot wrote:
I'm big on TL blog reading @ work (honestly what's there to do when work is slow?), and you're a big part of my daily blog appetite! So thanks for all the content you've provided us.
Oh, and yeah, any more girl blogs? =P
I'm glad that I've been able to entertain you :D
I don't have anything girl related to write about at the moment. But seeing the environment that I'am placed in everyday (a class full of typical Singaporean adolescents ಠ_ಠ) I might write about how I've observed people tried to subtly make moves on a particular person that he fancies. But then, that would be ludicrous.
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For me, it took getting dumped by a girl that I had been dating 5 years. She started school late and had been kind of flaky on stuff, including education, in the past so I had been waiting for her to finish her schooling & get a real job before really proceeding any further with her. Essentially, I just wanted a show of commitment to herself and her future but in my head this was the girl I'd marry and have kids with and the whole thing.
When she dumped me, it was probably the thing that hurt the most outside of the deaths of close friends/family members. The part that made it hurt the most was that it was completely out of the blue; we hadn't been fighting or had problems/issues at all. In hindsight, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I now realize that I was settling and that I had gotten comfortable in the status quo instead of striving for more out of my life (essentially being guilty of the same thing I was waiting for her to overcome)
I decided to take a "Yes to (almost) everything!" approach to life. Whenever someone asked me to do something, I'd say yes (although I didn't tell anybody that I was taking this approach so that wiseguy friends wouldn't take advantage of it)... Long story short, I signed up for 3 different sports teams; I took classes for things like cooking and such. I went on dance floors when I was sober. I signed up for the company golf tournament. I sat down with the big boys on the (local) poker scene. I even signed up for something called the Spartan Race (Sprint last year, Sprint & Super this year. The Super is going to kick my behind and I'm going to love every minute of it!)
It's amazing how much good putting yourself out of your typical comfort zone does. In my case, I met a ton of good friends, got way healthier, lost 30 pounds of fat then put on 20 pounds of muscle, made a ton of money that I wouldn't have, met a better gamer girlfriend, etc. To top it all off, my ex even hinted at wanting to come crawling back. I guess doing tons of new stuff, educating yourself in random things and gaining a ton of life experience makes you appear more interesting...
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getting laid. seriously, so much suppressed anger and frustration at life disappears, the world becomes clear and focused.
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On April 04 2012 00:08 psychopat wrote:
For me, it took getting dumped by a girl that I had been dating 5 years. She started school late and had been kind of flaky on stuff, including education, in the past so I had been waiting for her to finish her schooling & get a real job before really proceeding any further with her. Essentially, I just wanted a show of commitment to herself and her future but in my head this was the girl I'd marry and have kids with and the whole thing.
When she dumped me, it was probably the thing that hurt the most outside of the deaths of close friends/family members. The part that made it hurt the most was that it was completely out of the blue; we hadn't been fighting or had problems/issues at all. In hindsight, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I now realize that I was settling and that I had gotten comfortable in the status quo instead of striving for more out of my life (essentially being guilty of the same thing I was waiting for her to overcome)
I decided to take a "Yes to (almost) everything!" approach to life. Whenever someone asked me to do something, I'd say yes (although I didn't tell anybody that I was taking this approach so that wiseguy friends wouldn't take advantage of it)... Long story short, I signed up for 3 different sports teams; I took classes for things like cooking and such. I went on dance floors when I was sober. I signed up for the company golf tournament. I sat down with the big boys on the (local) poker scene. I even signed up for something called the Spartan Race (Sprint last year, Sprint & Super this year. The Super is going to kick my behind and I'm going to love every minute of it!)
It's amazing how much good putting yourself out of your typical comfort zone does. In my case, I met a ton of good friends, got way healthier, lost 30 pounds of fat then put on 20 pounds of muscle, made a ton of money that I wouldn't have, met a better gamer girlfriend, etc. To top it all off, my ex even hinted at wanting to come crawling back. I guess doing tons of new stuff, educating yourself in random things and gaining a ton of life experience makes you appear more interesting...
It seems like your heart broke and shattered... Then left behind all the bad pieces when it reformed to form a better person.
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On April 04 2012 05:01 storkfan wrote:
getting laid. seriously, so much suppressed anger and frustration at life disappears, the world becomes clear and focused.
Well, I wouldn't understand until a very long time 
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EPT
