Draconis Chaser

Hi, everyone! I am in a bit of a tricky situation and would like y'alls oppinion. So, I am currently enrolled in a PhD program, and am working in the field. I absolutely loved that work while I was finishing up my masters thesis, however, lately I became dreading the work. I don't find it appealing anymore and I find myself procrastinating or debating wether or not I should do a sloppy job and be done with it, or suffer through imense amount of emotional and mental labor. I still hold myself to a certain standard, so I don't go full slob, but the truth is that I don't find it enjoyable anymore. Quite the oposite. Furthermore, I don't see any meaningful contribution in what I do on daily bases. Oftentimes I think of myself as of a McDonalds worker, just the type that does lab work instead of flipping burgers. I feel incredibly stuck in this situation. I can't drop the program, but I don't want to keep at it anymore. And even if I did drop it, I would have nothing else to turn to. Since this is the first time I'm actually earning money, im saving up for the Life Purpose Course, and to be honest, I feel like Im grasping at straws a bit. I lay all my hopes in that course of helping me find a direction in life, for the first time in, well, ever, and help me find out what it's like waking up excited and energized, and start loving what I do again. Do you think I am overleaning on it, or could it really give me what I need? If you have any comment, idea or advice to spare, I would be more than grateful to hear them. Thanks in advance! Lots of love, Draconis

@outlandish I have thought about leaving my PhD program long and hard, but in the end, I don't believe I will be doing that. The thing is - PhD programs in my country last almost 8 years, that's about double the standard 4-5 years in Europe. By the time I'm finished, i will be well into my 30's. The thesis that I do and the research I was assigned to are ultimately pointless, and are purely theoretical. On top of that, I am employed full time, and I do a LOT more then just my thesis, and the opportunity to advance is almost non-existent. So there is ridiculous amount of stress and responsibility going on, with little rewards (if any). Given all that, its pretty easy to feel discouraged and feel like I'm wasting the best years of my life on something that doesn't feel even remotely fulfilling. Still, I would feel like an utter loser if I just dropped it like a hot potato, so I probably won't do that. That being said, the job realistically has SOME advantages. It is a fairly prestigious place to work at, my mentor is involved, so I'm not on my own all the time, and the money is decent. And I do get a dr in front of my name, which is also a sweet thing. The problem with me is that it does not feel like I do my best in that branch. I know I can do better when there is some emotional juice going on, and also where there is an application to the theory. Maybe it's naive of me to say this and I'm being a spoiled brat, but I refuse to suffer mindlessly through a decade of my life. That's why I wanted to try and change things a little bit at a time. Maybe start my own business, maybe go in a different field, stuff like that. I decided to invest in the Life Purpose Course to help me navigate it all, and maybe release a bit of the guess-work involved. @7thLetter @Harikrishnan I will definitely take everyone's advice and try at least as long and hard to dig out the little nuggets of gold there are in my situation. Especially in the down time of saving up for the course. Thank you all so much! All the best!

In my last year of Uni, I had 14 classes instead of regular 10, and that was a NIGHTMARE to navigate, so I understand you very well and the struggle is real! A lot of my classes had many tests and practical examinations, lab work and such. Lab work demands time and understanding, so if you have those, and if they are big on your grade, definitely invest some time there. As far as tests go, I usually crammed what I could. There is so much time in a single day, you sometimes physically can't manage to go over everything more than once. The cramming sometimes paid off, sometimes failed ridiculously, but it's still better then not even reading the materials once. Exams are a different bird altogether. My exams were almost always oral exams, so there was quite a bit of presentation involved. In the nightmare that was the finals week(s), this is what I found helpful. Make a schedule and try to stick to it. But also be a bit realistic. 20 pages a day is doable. 100 might not be. Also, try and mix classes that are varying degree of difficulty. For me that was molecular biology (hardcore) and ecology (fairly easy). Some classes you cant mix and they need their own time. Also, i got really excited to study whenever I got new stationary dedicated to a single subject. And I tried to make a bullet journal and track my studying. That I think helped as well. For the harder exams I would write out flashcards by hand, make posters and hang them all over my walls and draw A LOT of mind-maps. Make sure you are sleeping enough, drinking water (although I mostly ran on coffee) and if you feel a technique is definitely not working for you, customize it so that you get the most juice out of it. As a side-note, this might not work for everybody, but in the dark of the finals week, i really dug deep in my ego and made it work overtime ("there is NO WAY I will fail if a dumbass like that passed", "I managed worse shit than this, I can do a stupid exam", "I am going to dominate this thing tomorrow and everyone will be impressed" - stuff like that), just make an effort to be conscious about it. I hope that helps, and good luck with your exams!

@7thLetter @Harikrishnan Thank you so much! I am not afraid to work hard for something I belive in. And 5 years is a small price to pay for a lifetime of direction. I realise things are not going to fall in my lap from the sky, and I'm prepared for the grunt work. I just need to know that there is something behind it, a faith, if you will, that it will produce results if I stick with it. So I'm glad it can actually do that. I might be pushing it now, but do you have any advice on how I should approach my job in such a way that I do quality non-sloppy work, even though it is absolutely draining and demanding, and still have enough energy after work to invest in the Life Purpose Course? Any idea is more then welcome! Thanks again and lots of love, Draconis

@Belay kelemework I watch (well, listen to) maybe one to 1.5 hours a day max. I had mayor problems with implementing Leo's advice before, so I started listening to the videos that could help solve my problem time and time again, while making breakfast, walking to school, in the shower, doing dishes, stuff like that. I think I might have made a trigger out of Leo's voice along the way, because I find myself being much more productive after listening to a video, then not. But 4 hours daily on watching videos is a bit overkill in my opinion...

@Matt23 You know, for the longest part of my life I've been feeling the exact same. Lost, alone AND lonely, unloved, ugly, stupid (this was huge), incapable to do anything right (another huge one), so I understand you very well. The motivation to do just about anything is simply not there.. What I realized, however, is that it never really comes. You have to build it from the ground up. And I believe it is so for pretty much anything, love, career and relationships included. So, on the point of motivation, I would urge you to start small. Real small. If your goal is to, say, run 5 km every day, start by walking 500 m. But do that daily. It will build your momentum so much, at one point it will be easier to do it then skip out. And at one point you're going to fail. Life happens, you get busy, your momentum will dissipate, and when that happens, you have to be wise enough to recognize it for what it is. I like to think of a graph of a damped oscillation (at least I hope that's what it's called in English, there is a picture below). So you start from zero motivation, force yourself to do the things you know you need to, and then you build your momentum really hard, you work on it daily, you get some results, life's going better. Then the same life happens, you are busy, you get into a time-crunch, you miss out, you feel bad, the momentum starts going down. Again you don't feel like doing shit, and your performance drops, except now you are below zero, and even worse then when you began this whole thing. So that is the point where it take hard work and discipline to get first to zero, and then to surpass it. From that point on, it becomes easier until life happens again, and the cycle starts anew. The wise thing in all this is to see is that, even if you have to crawl your way back from the negative into the zero and eventually into a positive, and if it takes you weeks just to get to the previous starting point, you are still making progress. And huge one at that. The real success is not measured by your achievements, but by the character you develop along the way. And eventually, those fluctuations reach a steady state (which at the graph is zero, but you get my point). At one point, it will become a habit to do what you wanted to do and it will keep itself in that steady state. Because then it takes more effort to not do it, then to do it. And also, I think you have to develop the love for yourself first. Yes, friends are nice, a loving partner is nice, a good family is nice, but at the end of the day - the only one you have to the very end is you. And you should build this relationship that you want with yourself, so when the low strikes, you have that feminine, caring voice inside of you to reassure you and comfort you. And when you are being lazy, you have that masculine voice to train you and push you further. You become your own best friend. And together you go and bring all the people together. I hope you find this a bit reassuring. Lots of love! Draconis And here is the graph:

Hello everyone! Lately, I've been contemplating on my life and more importantly my death, and have reached a conclusion that a lot of things currently present in my life were the result of "me going against the world". While some of them have served me nicely (such as personal development work), others have caused me more pain than pleasure, and so I've decided to break those patterns and develop new onces. My problem, I guess, is in this - how do you stop associating pain to the actions that are good for you in the long run, and start associating pleasure to them? That is, how do you develop love for the things that you currently hate, or strongly dislike. For example, I been trying to exercise regularly for a few monts now, but, boy, has it been a struggle. And it's not getting any easier. I simply hate it. The same goes with studying regularly. I can cram, due to the pain of failing involved, when the deadline is close, but not before. And that has been dragging me down for quite some time now. If anyone could spare any advice on this topic, I would be more than grateful! Thank you for yor time, and have a great day!

@abc Hello again! First thing you need is awareness that you are not doing the thing you should be doing. So you got that one off the list. Nice Then comes the awareness of the what you ARE doing instead, and WHY NOT the thing itself, right. The short answer to this is simply the case of there being sth that hits all your sweet spots with greater intensity right now, and every time you change your behaviour, that source of pleasure gets cut off. You then, naturally, feel voulnerable and go back to what it is that brings you happiness. This thing is most likely sth that you don't even realise is bringing you relief and pleasure. Could be as subtle as telling a white lie, or as alarming as doing drugs or smoking. So what happens when you go "shut up and just do it" on your ass, is that you remove the rare pleasure and you probably substitute it with sth that you attach pain to. And then what happens? You lose pleasure and on top of that gain pain. Not good. Not sustainable. Not healthy. Please don't do that. Identify what it is that is pleasurable to you right now, and see if there is a way to press the same buttons, but with a bit more actualizing action, right. And also keep in mind that in a battle of pain vs pleasure, pain always looses. It can only get you so far. If prolonged beyond that point, you will just bend and twist your psyche to gain pleasure from what used to be pain. Again, don't do that! Humans are not made to be stressed all the time. We think our way into it. Everybody deserves to feel happy and fulfilled! Hopefully, that helps a bit. Take care and have a great day!

@abc Honey, I think you need to cut some slack of yourself. You are trying to make it work, and no doubt, you eventually will. Failure is inevitable in the begining of any practice, but the whole social construct to it is really unnecessary. You can't start doing sth for the first time in your life and expect yourself to excell at it straight away. You are learning from the very best there is, so the standard is already set pretty high. I'm not saying you should go 'screw it, this'll do' for a low quality result, just don't drive yourself insane with unrealistic expectations for yourself. If you decided you'd like to start writing with your non-dominant hand all of a sudden, you probably wouldn't expect the ability to write bad-ass caligrapy after a week, right? It's the same thing with anything else, really. Just continue working at it. A little goes a long way. Secondly, you are awfully young and going through the phase where your body is running wild with hormones. Mood swings are quite common, and unfortunalely, so is feeling down and depressed. What you can do, however, is stop worring about the things you CANNOT change at this point, and focus on the ones that you can. What you can't change would be your family, friends, their opinion, the society and it's wry ways. You can change your view of it all, though. If you have any sense of what your passion might be, I would start with that, and make it a safe heaven for myself. And also, don't despare that your life might not be what you expected. Don't think yourself into depression and helplessnes, no matter how fucked up you think you are. Work at it. Find your resources and fix what is broken, build what you'd like and hunt down and sistematicly destroy the things you dislike. A child weeps when it is unhappy, because it is helpless. When that child takes things into it's own hands, it is no longer a child. It's an adult. So allow yourself to grow up. Come to the grown up side- we don't have cookies, but we can teach you how to make them yourself. Take care, and all the best to you!

I'd just add this little thing- watch for the promise land of being kind. Kindness often doesn't pay, and you get little to no recognition for being kind. If you have problems with that, than maybe you are comig from the "Fake-kindness", as @Natasha said, state of mind. I did a lot of that because, you know, I am a nice, kind person who does nice kind things. And I stopped doing that when I realised that I was being kind for recognition and not for the sake of being kind. In my oppinion, when you get to the state of wanting to help for the sake helping, and expecting absolutely nothing in return, then we are talking about real kindness. Someone wishes you evil, and irregardles you are kind towards them because you want to be, expecting no difference in their behaviour, then I'd say that is the real kindness.

@Actualizer That is exactly why I think communities like this one are a goldmine. If I do end up too dogmatic and too in my own head, there is always someone here to call me up on that. And I would be that more open to trusting them because we agreed on ideas before. That is my take on that, at least...

@Actualizer I don't know about other religions, but if you look at Christianity for example, there is more disagreeing than not. About pretty much everything. Honestly, I think having everyone agree with you for the sake of being agreeable is a bad thing. But if you are onto sth, in my oppinion, it is better to solidify that idea, than have it blown out by non-actualizers. If I am terribly wrong, on the other hand, I would like to know that as well.

@JevinR Yeah, the "just do it, bitch. DO IT!" has failed for me every single time. And don't get me wrong, I'm not wallowing in self pity here. Yes, tough love works wonders, but only when you are not paralyzed with fear, confused and feel alone. And also, let's not forget that the op is a kid in Romania with little to no support, and has been that way for (if I understood properly) most of his life. I live in neighbouring country, and the conditions really are that bad. The family by default puts enough pressure on you to become either a doctor or a lawyer because it pays well. Well, better than the rest. Again, that is not, and should never be an excuse to go with the least resistance path and not get off your ass and work towards your goals. All I'm saying is that sometimes people (and especially younger, lonely, depressed people) need to be told that it's allright. And that it will be, no matter what. It serves as an initial nudge into "Just do it" phylosophy, if you will. Take care.

@Zane hey dude! I am not a veteran in PD, but have been dabling with it for almost 7 years, and 4 of those actively. I could be your PD partner if you'd like. I still remember how it was in the begining and remember all the stupid mistakes I made. I am into enlightment work, also "more practical" work, scientificly oriented, but I'm working on being radically openminded, so anything goes, really. I guess, if you are interested, you can send me a PM. I'd love to share my experiences and learn from yours. Take care!

@ExitDone Dude, it's going to be fine. I know it doesn't sound like much, and it feels like you are diving head first into deep waters, but it all works out for the best. Just give yourself enough time and try not to put too much pressure upon yourself. I left home almost 3 years ago, and I seriously think that was the best decision I ever made. You'll grow to like your new independance and especially freedom immediately! At least that's how it went for me. Good luck!

@misko55 Zdravo komsija! Hang in there! This is a long shot, I know, but... There is something useful in every job. Yours cannot be an exeption. That means, you can't think of it as a waste of time. You are comuting for a long time, pop in headphones, listen to some german lessons and practice on your way to work. You no doubt meet a few people in a place you work, right? Maybe they are cool people to talk to? And as far as numbers are conserned, you, my friend, are going to have ridiculous skill at spotting details others could easily miss. And that is so valuable! It also serves as a focus and concentration exercise, and if you are interested in speed reading, there is a similar exercise to widen your optical field. You also have to practice patience and keeping your cool for a long time. (Not a bad skill to have) Could you share your blog? Maybe you could write a bit about what your mind is up to right now? And you have so much experience: Customer service, cruise ship, reception, waiter! That is a lot of stories! And I suspect an inspiration for your writting. Every hero needs a hero's journey if his story is to be interesting!

@Mantas I recognize so much of myself in everything you've written... I have read all the amazing comments, and I do think they are valuable and you should at least try and follow them. However, the memory of the past me having a pity-party and I-don't-give-a-fuck-about-anything afterparty is still fresh in my mind, and so, assuming there's a small chance we were at the same events, I'd like to offer my own two cents. I was never the one to act, always tried to think my way out of problems and fears, and that eventually lead me to more problems, higher level fears and ultimately isolation. Not a happy place. In the mean time, I read about meditation and generally liked the idea (but somehow always resisted actually trying it out, in fact, to this day I am struggling with this, but that is another story), I read hundreds and thousands of pages devoted to "snapping out of it" as my mother eloquently defined it, I tried talking to my friends about my lack of desire to live basicly, and got "Don't worry, it will get better" or my personal favourite "I don't think it's THAT bad, is it? I mean, others have it worse, you know...", all that beautiful stuff. So, it doesn't take genius to figure out I wasn't making progress. Now that I think about it, it seems as though I was like a deer in front of headlights- frozen with all the fears in the book. Like, you name it, I probably felt it, at some point around that time, alongside with all the insecurities an unnecessary pressure I put on myself. Stupid, really... And I should probably tell you about my life phylosophy: I believe in encouragement, in appraisals, in progress, and most of all caring, nurturing guidance as oposed to "kick your own ass and just do it" (although some ass kicking is definitely required XD) I started breaking out of the nasty thing when I reached a conclusion that I can't fulfill everyone's wishes, that I have to take care of myself first, that no matter what happens I have to be able to hug myself, my inner child-me, if you will, and tell myself It's OK! it will be alright! We are fine, you are fine! It's ok! I got your back! It's ok! This is literally what I told myself over and over until I stopped crying or stopped freaking out or panicking. Every time. To this day I do it. It's wierd, but it helps. It also helps when I am beating myself up for backsliding and not trying harder all the way to the breaking point. And if you are anything like me (hopefully you aren't) you might need to do the same. It could very well be the case that you are love deprived and lonely. Scared to look for it in case there is none left and you end up hurt... Again... Please don't do that! Love your inner self! You are strong! You are much much stronger than you realize! And you do care. It might not be glaringly obvious, but you do care deep down. You wouldn't be here otherwise! And you are not lazy. You are struggling. That takes a toll on anyone. It is a mental exaustion (which is exactly why meditation helps- quiet down your thoughts so they are not leeching on your energy). I wouldn't be surprised if you slept more than 10 hrs a day ('cause I could sleep through 12 easily and still be tired AF). So, practicality wise- if you can't bring yourself to do any action whatsoever regarding meditation, finding a job or seeking therapy, I strongly recomend thoroughly cleaning your place up. Wierd, but works, surprisingly... Throw out all the rubbish, old clothes, old paper, sweep the dust, air out, you know, the whole thing. It's really not hard to start, put your music on, or some videos that you have watched already so you don't have to focus that hard, maybe an audio book, but in my experience, fast, upbeat music works best. I personally like anime, so that is what I usually go for. If you know all the words, even better, you can sing along. Everybody likes karaoke, right Alongside that, I also recomend this book from the bottom of my heart, it's amazing! : http://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457882228&sr=8-1&keywords=the+magic+of+tidying+up And the final thing that I want to mention is that you don't want to be alone at your worst. And I say that looking back at myself with today's smarts. When you eventually start making progress, homeostasis will inevitably kick in and try to drag you back into your old routines and mindsets. And if you are alone, there is nothing keeping you from falling apart or running away into a movie, anime, game, a book or music. If you can - get out of the house for a bit, maybe go for a cup of coffee, a walk, to a library, heck, go window shopping if nothing else. You do not want to be alone at that time, no matter how much your brain says you do. If that is still too much, try taking a shower, talk to yourself in different language than you usually do (I'm guessing that would be english), talk to some people on this forum! I so love this place because everyone is so sympathehtic and rational at the same time! You can send me a message anytime you want, of course, and I feel there are so many other people that are willing to help as well! So, to wrap up, I wrote this rant in case you, or someone else reading is going through the same thing I did and had the same unfortunate mindsets as I did. I do not know you, but I believe in you! I really do! You can do it! I'm sure of it! And remember that you do care! Your ego says that you don't because that's how it keeps you in check.. Hopefully this helps even a little bit! Take care!

@MartineF I'm sorry, but in my experience acceptance doesn't come easy, if at all. You can't force anyone into liking you (Which is something I have been trying for years and years, fruitlessly, of course). You can trick people into liking you, but that would be a fraud that you could pull of only for a while, because that is not something that you really are (tried that, failed miserably). The only thing you can do really, if you want to be liked by many, is do your own thing. Without paying attention as to what they are saying. Let's face it. We live in beauty obsessed society. Acceptance of non-standard is yet to come. In the meantime what are we to do? Get them to like us, of course. How? By being everything they aspire to be: self actualized person. I didn't intend to imply that you need to fight them in any way, just to not let their words get to you and sway you off your course. Because we are better than that. And this is really the tepping stone to what you are trying to achieve. Rosa Parks was well loved by a lot of people. Because they loved her, they were ready to rally for her. Ghandi was well loved. Hell, even Hitler was well loved by the people in his day. And he made mass murder an acceptable thing! He was smart. Exactly what we need to be. This is going to change for you only if people start seeing you as something more than just a person who "looks wierd". When they start seeing who Biomech really is (and I'd say a pretty cool person), they will be able to look past your face and see you for you. That is when acceptance comes. Hopefully this cleares everything up... Take care!

@Biomech I like this quote from Tyrion Lannister to Jon Snow in "Game of Thrones": “Don’t call me Lord Snow.” The dwarf lifted an eyebrow. “Would you rather be called the Imp? Let them see that their words can cut you and you’ll never be free of the mockery. If they want to give you a name take it make it your own. Then they can’t hurt you with it anymore.” If you read the books/seen the show, you'd know that Tyrion is the absolute badass, does pretty much what he wants, plays the entire field while being sassy AF, inspite of his past and the way he looks. This is the real power. To know your limits that are set by the society, to know the limits you set for yourself, embrace them both in your mind and body, swallow them and let them dissolve slowly in the Stomach acid. Use them as food to grow, as your psyche becomes stronger and your mind sharper. And when you are stronger than the limits you were caged in, This is what happenes: This is gold right here! Just think about it for a second: Are we really going to let average people (at best) keep us from reaching our full potential? Are we doing personal development for nothing?! Does all the hard work dissappear as soon as some random average Joe makes a smart-ass remark?! Bulshit! I call bulshit, sir! We are better than that! All of us here on this forum, we did more PD than some people do in a lifetime! And we are deciding to give those exact low consciousness people power over our thoughts and feelings (and ultimately future)?! Really?? NO. Hell no. Don't give in to the fear of not being accepted, resist the urge to be a part of a herd! It's a trap! That is exactly the reason why the herd existsing the first place - because everyone is afraid to leave it! One day, when you are successfull, impacting lives, and books about your life are being written, you are going to look back at all the shit you went through, and be proud of whom you have become, while the others will have remained what they have always been. Average. At best.

@An actualizer Might I ask you a few questions, it could potentionally help you sort out the root of it all? If not, could you perhaps rank your anxiety levels on a scale on 0 to 10 (with 0 being absolutely relaxed and 10 being the most horrible of all horrible scenarios) when you are "out there" and dealing with people (I suppose that number would be pretty high) and contrast that to the score when you are in here, on this forum (hopefully not as high)? I trust nobody here has any ill intentions whatsoever and, since we are all into personal development, many of us struggle with similar things. I therefore believe, this should be kind of a "safe zone" where you can say whatever is on your mind and heart. I asked you to rank yourself because there is a neat insight in your answer. This is a forum, but, people behind it are - People! Living breathing people! Like the ones you meet on every day basis. Granted, we are on average much more actualized, but are people nonetheless. If mingeling with people face to face is really uncomfortable for you, you could start with writing more, get in touch with more people here, make a few friends in the process As for books, I'm afraid you might be way in over your head, if you are already suffering from intense anxiety. If not, you can check out some of these books: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=lp_4682_nr_n_0?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A283155%2Cn%3A%211000%2Cn%3A10%2Cn%3A4682%2Cn%3A11128&bbn=4682&ie=UTF8&qid=1457017558&rnid=4682 Hopefully, this helps a bit Take care

Laughter and Happiness Peace of mind 'Groundedness' in values Beauty Compassion Kindness and Selflessness Contribution Mental Strength Creativity Openmindedness and Acceptance Intelligence

@Simon Zackrisson Exactly! Initially, I was going to write out all of the biochemistry that the body does and the energy derived from them, but then it hit me that would've been an overkill... And would be of no use to anyone. If somebody really is curious about all that, there are millions of books on biochem (I recomend Lehnninger). And so, I really aplaud you for putting all the references before and going through trouble of explaining everything.... I was waaay too lazy to that...

I'd hate so start another showdown, but i'm with @Simon Zackrisson on this one... In my experience as a Biology/Molecular biology Major, also coming with background in Medicine, and after a humongous amout of books and publications I've read, professors I have talked to, doctors, scientists in research work, and also speaking from personal experience there is not enough evidence to support vegeterianism, let alone veganism as the optimum "eating pattern" (for a lack of better word), both from evolutionary, biochemical, genetic and microbial point of view, and also looking from comparative systematics pow. Someone has already stated that we have longer intestines than carnivores, and that that is a feature of a carnivore. That is only half true. We do have longer intestines than, say, a lion, but much, much shorter than a gazelle. Also, animals that eat large quantities of plant tissue usually have more than one stomack in order to degrade hard cellulose cell walls as much as possible. We have only one. As far as teeth are conserned, humans have incisors (found in herbivores and omnivores), mollars and premollars (found predominantely in herbivores) but also fangs (which are found predominantely in carnivorous animals). Unlike herbivores, our intestine fauna isn't as effective in extracting nutrients from plant tissues, and we do not have enzymes for celulose decomposition. Since we can draw some nutrients from plants, they are obviously benefitial to us, but are not enough for optimum metabolism. Meat carries all essential amino acids and minerals nice and prepped for use to use immediately, and not have to sinthesyze a whole bunch of building materials. Plants carry only a small amount. Sure, there is fructose in fruit and juice, and our brain needs that to work properly, but muscles (and especially heart) work best on fatty acids. Not a lot of those in fruit. With all that being said, i should note that this is how things are in nature, and in optimally balanced ecosystem, aka, with as little interference from humans as possible. (Un)fortunately, we do not live in such a world. We farm and domesticate animals and crops to the point of unrecognition (both phenotypic and genotypic) from their early ancestors. We pollute water and soil with heavy metals, acid and poisonous gasses. That collects in plants, than in animal tissue, and ultimately leading to us. Add this to sedentary lifestyle, high stress levels, a whole bunch of drugs and alcohol used on regular basis, and the equation becomes evident. This entire big picture is responsible for heart attacks, aneurisms, energy shortages and pretty much every modern disorder there is. Ultimately, with the state of food we are presented in supermarkets, it makes little difference what you eat, you are going to accuulate toxins in your body either way. Of course, the choice to eat meat or not is entirely individual, but the whole point of this ranty post of mine is to note that if somebody is going to use biology, biochemistry and good quality science as a source material, they should get their facts straight, from reliable sources, AND consider the bigger picture derived therein. Thank you for your time and have a great day.

Also, this reminded me of an incident that happened a while ago, when a young man was stabbed for wearing a shirt with a flag of his country on it. If you are in a situation that is anything like this, and your life is potentially at risk, I'd say go with the flow. You can't express yourself if you are dead...

@Will I am not quite sure I understood this last part: In my oppinion, you expressing your views is pretty much expressing yourself (note that not expressing something is also a form of expression). And like I said, I think you have every right to do so, but should be aware of the way those views are expressed. I seriously can't think of anything being so potentionally offensive in this day and age that you would have to keep it to yourself. And likewise, if you are around people whose ego is so waek that they can't handle a different point of view... Well, should you even be around those people? As far as support goes, there is a neat way to check how they feel about certain things, and that is to simply ask what that might be. When they give you their answer, you will know how to proceede from there and this is where consideration comes into play. I'll try to explain this in an example: Let's assume that you want to start a heavy metal band, and you live somewhere extremely conservative, like the Bible belt, or some small village or whatever such place. Now, your artistic preference is obviously going to be different than that of a majority. Say you know a cool dude or a girl and you would want them to be in your band. You can ask directly "Do you want to be in my band" and risk the "Hell, no! That is abomination! You are an abomination, and I want nothing to do with that!", or you can ask them what sort of music do they listen, how they feel about loud music, have they ever listened to rock or metal? What about heavy metal? Hey, I have a band, would you like to join? See how that is different than going straight up. This gives you space to change topic of the conversation should you sense the "hell, naw" coming. No harm done. If they, however, say they think heavy metal is horrible, you are not in too deep to switch to something more pleasurable. You could say something along the lines of "Really? I quite like the rough sound and killer solos. How about classical rock?" And you are out. Obviously the band isn't happening, but you havent supressed any of your views by saying "Oh, yeah, it's horrible" and you havent been inconsiderate of them by saying "You are wrong and have no idea what you are talking about, metal is the music of Gods, That is what Thor listens to every day!" I believe this is the safest and most productive way to talk to people whom we know nothing about, and we want to make sure nobody gets hurt. Hopefully this clears what I wanted to say all along.