Who attends this forum?

[fenrir]

While not addressed to me fenrir, let me attempt to answer. I must say I admire your honesty about pride.

Let me ask you something, do you feel proud of your "preferring quality music"?

Perhaps if we delve deep enough, there may be a bit of pride attached, but it is more about being true to metal music than being a special listener. There just isnt that much to be proud of here, this is not something inaccessible to people and this site exists to make it accessible. Stronger feelings would be a bit of frustration that you cant just explain to people how to listen to music after they have been trained to be passive and attend only to each moment rather than follow a progression (in simpler terms `hear riffs`).

Haven't many people in this forum constantly expressed themselves as superior to others because of it?

No, at least I certainly hope not, but this is the impression a lot of people get. Why? Because you cant really be impersonal about something you care about and when you call the music people care about shit they FEEL (not think) its personal.

We may be trying really hard to choose quality music, and as far as the standard we think we follow this may be true, but what makes you so sure this is so?

I dont particularly understand your thrust here. The music, when studied, has certain objective standards. These are all interpreted subjectively because we dont have any objective measure, but you can still approximate them. Furthermore, the ultimate measure of quality of music is, like any art, the potency of what it evokes. Some metal (and some other music) takes you, once deciphered, to heights unmatched.

It is arrogant because to some point you may be wrong, you just think you are choosing the correct thing.   Many times, I'm sure this is the case.

This is not right and is the result of a relativistic outlook and lack of conviction. It is a manifestation of your own doubt. What I listen to convinces me, if there is room for second thoughts then I have not been convinced. Why should you possibly be wrong? It honestly is not that big a deal man, keep exploring the best of metal and it will convince you itself. True, a lot of people have false convictions about a lot of things, but instead of seeing it generally just look at the specific situation of metal music. All of that noise about opinions yadda yadda is just the product of warring egos.

So it does not have to be arrogance, though it can easily be perceived as such. It is just conviction.

Edit: Let me ask you a question fenrir. For the best-of list of death metal and black metal on the DLA, can you appreciate why each and every album and band is on there? Ignore the order.

Actually a bit more leeway, not each and every one but pretty much all of them. If the answer is no, which ones do you not appreciate? If the answer is yes, high five bro.

Let's get something clear. It is not my lack of convictions that makes me doubt, but a realization that we are not perfect. Yes , there are objective standards, but people around here may be experienced listeners but not really studied in music.  I recognize my ignorance and the fact that I am constantly learning, so I recognize that I may be wrong. Yet I  still hold fast to my current standard and dismiss a lot of music as inferior. 
Can I appreciate all of them in the list? to some degree, yes, But there are some whose value I am still trying to account for (Sepultura, Morpheus Descends, Therion) to be on par with the others.  Even the Deicide album seems to be put high up on the list in a place where I think others deserve more.  I would have personally included De Profundis instead of some albums in that list.

[Vigilance]

I think people like you are referred to as 'sleepers'.
You don't give Clark Kent a second glance, but Superman...

I never could get into the Superman Character.  You have this being of immense physical strength who can't bring himself to do more than protect decadent urbanites. I would consider that his greatest moral failing yet the weakness that is emphasized is that otherworldly mineral. He is Superman only in a physical sense, and there are thousands of those. Nothing worth looking at truthfully.

[Bukkake]

I've been keen to Doctor Manhattan.

When he moves to Mars and isolates himself because humans are too feeble.

[Humanicide]

Humanicide:
I quit playing because I realized I'd been doing it purely to feed my own ego, right from the start.
It was all about me, and my vast need for praise and adulation from others.
That's an embarrassing thing to realize about oneself, no? It was for me.
I bought a new D-28 a few years back, but still I don't play it, beautiful instrument though it is.
Maybe one day...
Or maybe not.

Ah, I see.

Maybe one day, you SHOULD try it again. For its previously stated meditative qualities, but also 'cause it helps to keep the mind sharp. If you're able to keep your ego in check now (which I'm assuming you can), then it shouldn't be a problem. Do it for YOU and no one else, man. (well actually you might be able to write your wife something nice; I'm sure she'd like that)

[Vigilance]

Doing it for anyone or anything is probably ego maniacal. The only reason a personal free of ego should be playing a guitar is the same reason a silkworm produces silk. I would sooner expect him to chirp a suite in D minor than pluck it out on some strings.

[trystero]

...

What about the black metal albums?

[crow]

Maybe one day, you SHOULD try it again. For its previously stated meditative qualities, but also 'cause it helps to keep the mind sharp.

Well, I have tried to play, a few times, after that very long break, only to find my fingers don't obey me any more, and get all tangled up in the strings, and the frets do nothing but buzz and muffle. The frustration involved, easily overcomes the urge to make music, while my fingertips suffer from their lack of calluses. Martins are notorious for the high string tension, and ultra-light strings sound terrible.
As for keeping the mind sharp: I find the mind stays sharp, all by itself, unless it gets used on things that dull it. Certainly my mind stays sharp enough for me, given the limited use I put it to 

But who knows; playing music in an accomplished way does take commitment and discipline. It's almost a matter of starting all over again, as if from nothing. That might be a good idea. There was always a delicious sense of reward, seeing fingers flying, effortlessly, over the frets, and music appearing out of nowhere.

[indjaseemun]

23 years old, started law school, hated it, dropped out, now in psychology university. Quite better. My preoccupation is, I have psychological problems. Who hasn't, in this day and age (funny fact - the world ages, yugas, etc. are not fixed linear concepts, but way more dynamic). The problem is I have some Obs. compulsivedisorders. I know I can diminish it, but don't know when I will be able to totally extinguish it.

Most people would not want their psychologist to be like that. anyway, the psychologist is not forbidden to have his own problems. He just gotta be a good professional. Plus, I plan to write

I recently published an article about the sensibility and perception in living beings, consciousness and consciousness after death in a small journal from a small psychological clinic here (4.000 thousand copies only in my small city. I love living in small city...)

If nothing works out, I sell out: I'm pretty sure I can write whatever mumbo-jumbo people are after to read these days... I'll improvise some below, but as I'm more accostumed to brazilian style, my american style self-help cliches might not be so good:

Only you can help yourself. That pretty girl on the counter, that agressive jock, that genius that you so admire (if you're lucky) or, hell, even that charming petty criminal from the movies who steals to eat like Charles Chaplin: They are all just like you. There is nothing in them that stands out from you except one thing: Their ability to plan and execute their dreams*, and most of all, their strenght.

But what is strenght? Isn't that what is known as Social Darwinism? No, this humble writer despises this chain of thought. Rather, it is your innermost essence, that nothing can corrupt. Brain lesions may seem to corrupt it, and they do, in a way, but only temporarily. Your spirit is indestructible. Remember that on your great walk through the corridors of the schools of life, and take good care of your locker. If you're dedicated, hopefully it will be more like a prestigious university where the bathrooms are fine and your locker is well locked and full of nice books (and an emergency kit), and way less like high school where you're locked in your locker or flushed in the bathroom. You choose what you own, not the other way around. I'll finish with a line from the great movie Adaptation: You are what you love, not what loves you.

Pretty good for improvising, huh? Us over verbal types gotta leak it somehow. Way better than the chuck lorre vanity cards. That guy is a writer of sitcoms, and although I enjoy watching the Big Bang Theory, (it's funny) he has plenty of bad moments, cliches, and I HATE THE FUCKING LAUGHS. THEY SHOULD BE ABOLISHED FROM SITCOMS. IT'S POINTLESS, AND DON'T SAY IT'S BECAUSE OF THE AUDIENCE, BECAUSE THEY INSERT THE LAUGHS WHEN IT'S FILMED OUTDOORS ALSO.

PS: If anyone is interested in my article, say so and I'll translate and put it here. It's quite nice.

* if you're gonna write self help bullshit, be sure to include Dreams in it

[dead last]

You sound like a kind of person who is willing to obfuscate knowledge of psychology for profit, but I hope it's not true. That's a bad kind of person to be, since that kind of work will confuse and muddle thousands of other less knowledgable people who are just taking steps to figure things out on their own but get bogged down by articles that masturbate their already overloaded sense of self-importance with sugary tripe like you just demonstrated.

You are also anti-ANUS? What drew you to metal/this forum? I ask out of curiosity.

Knowing nothing else about you, I can honestly say that I hope things don't work out for you.

[indjaseemun]

I was once the editor of a short lived Brazilian Version of ANUS. But you can't go on spreading your site to people and say the name is ANUS.

I don't know if selling out to a more popular style is the same as giving bad advice and shit texts... Maybe to say more truth in the manner of pop psychology, but still keeping it real, might breathe some fresh air into people who only read self help books...

But I only meant that in writing, books are a whole different topic. OF COURSE I would not mess with people's lives in real therapy.

[dead last]

Well that's good to know; that's as much as I expect. From this forum generally I get a sense that all of the users uphold a pretty diligent standard of honour and at least respect for the "mundanes". So what you said struck me as borderline treacherous. I guess that shows how I've already started making assumptions on a user's moral tendencies just based on them being a user here. My mistake (?).

[indjaseemun]

Not that I care what you think, but I meant that I am going to have no problem, if the opportunity comes, to provide psychological therapy to people by the book, as the council of psychology teaches. The person gets what is being announced.

Now on books things can go wild. Writing is more creative, and if people want to read shit, let them. I would have no problem writing wild stuff to entertain people. I need to eat.

[Madhu]

I recently finished an undergraduate in Religious Studies. I am currently trying to secure a position in a Religious Studies PhD program. My focus is in South Asian religion, with a special interest in Tantric traditions.My long term goal is to strike a balance between teaching and researching in my field.

While, as mentioned, my current academic focus is in South Asian religion, I also hope to branch out at some point into the study of contemporary 'underground/fringe' cultures and their unique religious/occult perspectives. This will be my way of 'giving back' to the world which has given me so much throughout my youth and early adulthood (metal in particular). I hope that my work in this field will eventually produce material of interest to people with similar backgrounds.

[Wild]

Now on books things can go wild. Writing is more creative, and if people want to read shit, let them. I would have no problem writing wild stuff to entertain people. I need to eat.

Is that the best you could be doing with your life?

[crow]

Such judgmentalism. Tsk, tsk. I'm sure there are masses of people who really enjoy reading crap.