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Maggotry; so you say i post here out of the need to be noticed? Yeah, i’ve been accused of it before, more than once, even though on my local forum i was 100% anonymous. Don’t you think that if what you wrote was true i’d reveal my name and make a suitable photo available? So what if my surename is known [ or is it? ;) ] It’s Chinese. Do you realize how many Jiangs there is in the world? You’d know more if i didn’t tell you anything ;) My real motives are slightly different to those you ascribed to me. I simply wander various forums looking for sparring partners and discussion which i find enriching. Simply as that. And even if the number of posts in this thread doesn’t reach 250 as on freefly.pl, it really won’t make me feel disappointed because it is the quality and not the number of answers which is important. Base311; turtles? You mean Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles? :) I remember watching it as a kid back in a pre Dragonball era. We were all big fans of Rocksteady, Bebop and Shredder. We’d root for them in every of their numerous fights against the awful turltles. But it would be always the four reptiles plus the rodent beating the shit out of our heroes. The script writer was so unfair :( Recently me and a friend of mine have came across a 13 year old video cassette with a few epizodes recorded. It was so inspiring that we’ve started to write a play based on the characters from the series. It’s an erotic thriller and it tells the story of Crang’s toxic relationship with April O’Neal. April is a bitch and she doesn’t treat the poor Crang well. She also constantly demands oral sex (of which he’s a true expert) from him. We really hope the National Theatre will be interested ;) Justinb138, Jeiber; about the definitions again; well, you can usually trust the dictionary definitions as far as simple objects are concerned but with abstact concepts it’s not that easy. SUICIDE is a good example for that. What is written in dictionaries does not include all cases. I’ve been thinking about something else. Let’s take PAIN; my American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language describes it as: “An unpleasant sensation occuring in varying degrees of severity as a consequence of injury, disease or emotional disorder”. Note the presence of the adjective unpleasant. If you swich off your intuition and trust this definition completely, you’ll probably never understand the Masochists. Aftrerall pain is supposed to be UNPLEASANT. How come they like it? Do they feel it as pleasure? Or perhaps it’s the unpleasant feelings that are somehow good for them? The problem here is that the border between pleasure and pain is not sharp. The pain threshold varies from person to person. What’s more, some people’s brains transmit pain and pleasure signals in an untypical way. So, trusting the definition in this case is bound to cause confusion and lack of understanding. Another example; GOOD versus EVIL :) Although there are cases which can be now easily categorized as definitely evil by the overwhelming majority of humans, for instance massive genocide in Auschwitz, quite a lot of people, namely Nazis, believed it was not only good but also absolutely necessary. Of course the ability to distinguish good from evil is essential to sanity but if we start to analyse the problem it will very soon become apparent that one man’s meat is another man’s poison. If one thing can be ascribed +good –evil features and at the same time it’s also –good +evil then something has to be wrong with the definition, don’t you think? But my favourite example is REALITY. Six years ago Matrix popularised the basic worth asking questions concerning this problem. But the dillema is much older and reaches back far beyond 1999. Some people believe there is a kind of reality core we perecive and interpret. Others say that each brain vomits the reality out. And according to Buddhists nothing exists anyway, neither our minds nor the outside world. What makes the dictionary definition better than that? Justinb138; so you say you’re surfing the internet during your work time and risk being caught doing it just for the sake of exchanging opinions with me? :) Wait till your boss knows about it. Unless of course you’re the boss ;) The stereotype is that Americans are hard working people. How come you have to tidy your desk not to bore yourself to death? Are you so good that you finish your work in a time shorter than it’s supposed to take or simply.... no, i won’t write that. It’d be too malicious and i like you so i’ll restrain myself from dropping malicious hints concerning your person. I wish your company quick overcoming the impasse it has reached. About the Americans who know less; i’ve already told you – it’s a popular stereotype functioning in Europe. I wanted to check it for myself so i talked to some Americans. Usually, before i mentioned it, they had never heard about Poland and would mistake it for Holland. Ask yourself what is the structure of American news programes; what part of it is the reports from outside your borders? In Poland foeign reports are a signifficant part of the whole and they come first. America is a bit like the Roman empire - it focuses on it’s own self while small countries want to know what’s going on in the world outside. By the way, do you remember what happend to the Ancient Rome? :/ If you’ve heard about the 60th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation and the anniversary of the conference in Yalta then why did you wrote that Poland didn’t make the news recently? About backing up the opinion that the Allies did nothing to stop the genocide. In my country we hear about Auschwitz as early as primary school. Until we finish the compulsory education at the age of 19 we hear about it some more. Not only during the history lessons. There is a whole part of literature concerning the concntration camps. And it’s not only at school that the story of Auschwitz is told. The memory of what happened there is kept inside the families and passed from one generation to another. The version of history i’ve been taught does not mention the Allies taking any direct action to prevent Nazis from what they did in the camp. Oh, there were Red Cross packeges sent but you wouldn’t call it serious help, would you? If you know about any Allies’ actions in the Auschwitz area do write about them. I’ve been short of time recently and i haven’t read the Auschwithz thread yet but i’ll surely do it. I’m indeed very curious what Americans and other people had to say about that tragedy. About Chechnia, Tibet and Irak. I’m not complaining about US foreign policy. I’m just saying that America is being a bit selective in its crusade for the free world. The end of the WW II and the conference in Yalta that took place then IS relevant in our discussion. Your argument was that Poland haven’t been making the news recently. Yalta is an example which shows that it is not true. Poland was sold in Yalta. Thanks to the decisions made by Churchill, Roosvelt and Stalin instead of becoming a free country we suffered 45 years of Soviet domination. And two or three weeks ago Russian MSZ announced that Yalta had contributed to making Poland strong, democratic and free. Everybody was outraged. All newspapers wrote about it. But i guess America’s too far away to pay attention to some minor European scandals. You ask what my point is when i stress that i know more about your country than you know about mine. My point is that this is an example of a nation wide tendency the Americans reveal. Vide the 10th paragraph of this gargantuan post. About the “especially from a person who has problems with single words” line. You took it out of context. It was the answer to what Happythoughts wrote. Why didn’t you point it out as a “personal attack” too? Looks like partiallity to me. Jeiber; thanks for complimenting my poor English. It was surely very encouraging for such an unexperienced English user as myself. I know it is rude to polemicize when someone says something nice but i don’t agree with you. My vocabulary and grammar leave much to be desired. Believe me, my Polish is far better. I don’t use my ethnicity as an excuse. I used it to show the nature of your attack on me. If i was an English literature professor your sneering would be well-founded. But i’m just a non-native speaker. I DO make spelling mistakes. And although i’d of course prefer my English to be perfect, as long as it allows me to communicate i’m not going to get depressed by its flaws. I did not base my idea for this thread on imperfections of the English language. It was orginally written in Polish and it is based rather on the imperfections of some Christian assumptions. Although the imperfections of human language are something i stress quite frequently. Especially that our thinking is based on the language we use. Therefore we may say that the imperfections of the language cause the imperfections of our thinking. In that way you were right defining the basis of my argument. Sarcasm; hmm.... should i understand that according to you sarcasm is bad and malicious comments on a foreigner’s imperfect English are OK? ;) If Jeiber be bad it’s good, if ying be bad it’s very not good? ;) By saying my English is pretty bad I didn’t mean i have problems with understanding; i meant that my written expression is, well, crap. And intellectual laz-I-ness have nothing to do with the in born abilities to understand one’s native language. It’s more about relying on other people’s standards and taking the (so called) reality for granted. And throwing the spiral, well, i was to maliciously ask you whether you can “twist a screw” but instead of that tell me what you mean – a freefall move or a canopy steering manoeuvre? ;) Unformed; i don’t agree that people who don’t “satisfy their rushes foir adrenaline are the boring people of the world”. The fact that someone it a thrill seeker doesn’t make him any better than others. It’s all about neurochemistry. There is an enzyme (i’m not sure what’s its name in English) which regulates the level of dopamine in the limbic system. The less the enzyme the more dopamine and the more you feel the need to do risky things. Simple as that. So it’s not your virtue to be a skydiver. It’s something you have no control over. I know a lot of people who’d never jump out of the plain, and who are very interesting. Some of them are fit and some of them are completely not the physical type. Apart from sports there are also intellectual activities – quite static book reading, studying, movie watching, theatre going, writing, composing and so on. They aren’t any worse than skydiving. I can’t see anything in the definition of beauty you quoted that would explain why a woman with scares on her face, tattooed moustache or mutilated feet is to be regarded beautiful. Unless of course you want to call beautiful everything that is “orginal”, “effective” and “gives pleasure to the mind”. But then a body massacred by an explosion also should fit this cathegory. Now i’m asking you, does it? :/ My proposition of the suicide definition, or it’s reinterpretation if you like, is: “Deliberate involving of onself in an action and/ or exposing oneself to a phenomenon that can cause death and actually dying from it.” I wrote about it before. It’d be much easier if you read the whole thread before posting in it. Now let’s consider the implications of what you wrote; if suicide does not necessarily involve the desire to die, then parachuting perfectly fits that concept. A parachuter does not (consiously) want to die. Yet he deliberately and voluntorily involves into an activity that in the end can kill him. And parachuting DOES kill. All the time the parachuter is perfectly aware of the danger and he knows he can die. Nobody kicks him out of the plain. He exites himsef and (if we put the subconsious factor aside for a while) out of his own free will. Ergo – if he dies it’s suicide. What Was To Be Proved. Regards, ying.

And i think it's a disgusting lack of respect for human corpse. Von Hagens is planning to open a plastination factory in my country. He says he obtains the bodies from volunteers who sign a contract with him but human right defendants have recently accused him of buying corpses of the executed Chinese prisoners (some of people turned into his exponates died from a shot in the head) and using the bodies of the Siberian homeless.

Crwtom; i’m glad that you enjoy this thread :) and i agree with everything you wrote. Except one thing. I think the logic i adopted isn’t responsible for the paradoxical conclusion i presented. The source of the paradox lies in Christian assumption that our bodies are a gift from God and should be therefore respected. Respecting one’s body means taking care of it and restraining from deliberate making harm to it which is an impossibility. Hence my conclusion that perhaps God is malicious. Percentage evaluation of the extent to which people are suicidal wouldn’t be easy. But we may assume that those who engage in activities in which death is a matter of seconds are more suicidal than those who choose slow autodestruction. Therefore, as you wrote, skydivers are more suicidal than the red meat eaters even though a vegetarian skydiver may live much longer and healthier than someone who eats meat. Would you agree? Unformed; NOOOO!!! IT CAN’T BE TRUE! YOU’VE ACTUALLY FOUND SPELLING MISTAKES IN MY POSTS! HOW AM I GOING TO SURVIVE THIS?! I CAN’T STAND IT! QUICKLY! WHERE’S MY GUN? I’LL BLOW MY BRAINS OUT IMMEDIATELY! Heh. You really ARE sophisticated :) You sneer at a non-native speaker for her spelling mistakes. Well, this is really something. An ultimate meritorical argument! :) If i tried to convince you that my English is perfect i’d be completely devastated by your sneering. Unfortunately for you i’ve already publicly admitted that i think my English is pretty bad. So i’m affraid that your attack missed me by a mile. Unformed, jeiber; as far as definitions are concerned. Basing one’s arguments on them is generally a good idea. However keeping to the dictionary definitions stiffly and relying on them thoughtlessly can be dangerous. Or at least misleading. The term BEAUTY is a good example for that. My dictionary describes it as: a delightful quality associated with harmony of form or colour, excellence of craftmanship, truthfulness, orginality, or another property. Now, armed in such a definition, try to explore other cultures. For instant African in which women make scares on their faces to look beautiful. Or South American in which women tattoo themselves moustaches – also to be attractive. Or Chinese in which men would get turned on by mutilated women’s feet. See what i mean? Words are only words but they affect our perception of things they try to describe. We should be therefore very careful. Let’s look at the definition of the adverb INTENTIONAL; it means “done deliberately; intended.” And now let me show you how this single word makes the whole dictionary definition of suicide useless since it narrows it and excludes some suicide cases. I’ve already mentioned this. Socrates was sentenced to death and forced to drink poison. He did this himself. No one poured the liquid down his throat. He took the cup, drank what was in it and died. From the technical point of view he commited suicide, right? And yet according to your favourite dictionary definition he did not because he didn’t want to die. Now you see why a new, broader definition of suicide is necessary? There’s another thing. You completely neglect the subconscious factor i wrote about. If our consious part is only a kind of a ticketless passenger to the rest of our mind then all decisions lie beyond our control and indulging in an activity such as skydiving can be easily interpreted as an outer manifestation of a sefl destructive drive. Will you polemicize with this? :) Justinb138; correct me if i’m wrong but i guess you said you wouldn’t participate in this discussion any more? :) And yet you’ve posted THREE times in this thread sice then. What made you change your mind? Am i really that irresistible? ;) Saying an average American knows less about the world than an average European is not the same as saying that an average American is less intelligent or stupid. Saying he or she know less means only that he or she knows less. You may speculate what is the reason for that. But i didn’t speculate. I just stated the fact. It was YOU who interpreted it. And you did this in your own way affected by your complexes. Americans have great achievements as a nation. But an average European is more curious about the world outside. And that’s what i meant. As far as proving the above is concerned. Well, why won’t YOU try to prove it is me who’s not right? :) About Poland making the news; you’re wrong. To give you some examples; seems like you overlooked the results of the contest for the best programmers in the world (organised by MIT, i suppose). Guess which country’s won ;) But that was a minor report. It’s interesting that you haven’t heard about the 60th anniversary of the Auschwitz concentration camp liberation. There was a big scandal concerning the way it had been reported. Many foreign newspapres had referred to the event writing about “Polish concentration camps”. After our intervention they apologised. Some English writing newspapers made pathetic excuses that the adjective “Polish” dentotes only location and not the nationality of those who’d created and run the factories of death. Very convincing indeed :/ But then maybe Poles shouldn’t be surprised by this utter ignorance – afterall, even when the West finally found out about the Nazi concentration camps it did NOTHING to stop the genocide that was taking place there. The Resistance functioning inside the camp asked Alliants to at least bomb the crematories. They didn’t do anything. It’s the same now. Chechnia and Tibet for instance. They don’t make the news. Slaughters in Chechnia is the “inner problem of Russia”. 50 years of Tibet’s occupation is the “inner problem of China”. And Saddam’s dictatorship in Irak? Well.... From the latest news - the forthcoming anniversary of the end of the World War II and the contoversy surrounding it. How come you haven’t heard about it? Either the newspapers you read and programs you watch are totally America-oriented or.... you don’t read and watch carefully. Unless of course you’re simply disinterested because such knowledge isn’t essential to what you do at the moment :) It’s really TRAGIC if the main source of your knowledge about the world is news. If the country doesn’t make the news it doesn’t exist, right? I’m affraid it’s a very common attitude. Now i won’t be surprised by anything you say :) You don’t have to check who’s the president of Poland. (Especially he’s not MY president. I did not vote for him and i think he shouldn’t be our leader.) The thing is that i know more about your country than you know about mine. Some Americans really remind me of the ancient Romans at times.... Happythoughts; i didn’t quote you. You should have noticed. I just commented what you wrote. You accuse me of not being able to follow single sentence remarks? Oh, very funny :) Especially from a person who has problems with single words :) Wasn’t it you who wrote “people” and then expected everybody to believe that it really meant “gods”? :) Communicational errors do occur. There’s nothing that can be done about it. The only thing we can do is to patiently explain what we orginally meant. If you lack such patience don’t engage in public discussions. Anyway in my opinion i understood you well. You wrote “if i make an offensive remark about all Poles....” This was a reference to the statement that an average American.... and so on. My comment to that was: do make offensive remarks if you want. Then i added: i THINK (which is a disclaimer denoting that the following statement is my PERSONAL speculation) that even if you actually wanted to insult Poles you wouldn’t be able to do this because of the insufficiency of your knowledge about my people and our country. Being offensive requires knowledge. I think you don’t have it. If you have it – prove it and send me a suitable PM. Is there anybody willing to make a bet that Happythoughts is NOT able to write any serious insults adressed to Polish people? ;) And finally about my “self-touted” skills; err... i can’t remember boasting or anything. I did say that i’m familiar with some facts concerning suicide. Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for someone else? Regards, ying.

Manar Maged, suffering from Craniopagus parasitus, was born with two heads. The second head, fully shaped, grew out from the top of the first one. The parasite head occasionally winked and smiled. Recently, Egyptian doctors have conducted a surgery on already 8 month old Manar and removed the second head. They say that they are absolutely sure that smiling and winking were only reflexes and not the signs of consciousness.

Happythoughts; saying that an average American knows less about the world that an average European is not exactly offensive. It's just stating the fact. Even in this discussion someone said he was simply not interested in who's the leader of Poland. That's precisely what i meant. An average American is NOT INTERESTED. If you want to make any offensive remarks about Poles then be my guest. I warn you however - i'm going to polemicize with you and defend my people. To tell the truth i think your knowledge about my nation is simply insufficient to be seriously offensive. Unless of course you say something like, all Polishmen are stupid :) But it'd be just funny, i'm affraid. I have absolutely no complexes concerning our national weaknesses. As every nation, we surely have them. But if you want to try to offend me then have a go ;) Regards, ying.

Do you have any idea WHO was the first headdown flyer? I mean the very first one? The answer can be found in John Milton's Paradise Lost. There in Book I (verses 44 and 45) is written: "Him (Satan) the Almighty Power/ hurled HEADLONG flaming from the etheral sky." This had to be some hell of a headdown. Especially Satan fell all the way from Heaven to the very bottom of Hell. In face of these facts one could ask if all headdown flyers shouldn't be considered Satanists.... what do you think? ;)

Germany has proposed introducing a tax on aircraft fuel - 300 Euros for every ton of fuel. Money gained this way is to be used for the help to the developing countries. If the project is put into practice prices of one-way airline tickets will rise by 5-10 Euros. Wonder how it would infuence the prices of skydiving tickets. What do you think about Germany's proposal?

Remember the incident that took place in England two or three weeks ago? One of the young princes appeared publicly in a Nazi uniform wearing a swastika on his sleeve. Everybody was indigant. Some people suggested that swastika should be delegalized. Hinduist community strongly opposed to that idea. In their culture swastika's always been a symbol of luck. It was as late as in XX century when the Nazis used it. What do you think - should swastika be delegalized anyway?

Skyrad; i really like what you wrote. It is one of the most convincing arguments i received discussing this subject. But in my opinion the fragment i quoted refers to taking risks in general. Jesus could walk on the water. Jumping from the roof wouldn't probably harm Him. His supernatural abilities were a bit like our parachutes. And yet He didn't jump. I also do not agree that skydiving is just testing one's equipment. We do test ourselves - our mind and body controll. Think of the main canopy malfunction. Think of hooks. It can be seen as asking for troubles, doesn't it? And what if God is a pilot and prefers paragliders? ;) Happythoughts; i see that you continue in the same vein as Michele. The fact i ponder the problem means that i ponder the problem. Fullstop. Thanx that you worry about me but i'm fine. I really enjoy life and intend to stay around for some more time. Regards, ying.

Ladies and Gentelmen; let me introduce you a famous Polish skydiving instructor Iwan, who'd gladly see all people who don't agree with him permanently banned and deprived of the right to speak and write what they think. Be careful - if he considers your posts intelligent he'll accuse you of showing off and desperately trying to prove you're clever. And if you refuse to give up and continue to argue with him you'll likely to read that you are a freak, a schizophrenic who've fallen in love with him and who can fuck off because he already has a girlfriend :) Iwan! :) what a surprise! I thought you're fed up with my suicidal subject. How do you like the answers i got here? They differ from those you and the rest of Polish skydivers gave me, don't they. And by the way, zrob cos ze swoim sedesem, bo po tym co napisales w watku o moderowaniu (a moze to byl temat jakie forum?) wynosze, ze zaczynasz miec jakies natretne mysli o "wyplywaniu" ;) Skyrad; i've checked the quote you wrote about. You took the words out of context. They refer to the day of judgment and not to everyday life. Justinb138; you really do not understand what you read. It's a real shame for an adult :/ I'm affraid that saying something "can be classified as stupid" is not exactly the same as saying it actually "is stupid". Surely it does not express the opinion of the person who makes such a statement. Straightforwardly speaking, i DO NOT consider parachuting a stupidity. But some people i know - do. Regards, ying.

Guys, a few more posts like that and i will really believe that you don't understand what you read; :/ I have NEVER said i hate Americans (US citizens if you like). It's Michele who suggested it when i was surprised that Justinb138 hadn't heard about Ralph Waldo Emerson. Let me stress this I DO NOT HATE AMERICANS. Many great specialists recruit from your nation. You have amazing achievements in science and art. It was you who put a man on the Moon. Your country is well organised and it promotes creativeness. But an average American, that is first American you'd ask on the street, knows less about the world than an average European. It's a very popular opinion in Europe. Many people told me so. But i rarely rely on what people tell me about others. I've checked it for myself. I talked to Americans. Via Internet and face to face. What struck me was your Americenrtism. You project your cultural habits on other cultures. And you tend to concentrate on your own country and your own problems. That's what i meant. So don't try to make some America-hater from me because i'm certainly not one. Justinb138; if you had a sense of humor you would know my answer to your comment about my hitting on you was a joke. I DID NOT, at any point, call stupid what you do. I only said that there are people who consider it stupid. Do you see the difference? Skyrad; interesting. But there is another fragment in the Bible. It comes from the New Testament. I have no acces to the Bible in English, so i’ll roughly translate what i’ve got; St. Matthew, chapter 4: “And then satan took Him [Jesus] to the Holy City, put him on the roof of the shrine and told Him: ‘If you are a son Of God then JUMP DOWN, because there was writen: I shall tell my angels to protect you, that you didn’t wound your leg againt any rock.’ Jesus repied to him: ‘There was also written: YOU SHALL NOT PUT GOD, YOUR MASTER, TO ANY TESTS.” How do you like it? “You shall not put God to any tests....” does it leave place for any doubts? Isn’t skydiving just constant testing God? Happythoughts; do you mean that i should get rid of my favourite vibrator? But it was given to me by my boyfriend! He made me promise that i would use it whenever i feel like having sex when he was away on a business trip. No, i won't throw it away ;) Regards, ying.

To all those who say that intelligence has nothing to do with believing in God; I myself also do not find the Christian concept of God convincing. But that’s not the thing. The thing is that even an atheist CANNOT be sure that God does not exist. It is scientifically impossible to state that a being such as God does not exist. Anybody who says he or she is absolutely positive about God’s nonexistence cannot be called intelligent, i’m affraid. About my calling other people stupid; guys, what’s the matter with you? Do you really want me to believe that you actually have problems with understanding written text? I have NEVER called any of you stupid. I said that jumping from a plane that isn’t damaged in any way can be classified as stupidity. I can’t recall writing i think so. Do you really think that all people in the world skydive and accept the idea of parachuting? Go and ask them. Many of them will tell you that those who skydive are stupid. That’s what i meant (that they will tell you – not that you are...). Why do you take all i say for attacks on yourselves? Justinb138; a propos hitting on you; i must admit i was quite confused by the idiom you used. I checked in all my dictionaries, and i have a few of them. Even my slang dictionary wasn’t any helpful. I had a suspicion that the idiom may mean either mocking somebody or showing interest. Fortunatelly, i heard it used in the movie i saw during the weekend and the context left no doubts about the meaning. Now as i know what you meant i can try to put together my answer; but it’s not easy – if i say i did hit on you it will mean that not much is necessary to get me interested. If i say i didn’t hit on you it might be taken as a suggestion that you’re not worth my interest and since it is possible that if we’d meet i’d find you interesting, then suggesting you are not interesting is not something i would like to do. Let me then leave your question unanswered ;) I was glad to read your assurance that you’re not the mierzavietz you had seemed to be. It makes one mierzavietz less in the world :) If you’re going to take philozophy you will surely hear about Emerson. I mentioned him to back up my argument that we should think for ourselves and not rely on other people’s standards. Emerson wrote an essay called Self-reliance in which he encourages people to be intellectually independent. It’s very interesting. Check it out. It’s in every anthology of American Literature. If you are patient enough to polemicize with my arguments it will be a pleasure to have a sparring with you. But if all you’re going to tell me is that you’re sure you’re not suicidal then better spare your keyboard. Billvon; you’re right - i agree that there are far more dangerous activities than parachuting, well, maybe with an exception of BASE jumping, but it does not change the fact that it is possible we all do it because we subconsiously want to die. And there’s another thing. God, if He exists, may not be entirely happy seeing us taking such risks and treating our bodies like that, not to mention spending all this money on our egoistic pleasures instead of supporting for instance a cancer clinic. Michele; what do you take me for – a complete idiot? You try to tell me that you did not try to discredit me by saying that not capitalizing i is described in DSM V? Oh very funny. Stating something like that is equal to suggesting that i suffer from some kind of personality disorder. At least. And being classified as a person with personality disorder has serious social implications. Such a person for instance is not taken seriously and generally disrespected. If you’ve ever had anything to do with psychiatry or psychology you should be perfectly aware of it. So either you tried to discredit me deliberately or you’re not a psychology/ psychiatry expert as you wanted us to believe. There’s another thing. You bluffed about the DSM mentioning not capitalizing i. Or less euphemistically speaking – you lied. DSM is general and contains no detailed descriptions of particular cases. I wonder what you will say now as an outstandingly educated expert :) It’s interesting that you mentioned the DSM at all. Making such suggestions is very unproffessional. You have no data to confirm whether i show other symptomes of a particular DSM type. And as far as i know one symtome is not enough to prove me a psychopath. Suggesting there can be something wrong with me just on the basis of two posts i wrote is a hell of a compromitation. A serious psychiatrist would never do it. I guess you’re merely a psychologist. A haughty one. I’ve meet somebody just like you on my local forum. Only she was more specific and made a full diagnosis. Why won’t you have a go? It will be really funny to see if you both diagnose me in the same way :) About the hate i have for Americans; ignorance is rarely a positive thing, no matter whether in American or Polish version. The facts are brutal – an average American knows consioderably less about the world than an average European. America may be better for living but the genaral knowledge about the world in Europe is better than in America. I’m sorry if i am the first person who made you aware of this. Let me give you an example. When they hear that i’m from Poland, American people usually say something like, oh, Holland? Yes, we’ve heard about it! If i asked you what’s the capital of my country you’d probably have to check in the Internet before answering. And i know the capital of USA. Without checking. It’s Las Vegas of course! Just kidding ;) I also know who’s your president. Do you know who’s the president of Poland? I seriously doubt it. Regards, ying.

Michele; you try to tell me that ignoring a certain language convention is an indication of a psychiatric problem? Spelling and grammar mistakes too, i suppose? :) And it doesn't matter that i'm not a native speaker? Now Dadaists and other people who have a creative approach to language must have been all mad too? It can be true of course but somehow i find it difficult to believe. Could you quote this particular fragment of DSM V description (and state the page the publisher and so on)? How can you know WHAT exactly i have read about suicides? On what basis you assumed that my knowledge has its source in thrillers? Perhaps i HAVE had a direct insight into a sucide's mind? Or perhaps i haven't. What is sure is that you don't know it. Trying to discredit one's opponent in discussion by suggesting that he or she has psychiatric problems is a well known an quite primitive tactics. Try something more sophisticated than simple Ad Personam :) Why should i want to suggest you to kill yourself? You are being silly. Be careful - such thoughts can be easily classified as a sign of persecution mania :) And i think you know where it leads eventually :) How can you know if i care or not about others? As for me, you make quite many evidenceless assumptions. As if you din't controll your thoughts. Your thinking process gets triggered by for instance by an innocent remark i make and you go on constructing gargantuan systems in which i want you dead and so on. I've seen people like that before. And have read a lot about them. Before you start to see psychos in other people take a careful look at your own self. Regards, ying.

Justinb138; it is indeed very sad if you truly are as egoistic and self-centred mierzaviec as you say. You write you don;t give a shit about me. Well, don't take it personally but i don't care. However your egoism and lack of worry about other feeling beings is nothing you should be proud of. I pity you because such attitude generates bad karma. Continue this way and in your next incarnation you will return as a cockroach. Besides i must point out it was Superwhuffo who said he worried about me. I thanked him - not you - so what was all your venom soaked writing for? About Happythoughts' mistakes. I didn't mean his or her grammar and spelling. I meant LOGICAL mistakes. Should have written errors. My fault. As far as my language mistakes are concerned; i've never said i'm perfect. In fact i think my English is pretty bad. But still it allows me to communicate on a basic level :) Of course i try to improve it but it's a slow process. Although a reasonable dose of perfectionism is a good thing, i'm not going to lose any sleep over grammar and spelling mistakes i make. Not capitalizing the i is deliberate. I always try to stick to English grammar rules but about this particular rule i simply don't care. Call it eccentrism if you like :) You repeatedly write that you don't care about my opinions. Let me ask you then - WHAT are you doing on the Forums?! It all consists of people's opinions. Though then perhaps you are here to read only your own posts :) The very art of discussion is about analysing and polemicizing with the opponent's arguments. Yet you stubbornly refuse to do it. I think the reason for this is very simple - you've gotten heavily frustrated. You strongly disagree that skydiving is suicide but unfortunately this inner voice of yours cannot find suitable words to be expressed. You simply lack arguments against my theory. By saying you don't care you try to hide the fact that you have nothing to say. Whole your contribution to this discussion was rewritting a dictionary definition which is pretty useless since it does not include a lot of suicide cases. Such as for instance Sokrates who was forced to drink a poison and who did this - thus killing himself without the intention to do it. What a pity you don't think for yourself :/ About Emerson. I meant Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer, philozopher and central figure of American transcendentalism whose works are landmarks in the development of American thought. How come that living in Europe i have heard of him and you, an American, haven't? What schools you attended! Shame on you. In spite of the above i think that really you are a nice and kind person who for some reasons decided to play hard and act like a macho. Your rigid harshness is cute in a way :) Receive my regards. Michele; i don't mean to sound haughty but as far as suicides are concerned i know probably a bit more than an average person. This is mainly, but not only, because i'm quite interested in the subject and have read something about it. If you don't believe me i can send you a privete message containing an instruction how for instance cut your veins in a most effective way. Are you interested? :) Let me also ask you a question; have you ever tried to think about main types of suicides? I don't mean group suicides versus single suicides but rather the reasons for which people do it. Does anything comes to your mind? And now, just as i promised, the ultimate argument. There is a theory from the verge of psychology and neurology, guess Jung was first to write about it, which says that whole our decision making process takes place on the subconscious level. This what we consider consciously taken decisions is really a kind of neuro static. This would explain why not everybody engages in hazardous activities such as speed-driving, scuba diving or parachuting. Perhaps we're all attracted to skydiving because we subconsciously want to die? Do you find it convincing? :) And if not - i'm sorry to tell you that our current state of scientific knowledge does not make it possible to overthrow the subconscious factor. Regards, ying.

superwuffo, justinb138; about you dictionary definitions of suicide; try thinking out of the box. If you do you'll see that i'm right. Be creative. Don't rely on other people's standards. It's intellectual lazyness. Remember Emerson? superwhuffo; I guess that you belong to people who get angry watching the movie Fight Club :) if you find offensive what i write i suggest that you read the 4th paragraph of my previous post again. It's extremely nice of you that you worry about me. But let me reassure you - currently i have absolutely no depression related problems. My brain is in perfect chemical balance :) happythoughts; the number of mistakes you've made in your last post is just unbelieveable. What you previously said can be summed up as don't think - skydive. And you used a buddhist story of a student asking Buddha a question to back it up. The story was not a koan of course. I mentioned koans because from what you said one could think that buddhism encourages thoughtlessness. And the Gateless Gate IS a collection of koans. So what you meant saying "This was not a koan"? As far as your advice is concerned; each time i skydive i get more convinced that it's suicide driven. I certainly do not refuse to lear from others but does the fact that people answered me means that i have to automatically get convinced by what they say? The replies i received are NOT convincing in my opinion. I didn't say, that your statement “Invisible people aren’t half as important as the ones that i see flying” is Buddhist. But the story about Buddha and the student IS. Don't try to tell me that you meant that "skydivers are more important than invisible gods". You said "invisible people" and people are NOT gods as far as i know. But even if somehow you really meant "gods" saying "people" you should know that according to buddhism gods are also feelig creatures and therefore they are also important. I didn't say it is only me who loves controversial subjects. And don't tell me what i really care about because you cannot know it. What i'm interested in is DISCUSSION and your arguments. I read all answers very carefully and polemize with them. The fact that i don't give up and keep writing doesn't make me a troll. How do you know that i hide from life? You don't know me, you've never even seen me. Your accusations are completely evidenceless. Okay, the subconscious factor next time. Regards, ying.

Hi everyone! :) I’ve postponed answering to you because i’ve waited until a few posts accumulate to send one big reply that will explain it all. Of course i doubt whether i manage to convince you writing only once but then it’s quite a challenge to try :) First of all, i want to thank you for your involvment. It’s very kind that you decided to spend some of your precious time reading my post and writing to me. I certainly do appreciate it. Second of all let me tell you something about myself; if you call a troll a person who comes up with a controversial subject then obviously i am someone like that. What’s more, i trully LOVE controversial subjects – not only those i invent but all. I find them inspiring. They enrich me and let me know myself better. How come you consider it a negative thing? However your judgement, you should be aware that the very process in which you classify my subject as controversial takes place in your minds :) Therefore it is YOU who’s the real source of controversy here. Does this mean YOU are the trolls? ;) Zen masters say: IF THE MIND IS PURE – THE WORLD IS ALSO PURE :) But let me now stop digressing and get to the point. Belgian Skygirl, Superwhuffo; who said i’m Christian? Op5e; the fact who i am has nothing or very little to do with the subject of this discussion. Especially you don’t know me and we will probably never meet. Tdog; so what that i’ve just registered? So what i have only 2 posts? Does it matter? How does it influence the things i write? Don’t try to scare me. I’m not affraid of you. If you want a good fight then confront me intellectually. If you dare :) Salsa John; be informed that i am na authentic Polish skydiver and a holder of a FAI licence. I’m in the sport for a few years now. Aren’t you too confident with posting evidenceless suspicions on others? Dbcooper; I’m affraid that you mistake ying for yin. Ying is not the element complementary to yang. It is an ordinary Chinese noun with not much symbolic meaning. As far as i know at least. Skybill; oh, are you really that great? And you say people just keep staring at you with their mouths agape? :) Tell us do you get a kick out of it? :) You’re probably very proud of yourself. Wow, 40 years of jumping, what an achievement! Mother Theresa compared to you is just no-one. Happythoughts; have you ever heard of koans, the riddles (such as the Gateless Gate for instance) that help to achieve the enlightment? From what you wrote one could assume that buddhism encourages thoughtlessness. And this is not true. There is a difference between deliberate simplicity and ignorance, don’t you think? And from the second paragraph of your post (“Invisible people aren’t half as important as the ones that i see flying”) it is clear that you cite buddhist texts but you don’t get the basics of buddhist teachings which says that ALL creatures are important. Njasshole; not all siucides are egoistic. Remember Christ? Or a priest called Maksymilian Kolbe who went to death intead of the prisoner from his cell in Aushwitz? Will you tell me they were egoistic? Or the samurai, although what they did was quite different to what Christ and Kolbe did. Suicide is a way to complex phenomenon to be simply classified as egoism. But that’s a whole different subject. Perhaps i will post it on this forum someday. Tink1717, op5e, salsa john, chrisL, slotperfect, fab, drew, jskydiver22, nightingale, scrumpot, michelle, derrenspooner, brothermuff65, superwhuffo; even if parachuting doesn’t fit our human definition of suicide WHAT can possibly stop God from taking it as suicide anyway? And don’t tell me you don’t believe in God – any slightly intelligent person knows we can’t be sure He doesn’t exist. But never mind that. You see, the thing is that suicide actually fits the definition. Because suicide can be defined as “deliberate involving of onself in an action and/ or exposing oneself to a phenomenon that can cause death”. Can you deny that parachuting can kill you? Can you deny that you are fully aware of that? I don’t think so. Ergo parachuting = suicide. Just as driving a car, eating junk-food, smoking and even brathing because this process causes our cells to oxidize which is, well, unhealthy. Perhaps God is malicious and deliberately designed it all so that everybody went to Hell? Have you considered such an option? :) Ebsb52; you’re the only one (out of people who posted here) who’s taken the subconscious factor into consideration. On my local forum (which has more or less 200 users who regularily visit it) i received around 250 answers and no-one mentioned what you have mentioned. I congratulate you :) But since this post is quite long arleady i will leave the issue of subconsciousness for the next time. Though then maybe it won’t be necessary. Maybe all doubts have perished already? ;) Regards, ying.

N/A

My boyfriend dumped me. I got depressed and wanted to hurt myself. It took me 60 seconds to forget the bastard :)

In the place I'm writting from autumn and winter are a melancholic, thought provoking time. Recent (maybe not the newest but still fresh in our memory) event - death of one well-known and quite experienced skydiver in a simple main canopy malfunction situation - is an additional inspiration for pondering on certain matters. What's my point; Christianity is a religious system very popular in the world; have you ever considered parachuting in the context of Christian faith? I have. And you'd never guess what was the logical conclusion.... well, it seems that death during a parachute jump should be regarded as a.... suicide. How is that? It's very simple. No one forces anybody to become a pachachute jumper. One does it from his or her own free will and, what's more, purely for his or her own egoistic pleasure. Because, as we all well know, parachuting is highly pleasant, euphoricly adrenalinal, and generally mind-blowing. Nobody becomes a jumper because he or she has been forced to become one, or because of an inner need to help others, and everybody is perfectly aware of the fact that this particular sport can result in death or serious injury. How such unnecessary and advanced riskyness can be classified? How can we call our favourite leaving a well-funcioning plain, helicopter, glider, cliff or whatever one wishes to jump from? At best we can call it stupidity. At worst an indication of a self-destructive drive. And life according to Christians is a gift from God Himself, a gift which should be respected and which cannot be rejected. Anyone who dares to do it, will be cast into hell where he or she will suffer the eternal condemnation.... Whole this analysis leads to only one conclusion; people who kill themselves during a parachute jump should be treated as suicides and buried outside the cementaries. What do you think?