What woke you up?

SolidStateSurvivor

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Be it a (but not limited to) moment, event, or life experience?
 
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Anova3

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You mean literally or metaphorically?

Literally, this morning: my anxiety.

Metaphorically: I was born into it, as odd as that probably sounds. My parents (particularly my dad) taught me from a young age that what people say especially on the news or otherwise is often not directly what they want - that folks motives and words are often divorced from one another in a way that often leads to dishonesty of one form or another - and that I should question everything and trust nothing at 100%.

....actually, now that I think about it, my wakefulness in either case my have the same root cause.
 
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LostintheCycle

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Answering this question as you meant would feel self-aggrandizing. It's one thing to be simply different from most other people because even if you believe you are not like others, you don't want to believe that it makes you better than other people; to be 'awake' is to outright say that you are above the 'ordinary' person which just makes you an ass. To answer your question though, I have set my alarm to Aphex Twin's "Flim", which is reasonably loud enought to wake me, but soft enough that I won't launch into panic mode.
 
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eve

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litrlly: i felt rlly s1ck this m0rning so thatz y i w0ke up
metaphorically: i guess just climate change and how it haz been handled
i knoe it soundz suuuuper cliche buuut itz h0nestly deprezzing that they hav known abt it 4 sooooo l0ng but juzt decided 2 do nothing 4 corporate interestz
i consider myself some1 who carez abt the enviroment a lot and itz depressing knowing that evnn if i do tha m0st i can possibly freaking do, its ultimately the big businesses that hav tha final say ;-;
 
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ETierhuman

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Literally? My dad turned the light on and I decided to sleep on the couch
Metaphorically? 2021. It gave me time to reflect and realize how truly shitty 2020 was. You never think about how things affect other people my age, but going back to in-person school showed how people changed. It just felt different. Everything. We all heard about the same things and went through a loss of our own. (not me tho yall stay safe).
 
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Sketch Relics

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I just do... I don't even need an alarm clock anymore really, so long as I go to bed with the knowledge I have to wake up at a certain time and I have about 7 hours of sleep I'll wake up about an hour before I want to, or not be able to sleep at all; whichever my brain picks really.
 
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I'm going to answer this from a metaphorical sense... and sorry of this is a major buzzkill.

I 'woke up' when my older brother OD'ed and died back in 2020, he was only 30. We both were drug users, but he took it too far and started messing around with harder drugs when I was mainly using cannabis/alcohol/psychedelics/and occasionally coke (haven't done it in years and am finally over it). When he died I didn't immediately stop, in fact I started using more. I didn't want to sit and be with my emotions, or deal with the weed withdrawals which just turn me into a zombie for weeks on end. Being sober meant I had to deal with constant thoughts and dreams I'd have of him, avoiding family and responsibilities, and generally feeling powerless over my life.

It wasn't till mid 2022 that I started to actually heal. Believe it or not, everything changed for the better after I took some MDMA (ecstasy) and journaled for hours on end. I had been avoiding psychedelics since his death in fear that it would be too overwhelming after his death. While on it, I also played some N64 games that I grew up playing with my brother. I couldn't finish the mushroom cup in Mario Kart 64 because I broke down in hysterical tears. The whole experience was very cathartic and I finally felt peace about the situation and how my life had been going. I still carry that peace within me and hope to continue to do so forever.

Now that I'm 30 I'm on the road to recovery, and I'm glad that my drug use is way more seldom than it had been for the last decade. I'm smoking pot a lot less and barely drinking anymore. Started jogging and started freelancing, both of which keep my mind busy in a good way. Funny enough, his death cured my depression; everything I had been depressed about throughout my teens and 20's just couldn't compare to the grief I had experienced over him. It took about 3 years, but I've turned from being a lifelong pessimist to an optimist.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!:KongDance:
 
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shinobu

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Answering this question as you meant would feel self-aggrandizing. It's one thing to be simply different from most other people because even if you believe you are not like others, you don't want to believe that it makes you better than other people; to be 'awake' is to outright say that you are above the 'ordinary' person which just makes you an ass.
Can we interpret it as a self-improvement question? Like, "I was coasting in life, almost on autopilot, but then <thing> happened, I woke up, and now I'm actually being proactive to <fix X problem in my life/in the world>". That way we can have a more productive thread :SataniaThumbsUp:
 
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It all started when I watched Disney's 1973 animated version of Robinhood...
"Love, it seems like only yesterday, you were just a child at play..." :PepeHands:

Literally GOAT from Disney's dark era. Only second to A Goofy Movie.
 
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morus

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It all started when I watched Disney's 1973 animated version of Robinhood...
Movies are powerful. I myself believe to have been woken by my favourite movie, The Big Lebowski. I've discussed it in depth with my german teacher once, and then it clicked.
She thought it's cool how it's not clear what genre is the movie really supposed to be. I thought that's a bit silly, like how Clint Eastwood said it's unclear who's the main character in Unforgiven (it's the one played by Clint Eastwood). Here's a common reading on the matter: every character thinks the movie's a different genre. Walter thinks it's a war movie, Dude thinks it's a stoner comedy, Maude french avant-garde, there's the detective and the cowboy, porn stars... you get it. But the movie's obviously a comedy first. This could be just because Dude's the main character, but I think it's trying to communicate something. Isn't it weird how, despite the obvious allegiance to the comedy genre, the movie still takes it upon itself to build an overarching metaphor for life within itself? This could be read as a "grand in the ordinary" kind of thing, but I found it prescriptive. What really nails it in is how the big twist comes down to Dude being the only character who LISTENS - while everyone else is always spewing some variations of "shut the fuck up Donny" and carrying on playing the main roles in their own mini-movies of various genres, Dude geniunly listens and tries to understand - this is demonstrated by the many times where dude quotes things previously heard in the script. And that's the only reason he's able to solve the case - he's RIGHT about it - it IS a comedy.
Basically, if you aren't living your life like it's a stoner comedy you're doing it wrong.

I hope to induce something similar in my kids one day. Unfortunately, I have none at the moment, and no partner to speak of. But I think I have it pretty much figured out. Every day, it's gonna be old disney movies. The ones with animal protagonists. The Lion King, Bambi, and so on. And every christmas it's gonna be artist's tooling under the tree. When they get their first phones, the deviant art will already be in the browser's start page, and the adress field will autocomplete to e621 no matter what you type in.
You may think me a creep. You may have not seen how much furry artists make. But I know I'm doing the right thing for their futures.
 
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LostintheCycle

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Can we interpret it as a self-improvement question? Like, "I was coasting in life, almost on autopilot, but then <thing> happened, I woke up, and now I'm actually being proactive to <fix X problem in my life/in the world>". That way we can have a more productive thread :SataniaThumbsUp:
You don't need to ask me to do that lol, seems like everyone else saw it that way anyway. I just associate the use of that word very strongly with conspiracy nutjob types that I didn't even think of that
 
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bnuungus

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"waking up" rarely ever happens from one event. Maybe a certain event pushes you over the edge but when you look back on your life you realize that your reactions to that event go far deeper than you think. We are deeply emotional creatures and what seems like pure logic can sometimes be a whole hell of a lot more. I say this bc in my own life I constantly look back and see myself as naïve. Then I remember what I felt at the time and realize that at that point, I looked back on myself as such a naïve person. Change happens slowly and every day. The faster you realize that, the wiser you will become. If there's one thing I've realized in my life it's that we can never fully understand ourselves, but that's ok. We simply have to make do with the feelings that we have and keep trying to be a better person
 
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