Well shit, does that end the theorising? So did Morgoth have a body or not whilst in that fight you were describing?

Well, the pure power wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t concentrated enough to destroy the hröa their enemies was using to influence the Seen, I guess. Like they’d have first destroy their enemies physical being to be able to influence their incorporeal being?

And to do that, you’d want to focus your power, so you’d need a “lens” of sorts, meaning you’d use a body to fight the enemy?

Oh wait no, Morgoth didn’t have a physical body in that fight? Uh, I’d probably do well to read the Silmarillion again lol.

Oh I haven’t heard of French Maias, but I did know Sweden has Maja, that’s probably where it came to Finnish from, I’d wager. Yeah, Wikipedia says the Scandic equivalent is Maja, yeah. It’s a deviation on “Mary” as I suspected from Mary Poppins.

Huh, you do get what I mean. Have you ever imbibed any illicit substances, or just good narratives? (I’m hoping the answer is “both”, but I don’t judge.)

However, a hröa can also focus and direct the energies innate to a fëa, which could make the being more powerfu

That’s a very good point.

I don’t think there’s any evidence that a Maiar with a hröa is weaker than a Maia without a hröa.

I don’t think “weaker”. I just think limited until the body burns up and their full might is revealed, sort of. Like if they had to fight another maia, that is. Like a huge bodybuilder in a weird costume that limits their actions, but if you actually started a fight with them, they’d just punch you “for real” and the cardboard of their costume wouldn’t be in the way, it’d just tear off while they’re punching you through the costume.

I would say that without a hröa, the fëa can’t be “focused” and is therefore weaker (from the wiki (no source provided):

I get your point, but I think it’s more about the sort of fight that’s going on. Like if you have a lense, it’s not gonna make the light source more powerful, but it can focus it into a neater beam, making it more powerful in that spot, but then that focusing would mean that there’s less light going around “the room” in general. Like a beam of light that’s as powerful as an orb of light would burn your eyes if directed at you, but also, would be less blinding than an orb of light if directed away from you. So in that sense, the hröa being able to focus power would be a positive and a negative, depending on the type of environment/enemy you’re facing.

I wouldn’t say “restricts”, as much as “limits”. I do have a difference in mind for what I mean by that, but I understand just using cursive probably isn’t enough to communicate it.

May I ask what texts are you referring to that actually touch on this? I’m not implying disagreement or that I’ve read them, I definitely haven’t, my depth basically goes to the depth of ‘I read most of Silmarillion as a teenager’. I’m curious because I might be inclined to read them if I see them.

dissipate into nothing (Sauron after the destruction of the one ring

Tell me if I’m wrong, and I probably am, but isn’t this because Sauron poured so much of his essence (fëa I suppose) into the ring that after it was destroyed, he lost so much of his power as to not be able to exist anymore and thus dissipated into nothing? So before he did that, if his body was destroyed, he was able to hang on, but after the Ring was destroyed, he wasn’t powerful enough and thus “truly” died.

But yeah I don’t see anything contradicting my thoughts in that paragraph of yours. I’m just saying that for the while that any Maia inhabits a body, they’re less powerful than they are when disembodied, although I don’t know if then we also have to consider where that power can be applied to, as in the Seen and the Unseen.

it’s not something about being embodied that made them lose their bodyless memories

Isn’t it though? I get that Tolkien may have specified that the Istari not having their memories aided in them being more like the people they were sent to save, but…

Perhaps it is a property of being a body that you can not have the properties that the spirits do. A body is a finite.

IIRC having watched a lot of Nerd of the Rings and whatnot, a lot of the depictions of Balrogs have them as sort of fiery angels instead of the gory beasts we have in the Peter Jackson movies. Now if Balrogs are a sort of angelic but demonic things, then I’d go with your assumption, but if they were the Peter Jackson beast-like, then I think mine could work. In the sense that if being embodied means you just can’t retain all the knowledge you have in the spirit realm and the body affects your spirit as well, then having that sort of raging demonic beasts would make sense as even if they were higher beings while disembodied, while being embodied they’d just feel the rage and fury of the body and wouldn’t recall anything about being a Maia before eventually being disembodied again.

That was probably very incoherent. It was influenced by the thoughts I had when I used to do a lot of nitrous.

Oh lawdy-lawd, I never realised Maija Mehiläinen is nationalist propaganda as well.

That’s the Finnish name for it, works a lot better, I think.

Sulevi Riukulehto suggested that the book may have carried a political message. This view depicts the beehive as a well-organised militarist society and Maya as an ideal citizen. Elements of nationalism also appear when Maya gets angry at a grasshopper for failing to distinguish between bees and wasps (whom she calls “a useless gang of bandits” [Räubergeschlecht] that have no “home or faith” [Heimat und Glauben]) and at a insulting fly, whom Maya threatens to teach “respect for bees” and with her stinger. Riukulehto interprets this to mean that respect is based on the threat of violence. Collectivism versus individualism is also a theme. Maya’s independence and departure from the beehive is seen as reproachable, but it is atoned by her warning of the hornets’ attack. This show of loyalty restores her position in the society. In the hornet attack part of the story, the bees’ will to defend the hive and the heroic deaths of bee officers are glorified, often in overtly militarist tones.

This is fun because Maija is a very common name for women in Finland. Not this generation particularly but it’s like the Finnish equivalent of Mary or something to the generation that was born around 30’s-40’s. For some reason it was exploding in popularity from the the 1900’s (as in the oughts, not the century) to 1930 in Finland. And seeing how Tolkien definitely took influence from Finnish, I wonder if there might be an actual connection.

edit I changed the example name from Jennifer to Mary as I realised “Mary Poppins” is translated as “Maija Poppanen” in Finnish

In practice it lead to mega rich foreigners buying up all the water rights in Australia and preventing anyone from using them which created artificial scarcity and drove up prices. These mega rich foreigners then sold Australians their own water back to them at exorbitant prices.

Oh hey I’ve seen this movie

Removed by mod

It’s alright man.

I can see you clearly mean well.

I’m just very frustrated about that. Slightly triggering.

Take care of yourself as it seems that no one else will.

Thanks. I still have at least 1.5 years of therapy left and he’s a really good British guy, and people don’t get be homeless in Finland too easily, so that’s a bonus. The people and systems just suck and the rightwing government is making them shittier as fast as they can.

Maybe in what they are saying is a kernel of a truth

So symptoms can appear before a supposed cause has happened?

I never had any problems with mood as a kid. Now that I can’t work, I do.

Hmm.

Almost as if there was a correlation. Which leads me to journals and basically logs of my shit I have. Which quite clearly show the correlation. Also sleep diaries (band recorder from wrist) from the better part of a year, and still. They said I don’t need sleep studies (which me and my psychiatrist were pushing for) as “just give him more antipsychotics”.

Maybe in what they are saying is a kernel of a truth

There literally isn’t and I’ve personally studied this personal issue for my entire fucking life, and know what helps what doesn’t and what is psychosomatic and what isn’t. As I’ve gone through all variations, such as when I fast, pretty much all of the problems go away, only to be replaced by the alight ones the fasting causes, but they’re nothing in comparison. Then I can stress myself out in any ways and still have none of those psychosomatic symptoms.

Maybe people should accept doctors are people and people can make mistakes. But no. So they can’t accept anything has been wrong and I could have a point. And they can’t even defend their bullshit, but when I made a complaint to the ombudsman, quoting ICD-10 and the current local doctoral guidelines, still nothing, “Nah nothing wrong done, you’re just a junkie.”

I the problems since I was a kid. I started smoking weed the first time around 17-18.

Most of my current psychosomatic issues come from the rage I get from having to deal with people like you

I guess something similar could be used for drug user that somehow is intepreted as addict.

This would rely on the doctors first having empathy second being able to use it third be willing to use it.

I got a bit of progress when I switched my healthcare services to a hc station I knew to have young doctors. As my “drug use” is me using less alcohol than the average person, smoking high-CBD low THC weed and in my early twenties experimented with a few party drugs. This has been recorder as me having had “a serious multisubstance abuse problems”

for weed if it’s possible (wikipedia says that it’s legal for medical use.)

Ruahahaha yeah technically it is legal. There’s like a dozen people in the country with a prescription. One is a friend though. He went thorough years of pushing it through with private doctors he practically knew and he has severe nerve pain. Even then you have to eat opiates before ever being allowed to even have a doctor propose that you might benefit from legal cannabis.

Definitely would never be given to me no matter what I had, as they’ve deemed me a junkie because I admitted medical use of cannabis. Despite me having gone to weekly randomised drug tests for months on end pissing clean, showing I’m not an addict of any sort.

I am uninformed but I heard from psychiatrist that weed has some negative effects on mental illness.

High THC low CBD strains definitely can have negative effects. But usually they people who use those strains take the slight jitters their superpotent weed gives them rather than having unimaginable nervepain throbbing constantly. I’m definitely not in the “no side effects in cannabis” camp, but I had politely tried all of their things and to try and figure this shit out, I thought giving doctors more info would help. That it would help them deduce what’s wrong, because cannabis helped my horrible digestive issues, in turn helping me sleep and not be so anxious. (If your stomach constantly hurts as if you were stressing something, you begin to stress about something, even when there’s nothing to stress about. Somatopsychic instead of psychosomatic.)

But no. Basically ruined my life. Fucking wish I could go back to my 18-year old self and slap me around “honesty is overvalued and will only get you in trouble. You want to just seem like you’re honest, while lying your ass off.”

“Ride on painkillers”

Lol what? Eat ibuprofen or opiates… for digestive issues?

Yeah, you do know what you’re talking about when you say “I am totally clueless”. No offense, but spot on.

I have been without weed for months several times. Why do people always assume I haven’t?

Yeah therapy helps, but there’s clearly an underlying physical issue that I’ve been trying to figure out for more than 20 years.

But since in my twenties I mentioned weed helping with the symptoms, I’ve since not been listened to at all, treated as a full on drug addict and every single symptom I have had have been thought to be psychosomatic.

I’ve evidence to the contrary. Supported by surgery scars, doctor’s statements (from when the doctors actually listened to me when I was younger) and I even quote peer reviewed research from credible medical journals.

But no. Just treat me like a psychotic junkie. And if I challenge them in any of that, it just confirms their “suspicions”.

I’d just need a couple of grand to waste on private doctors, but I don’t have a couple of grand extra.

So if what I had was purely psychogenic, yes, you’d be totally right. But if what I have is depression because of my underlying chronic illness going undiagnosed because of inept and unwilling healthcare, then therapy might alleviate the symptoms, but it’s not gonna make it go away completely.

My mental health isn’t 100%, but my biggest problem at the moment is Finnish bureaucracy, to which shit healthcare is very much intertwined with.

Edit oh and it didn’t take me years to go to therapy because I was unwilling, it’s because the healthcare said I didn’t need any.

There is A LOT of good willing people that want to help you. There are a lot of resources that you can use but you aren’t aware of.

People are so very confidently telling everyone this.

Where I live, you really would think that’s the case. But for years, nothing. Even my own family is distant af, as if they didn’t understand the concept of depression. See it makes them uncomfortable that I’m not my usual happy self, so obviously that’s very rude of me.

I was also tossed out of an ER when I literally told an on-call psychiatrist I was afraid of hurting myself or others. And I meant it. It was after a very traumatic event I was genuinely so broken with nowhere to go and no-one to turn to. He got a guard to escort me out. Then I called my local free crisis hotline. They told me I’m not having a crisis and hung up.

Last time I asked an opinion about the shit healthcare I’m getting from my brother, he waived it off and now hasn’t contacted me for three weeks.

It took a lot of fighting with the healthcare here, but I finally did manage to get a therapist, and I specifically looked for someone who’s not from the same country and didn’t grow up in this emotionally stunted culture. So that’s one positive thing. But one hour a week isn’t much, and it’s only for a few years I get it.

So while I appreciate the sentiment and probably for most people these resources actually work to at least some extent, they do not work for everyone. So assuming something that might be incorrect and very triggering is something I’d advice to try and avoid if at all possible.

While I would like to think of myself as something rare and shiny, I’d like to admit that I don’t actually identify as “truly” ambidextrous.

It’s perhaps more accurately “mixed-handedness”, and while I have quite a few of the benefits of what an truly ambidextrous person would, I also have some negatives that a person with one clear dominant side wouldn’t. I think the benefits outweigh the negatives for me, but I don’t think everyone would necessarily agree. And ofc it depends on your degree of mixedness, basically.

It’s much more common, being reported in this study at a rate of 13.49% while left-handedness was 7.14%.

For instance I used to do frisbee golf (disc golf?) quite a lot more, and long throws obviously with my right, although I could do them a bit with my left. But then my left wrist (what I mostly write with) is stronger so when I put the disc, left was often more reliable. So then if it was between a put and a medium range throw, I’d have problems choosing which hand to throw with.

Then again writing on a blackboard, sorry, whiteboard is what they are nowadays, I start with my left but finish with my right.

And when I cook for instance, which hand holds the product and which cuts is mostly a matter of how I’m facing or what hand the knife happens to be closer to. I can also shoot from both sides, although my right-eye does seem more dominant.

Coincidentally my preferred gender is sort of slightly fluid as well and/or mixed but my presentation is 99% of the time mostly masculine. I don’t live in the most progressive society in terms of attitudes towards LGBTQ+ people.

You mean this?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatcher_effect

Laughs in ambidextrous.

What’s “handedness”? Some propaganda by people who are disabled on one side of their body?

Are you aware Elon bought the title of “founder of Tesla”?

He’s not invented jack shit. Dude’s a moron.