Slice of My Life (#2)
I beat the rain, but going to the beach yesterday rather than today. And today, I slept a lot, and praised myself for idleness. The only downside of today is the laundry which I won't be able to sun-dry.
Monday
(i.e., Two days ago.)
I was frustrated. Tired of doing the same thing, over and over, with only slight variations.
That was before I had rediscovered the xkcd strip (137, linky linky) which embodied my frustration, but perhaps I had a premonition about it.
The weather and my mood tend to be somewhat in sync. This is a default situation, though; I can overcome it with effort. On Monday, the sky threatened to rain and storm (but it didn't until today, in the evening), and that pre-strom tension, humidiy, and heat made the very air seem heavy, difficult to breath, oppressive.
What I did do, however, was resolve to really focus on my life. 99% of what I do is self-distraction. The few times when I think about my life, I tend to get depressed, and regret stuff that it is too late to do anything about, and see, not a future ahead, but a continuation of descent into a living hell.
Yet, these are not my true feelings, emotions, thoughts, or opinions. They are just what accumulated and needs to be washed away, replaced by what is truely me. You see, all humans are aiming to progress. All humans want to be free of restricting. Is this true? It actually contradicts the idea of "Light vs. Dark", and that balances, but I believe that it is true. The "Light vs. Dark" war is just another distraction, or system of "totality", which aims to drain mind, body, into corrupting the soul and preventing true human spirits from creating a better world on Earth for the Living.
Why? Well, because if most people are broken, then even the leaders must be followers, or victims. And if the world is 99.999% weak, broken people, then the groups who set things in motion in the first place can do as they please, and no-one can stop them. In fact, no-one will even consider the possibility that everything they've been taught, trained, educated, indoctrinated... all is helping you to sacrifice yourself to "false idols", men (and women) of flesh and bone who feed on the misery of humanity. Of you, of me.
Well, that's my theory, in any case... if they are people who seriously want the world to be better, more progressive, more enlightened, then the place to find them is where lights are shining brightly, and not behind closed doors and in secret societies. After all, the purpose of light is to illuminate the world, not just a select few.
What does this have to do with the beach? Well, I was working on a programming project by myself. I was working "in the dark", semi-randomly fixing minor bugs, rather than considering the whole picture. I was cursing my tools. I was thinking that I can build better ones, but didn't have time to, and probally didn't even have enough skill to, since you need to use old tools to build new ones. So I felt like an idiot for wanting something impossible. I felt as if I was just being a bitch for not "powering on through" the mess.
I wanted to go to the beach, but I didn't. I felt really weak, from sitting still all day, and the sky really looked threatening; but none of that really mattered.
What mattered was my future, and right now, it was bleak. I knew I couldn't ever love programming, but I do love the results. I knew I was unlikely to "make it big" as a writer, but I really do love to express myself. I knew that I could be a great manager, but I couldn't figure a way to fund an organisation big enough to employ others... venture capital doesn't exist here, and even with debt financing, the main problem was, how do I reach a high level of cash flow; high enough to support a staff?
This is contradictory to how most business people think. Their aim is to minimize cost, and salaries are a big part of costs. However, I want to change my society by reducing unemployement, and providing educational opportunities. I want to provide a different type of education; one based on results and abilities and learning how to apply science, developing skills. This isn't really that ambitions, it's happening, slowly but surely, worldwide.
The problem is that Barbados is stuck in a bubble where mentalities of the 50s and 60s persist. So there's Darkness: and absence of enlightenment. The best way to change that is by implementing a solution, and watching others copy it... theories and books and even money won't be enough.
Why should I care? I can just immigrate to Canada or something, right?
Well, reguardless of where I end up, solving hard problems is more rewarding than solving easy ones. A million people can implement a flawless dual-linked list in C. How many of those people can build a corporation from the ground up? How many Donald Trumps are they? Or Bill Gates', compared to you average geek who needs someone to employ them?
The world has changed because of rich people, and not only financially super-rich. Also "barefoot" rich, i.e. people who live a self-sustained way.
But that's another topic.
I started working on my plans, well into the night, and took breaks, and sat at my desk with pen and paper and my barely-ledgible scrawl of a handwriting. I concentrated, and slowed my hand movements until I could actually read what I was writing. I took a shower. I put things in order. I woked backwards until I could see steps that I could take within 3 months to acheive my goals.
Now, all of a sudden, I had a future. I had what most people would call "short term plans", although for me, that's medium term... I need to move faster, in months and not years, or else, things will stagnate and decay. The secret to agility is concentration during repose, and maximal contolled force (acceleration, speed) during motion.
Tuesday
I woke up early on Tuesday. Around dawn. I went back to sleep until around noon, when I finally got out of bed.
My unhappiness was almost tangible. It hung like a veil of smoke around me.
I took a shower, dressed for the beach. Yet, the sun would be up for quite a while. I went up the road, got some "lunch" for breakfast. Lots of vegetables, fish. "Brain food". Back in my domicile, I focused on things I could do as soon as possible. In the back of my mind, the recurring theme was that I had to be really stressed out, internally and mentally, if it was taking me so long to do a simple project. After all, I has first taught myself C back in 1998 or something, nearly a decade ago. It wasn't possible for me to be under-performing at tasks which were intented for novices, unless I was somehow broken.
In any case, I wanted to unburden my mind before I left. So I visualized every step of my plan, assigned costs where I could, checked online for what I didn't know, and for a while I dreamed as if I was actually doing what I wanted. It was like if I'd opened a door to a parallel dimension. One where I had a place in society, and a way to make an "honest living", and was using and developing my skills. And it seemed... easy...no, hard... well, doable, but as if it needed my concentration and focus.
Somewhere in there, I found the above-mentioned comic. I wanted to write an essay about it, but restrained myself. I went by my neighbour and printed it out, instead, along with some notes for my next exam (tomorrow).
I went to the beach... not by bus, which may have been easier... but I wanted to walk and wake up my body a bit. I had wanted to exercise daily indoors but that just wansn't happening. I was too focused on my rituals of daily online work, and tired of not making progress towards having my own income stream. I mean, how hard can it be to have even some part-time thing on the side? What sort of idiot was I?
Well, I'm the sort of idiot that realises how soul-killing being compliant with soceity can be. Society, after all, is comprised of leaders who leverage followers, and if you are in the 16%+ of society that has some intrinsic leadership ability, then it's gotta irk you. If you're of the kings with three mouths, then it's going to be imperative to find a way to shine on, be free, and still win (earn) some bread (money).
At the beach, I took to the water almost immediately. And when I came out an hour later, I was a totally different person. The theory about salt water immersion being good for cortisol (long-term stress hormone) reduction must be true, my body was renewed and my thinking was refreshed totally. As if I'd just taken a fresh brain off of cold storage, installed it, and booted it up, complete with a brand new HD and a mean, agile toolkit and application suite.
When I got back, I did the obvious thing, and drew diagrams to reverse-engineer the constructs I was using. My haphazardness had really made a mess of things, so I cleanly re-implemented the active portions, and voila, success! It worked! However, I still didn't have a printer and it was bugging me that I had so much more to do... I took a break, let it go... I've failed to do more than 20% of the work I was supposed to do this semester but I've gained so much more from it, because I never used to take the time to do things slowly; I'd load a problem in my head, hak away for four hours, and behold my new creation. And have no conscious idea of how it worked or even why I'd made it, since I was in some sort of ascended state at the time.
Now I'm learning how to work with less effort, and with more... relatability. How to leave a path for myself or others to follow that isn't full of "omitted obvious steps" like math gurus love to do with their proofs that don't even prove anything, anyhow, other than that they are so very clever and self-pleasuring.
Retro Gaming
In order to relax a bit, I played a litte Gran Turismo 2. Yip, for the origional PlayStation. Not 3 or 4, or even 5/prologue or whatever. I'd never actually played the simulation mode of GT2, even though a friend had lent it to me so long ago that he'd forgotten I had it. So I decided to check it out and see what all the fuss was about.
I also played a little Persona 3. I have mixed feelings about it so far. In general, though, if there's only one dungeon and it's so self-similar, then I'm more than a little disappointed. Yes, the slice-of-life school-rpg social link stuff is innovative and cool, but the story and location desigh for the origional Persona actually seems more compelling so far; although I can't really rate the story for either yet since they're both 80+hour games and I'm at best halfway thru P1, and just barely 5 hours into P3.
It's also not really very "cyberpunk"-y, it more has the feeling of retro sci-fi. The "access points" that you use to get in and our of the dungeon look like something from the 30s, or that episode of the Animatrix in black and white, with the detective and stuff. It's not that it's set in the past; it's very much in modern day Japan, but... it feels too sparse and sterile for me, really.
I have that problem with most RPGs, though.
The only RPGs I've finished to date:
Chrono Trigger,
Kartia (only one of the paths, working on Toxa's now),
...and I think that's it.
Today
Today I woke up around 7a, but have been spending most of the day in bed, resting, and pretending to be a wild animal or something (they sleep a lot). There's something wrong with working until you die, young and broken, just so some CEO can jet around the world and relax on a beach. At least, that's my perspective. Apparently, some people are glad to sacrifice what little they have for the sake of some con artist or "boss" or whatever.
I guess I play too many videogames, but a boss is just another enemy, aren't they?
Although we don't fight physically, as the world turns, you're either progressing or becoming more retarded (restrained, restricted). Progression, I think, is what the "Light path" was origionally about, and the "Dark path" is about restricting others, restricing the self, but in that process, some advancement also occurs... societies with an excess of repression also have a high level of order.
Is Singapore oppressed because of its strick laws against littering, or have they progressed to the point where they maintaing their ecology at a high level?
If the streets are clean, but the people are suffereinf from OCD or something, or stressed out and high on X, then overall, isn't that just a distraction from live and living better?
Perhaps it is possible to be responsible and conscientious without being oppressed; if you have a personal connection to nature, art, and all things "bright and beautiful".
Or, so is my theory. Who knows, I may just be saying random things, and come back tomorrow and disbelieve everything.
That happens with essays.
Monday
(i.e., Two days ago.)
I was frustrated. Tired of doing the same thing, over and over, with only slight variations.
That was before I had rediscovered the xkcd strip (137, linky linky) which embodied my frustration, but perhaps I had a premonition about it.
The weather and my mood tend to be somewhat in sync. This is a default situation, though; I can overcome it with effort. On Monday, the sky threatened to rain and storm (but it didn't until today, in the evening), and that pre-strom tension, humidiy, and heat made the very air seem heavy, difficult to breath, oppressive.
What I did do, however, was resolve to really focus on my life. 99% of what I do is self-distraction. The few times when I think about my life, I tend to get depressed, and regret stuff that it is too late to do anything about, and see, not a future ahead, but a continuation of descent into a living hell.
Yet, these are not my true feelings, emotions, thoughts, or opinions. They are just what accumulated and needs to be washed away, replaced by what is truely me. You see, all humans are aiming to progress. All humans want to be free of restricting. Is this true? It actually contradicts the idea of "Light vs. Dark", and that balances, but I believe that it is true. The "Light vs. Dark" war is just another distraction, or system of "totality", which aims to drain mind, body, into corrupting the soul and preventing true human spirits from creating a better world on Earth for the Living.
Why? Well, because if most people are broken, then even the leaders must be followers, or victims. And if the world is 99.999% weak, broken people, then the groups who set things in motion in the first place can do as they please, and no-one can stop them. In fact, no-one will even consider the possibility that everything they've been taught, trained, educated, indoctrinated... all is helping you to sacrifice yourself to "false idols", men (and women) of flesh and bone who feed on the misery of humanity. Of you, of me.
Well, that's my theory, in any case... if they are people who seriously want the world to be better, more progressive, more enlightened, then the place to find them is where lights are shining brightly, and not behind closed doors and in secret societies. After all, the purpose of light is to illuminate the world, not just a select few.
What does this have to do with the beach? Well, I was working on a programming project by myself. I was working "in the dark", semi-randomly fixing minor bugs, rather than considering the whole picture. I was cursing my tools. I was thinking that I can build better ones, but didn't have time to, and probally didn't even have enough skill to, since you need to use old tools to build new ones. So I felt like an idiot for wanting something impossible. I felt as if I was just being a bitch for not "powering on through" the mess.
I wanted to go to the beach, but I didn't. I felt really weak, from sitting still all day, and the sky really looked threatening; but none of that really mattered.
What mattered was my future, and right now, it was bleak. I knew I couldn't ever love programming, but I do love the results. I knew I was unlikely to "make it big" as a writer, but I really do love to express myself. I knew that I could be a great manager, but I couldn't figure a way to fund an organisation big enough to employ others... venture capital doesn't exist here, and even with debt financing, the main problem was, how do I reach a high level of cash flow; high enough to support a staff?
This is contradictory to how most business people think. Their aim is to minimize cost, and salaries are a big part of costs. However, I want to change my society by reducing unemployement, and providing educational opportunities. I want to provide a different type of education; one based on results and abilities and learning how to apply science, developing skills. This isn't really that ambitions, it's happening, slowly but surely, worldwide.
The problem is that Barbados is stuck in a bubble where mentalities of the 50s and 60s persist. So there's Darkness: and absence of enlightenment. The best way to change that is by implementing a solution, and watching others copy it... theories and books and even money won't be enough.
Why should I care? I can just immigrate to Canada or something, right?
Well, reguardless of where I end up, solving hard problems is more rewarding than solving easy ones. A million people can implement a flawless dual-linked list in C. How many of those people can build a corporation from the ground up? How many Donald Trumps are they? Or Bill Gates', compared to you average geek who needs someone to employ them?
The world has changed because of rich people, and not only financially super-rich. Also "barefoot" rich, i.e. people who live a self-sustained way.
But that's another topic.
I started working on my plans, well into the night, and took breaks, and sat at my desk with pen and paper and my barely-ledgible scrawl of a handwriting. I concentrated, and slowed my hand movements until I could actually read what I was writing. I took a shower. I put things in order. I woked backwards until I could see steps that I could take within 3 months to acheive my goals.
Now, all of a sudden, I had a future. I had what most people would call "short term plans", although for me, that's medium term... I need to move faster, in months and not years, or else, things will stagnate and decay. The secret to agility is concentration during repose, and maximal contolled force (acceleration, speed) during motion.
Tuesday
I woke up early on Tuesday. Around dawn. I went back to sleep until around noon, when I finally got out of bed.
My unhappiness was almost tangible. It hung like a veil of smoke around me.
I took a shower, dressed for the beach. Yet, the sun would be up for quite a while. I went up the road, got some "lunch" for breakfast. Lots of vegetables, fish. "Brain food". Back in my domicile, I focused on things I could do as soon as possible. In the back of my mind, the recurring theme was that I had to be really stressed out, internally and mentally, if it was taking me so long to do a simple project. After all, I has first taught myself C back in 1998 or something, nearly a decade ago. It wasn't possible for me to be under-performing at tasks which were intented for novices, unless I was somehow broken.
In any case, I wanted to unburden my mind before I left. So I visualized every step of my plan, assigned costs where I could, checked online for what I didn't know, and for a while I dreamed as if I was actually doing what I wanted. It was like if I'd opened a door to a parallel dimension. One where I had a place in society, and a way to make an "honest living", and was using and developing my skills. And it seemed... easy...no, hard... well, doable, but as if it needed my concentration and focus.
Somewhere in there, I found the above-mentioned comic. I wanted to write an essay about it, but restrained myself. I went by my neighbour and printed it out, instead, along with some notes for my next exam (tomorrow).
I went to the beach... not by bus, which may have been easier... but I wanted to walk and wake up my body a bit. I had wanted to exercise daily indoors but that just wansn't happening. I was too focused on my rituals of daily online work, and tired of not making progress towards having my own income stream. I mean, how hard can it be to have even some part-time thing on the side? What sort of idiot was I?
Well, I'm the sort of idiot that realises how soul-killing being compliant with soceity can be. Society, after all, is comprised of leaders who leverage followers, and if you are in the 16%+ of society that has some intrinsic leadership ability, then it's gotta irk you. If you're of the kings with three mouths, then it's going to be imperative to find a way to shine on, be free, and still win (earn) some bread (money).
At the beach, I took to the water almost immediately. And when I came out an hour later, I was a totally different person. The theory about salt water immersion being good for cortisol (long-term stress hormone) reduction must be true, my body was renewed and my thinking was refreshed totally. As if I'd just taken a fresh brain off of cold storage, installed it, and booted it up, complete with a brand new HD and a mean, agile toolkit and application suite.
When I got back, I did the obvious thing, and drew diagrams to reverse-engineer the constructs I was using. My haphazardness had really made a mess of things, so I cleanly re-implemented the active portions, and voila, success! It worked! However, I still didn't have a printer and it was bugging me that I had so much more to do... I took a break, let it go... I've failed to do more than 20% of the work I was supposed to do this semester but I've gained so much more from it, because I never used to take the time to do things slowly; I'd load a problem in my head, hak away for four hours, and behold my new creation. And have no conscious idea of how it worked or even why I'd made it, since I was in some sort of ascended state at the time.
Now I'm learning how to work with less effort, and with more... relatability. How to leave a path for myself or others to follow that isn't full of "omitted obvious steps" like math gurus love to do with their proofs that don't even prove anything, anyhow, other than that they are so very clever and self-pleasuring.
Retro Gaming
In order to relax a bit, I played a litte Gran Turismo 2. Yip, for the origional PlayStation. Not 3 or 4, or even 5/prologue or whatever. I'd never actually played the simulation mode of GT2, even though a friend had lent it to me so long ago that he'd forgotten I had it. So I decided to check it out and see what all the fuss was about.
I also played a little Persona 3. I have mixed feelings about it so far. In general, though, if there's only one dungeon and it's so self-similar, then I'm more than a little disappointed. Yes, the slice-of-life school-rpg social link stuff is innovative and cool, but the story and location desigh for the origional Persona actually seems more compelling so far; although I can't really rate the story for either yet since they're both 80+hour games and I'm at best halfway thru P1, and just barely 5 hours into P3.
It's also not really very "cyberpunk"-y, it more has the feeling of retro sci-fi. The "access points" that you use to get in and our of the dungeon look like something from the 30s, or that episode of the Animatrix in black and white, with the detective and stuff. It's not that it's set in the past; it's very much in modern day Japan, but... it feels too sparse and sterile for me, really.
I have that problem with most RPGs, though.
The only RPGs I've finished to date:
Chrono Trigger,
Kartia (only one of the paths, working on Toxa's now),
...and I think that's it.
Today
Today I woke up around 7a, but have been spending most of the day in bed, resting, and pretending to be a wild animal or something (they sleep a lot). There's something wrong with working until you die, young and broken, just so some CEO can jet around the world and relax on a beach. At least, that's my perspective. Apparently, some people are glad to sacrifice what little they have for the sake of some con artist or "boss" or whatever.
I guess I play too many videogames, but a boss is just another enemy, aren't they?
Although we don't fight physically, as the world turns, you're either progressing or becoming more retarded (restrained, restricted). Progression, I think, is what the "Light path" was origionally about, and the "Dark path" is about restricting others, restricing the self, but in that process, some advancement also occurs... societies with an excess of repression also have a high level of order.
Is Singapore oppressed because of its strick laws against littering, or have they progressed to the point where they maintaing their ecology at a high level?
If the streets are clean, but the people are suffereinf from OCD or something, or stressed out and high on X, then overall, isn't that just a distraction from live and living better?
Perhaps it is possible to be responsible and conscientious without being oppressed; if you have a personal connection to nature, art, and all things "bright and beautiful".
Or, so is my theory. Who knows, I may just be saying random things, and come back tomorrow and disbelieve everything.
That happens with essays.