Different to the Core

The plan was to put these words down somewhere around the time a year had passed since the first Covid-19 lockdown announcement.

As it usually is the case with life, that didn’t work out as planned.

I wanted to sit down and reflect on this strange period of life because there are certain things I’ve noticed about myself when looking at other people's reactions. Alas, this same life stopped me from focusing on reflection by starting to get busy. Honestly, I should have seen this coming. Restrictions are being lifted so better job offers are starting to appear and I finally got to move to the flat next door.

I say “finally” because it was being renovated since February when it was supposed to take a few weeks. Between the intensified job hunt, moving my things and having Artemis meow sadly as all her things were slowly disappearing, I barely had any time to adjust. One evening my body gave up and I struggled through headaches and nausea. Fortunately, it was nothing lying in bed couldn’t fix.

I’m feeling much better now and although a significant portion of my belongings is still in boxes, I’m settled in well enough to gather my thoughts properly:

1 – People complaining about wearing masks are petulant children.

I’m unable to see them as anything other than that. Their bickering over how horrible it is to wear what amounts to a piece of clothing over their face is pathetic. I know from personal experience that the inconvenience of wearing a mask is nothing compared to wearing an actual gas mask. Those things are the stuff of nightmares, a simple fabric mask is barely noticeable.

2 – Although there have been negative changes to my lifestyle caused by the pandemic, I have been managing to go through it quite fine.

I’ve learned of people mentally struggling with aspects of life that were of no concern to me. This made me realise most people must truly hate my lifestyle. Suddenly, no one is going out to socialise and drink in a pub or club. Travel evaporated as people were confined to their homes. Some even only managed to go to a restaurant only twice last year. Seeing people having mental breakdowns over what amounts to my normal way of life was truly bizarre.

3 – The biggest change caused by this pandemic has been moving back to an online focused life.

I say “back” because it gave me a mixed sense of nostalgia and regression. I spent a lot of time working on moving away from an online existence which was my staple in high school and throughout my university years. Going back to my comfort zone was odd to say the least but I enjoyed spending time with my friends... at least at first. As time went on people were increasingly complaining about the way we were hanging out and the means we used to play games. I tried to ignore it because it was either this or nothing at all but after a few months, it soured my relationships with my gaming friends to an extent where I had to take a step back.

---

I can’t say that I was unaffected by the pandemic. My career and personal development plans took such a massive hit, I often worry I may not recover from it but my mental health suffered little from being confined to my home… which is the place I look forward to going back to the most.

The main thing I can take away from the series of lockdowns is that now, more than ever, I see I’m not made for this “normal” that we had before them. As restrictions are easing and people are anticipating going back to “normal”, I’m not sure when I’ll be making the step to re-join the masses.

Weird

I've been called a lot of things during my lifetime. Some more savoury than others. One thing that generally remains a constant is how people call me weird or strange.

weird? more like: bizzare

This is hardly surprising since I've always been a strong proponent of individuality and not comforming to social expectations as a way to fit in. What surprised me lately is how a good friend told me he had the impression I'm trying too hard to be weird.

I was tremendously surprised by this revelation. It's not the first time someone would accuse me of actively trying to be different. As if my whole personal identity depends on the concept of not fitting in. Oftentimes, I take these sort of remarks as an indicative of someone who bends under social pressure to conform to his surroundings. In a way, it's a valid survival tactic and living in a society requires following certain social norms... but your interests, and mine, are not one of these.

I will not engage in an activity I get nothing out of just because someone else does. Likewise, I don't require people give up their activities and pick up mine. When I invite people over to play some games and they'll turn the invitation down, I don't throw up a fuss. So it's unsightly to me when someone invites me to get drunk and my refusal is taken like a personal insult.

I like going out with people who share my interests. I'll attend events and conventions that I find interesting and avoid those that I find dull. I have never gone to a convention only to find that I suddenly hate everything about it and am a totally different person. No, wherever I go, whoever I'm with, I just want to be accepted as being myself without having to put on a false visage only to make myself fit in for a fleeting moment.

What am I supposed to do afterwards? When the veneer fades, I'm just left exhausted. I had no fun pretending to be someone else. Building a friendship based on a lie never works out. The only lasting effect is wasted time.

Most people want to fit in in some way. I want the same. I want to be around people who won't think it's morally wrong to watch anime, like Transformers or be interested in superheroes. I don't want to be laughed at nor told how I should live my life. I just want to have fun.

So when it comes to being around people to whom I either have to lie or stay silent to avoid being ridiculed, I'd rather leave and not turn back...

Not Fair

Doctor Who recently gave us a wonderful speech on war and what happens when you take the first step... but what really got me in that episode wasn't the speech itself but the reason behind one character wanting to start a war. In that episode, at one point, she said that the treatment her race received wasn't fair.

It's hard for me to accept such reasoning as a basis of an argument.

Fairness, Justice and Equality are all worthy and noble concepts to uphold but they're just that, concepts. How well they exist is dependent upon people. I've met people who do good deeds because they believe good deeds will be done to them, and I meet people who do whatever they want, not caring whether their deeds will hurt others.

Don't we even have a saying It's nothing personal?
As if that somehow makes it better to hurt another.

All these people, no matter how good or bad they are, have good and bad things happen to them.
Because Life, ultimately, doesn't subsribe to your notion of good and evil.
It doesn't care what happens to you and whether you like it or not.

Some people are born to riches, some are talented, some are supported, some are given opportunities... and some people aren't. Where's the fairness in that?

There is none...

Childish Things

I'd say everyone has certain comments that they don't want to hear about themselves. For me, they seem to crop up every few weeks. Someone in my vicinity will inevitably imply how great a husband I would be... and it would have been nice to hear that if I were still to believe in Love.

My problem with Love is that I've wanted to have a family for the better part of my life. Whenever I went to a new school, I had hopes that I will just lay eyes upon that one person and as our gazes meet, we would fall in love and spend the rest of our lives together. As I went to secondary school, high school, university and even to work, that moment never came.

People keep telling me that I'm still young and my life is ahead of me, so that moment is still within reach, but I've been feeling old since I was twelve and now that I'm more than twice that, I feel too old to start dating. Especially when I think about how everyone has had their fair share of relationships and I'm just lagging behind.

Nowadays, when I think of a relationship, all it really amounts to in my head is as an unnecessary distraction. I'm already struggling with finding the time to just sit down and do something I like. I'm not reading, writing, painting, cooking, studying nor gaming as much as I would like. Adding a relationship on top of it all would just complicate matters.

Thing is, even though my life isn't what I imagined it to be, I'm not particularly unhappy with it. I've got two godsons to take care of; the only problem is that I don't see them as often since they're so far away, I have friends who I can give a massage to, brush their hair, hug, make dinner for, go to a restaurant, watch a film and have tea with. In other words, everything I wanted to do with a partner. The only difference now that I see between Friendship and a Relationship is sex and since I'm not keen on that, there really isn't much reason for me to go out looking for a girlfriend.

For some reason I keep thinking of sex as rather vulgar and objectifying towards a woman. While I like that romance of waking up, cuddling and having breakfast together, I can't get over the fact I'd first have to sleep with someone. People have been telling me that this notion of mine is silly and that intercourse is romantic and emotional but I just don't see it. Then they usually follow up with suggesting I go see a doctor but I really don't want look at a woman and think of all the ways to screw her. Another excellent suggestion I've been given is to just blatantly lie about my libido but, here too, I can't see the point in basing a relationship on a lie. When I was younger, I thought girls will want to be with someone who doesn't want to just have sex but I had to grow out of this way of thinking. Probably around the time someone told me that if a woman doesn't feel like the man wants to sleep with her, then she feels ugly... and I just can't ruin beauty with vulgarity.

I suppose letting this dream die is for the best. I've been holding back on doing more to get a better job and improving my living conditions. I kept postponing that step because I know full well that if I were to have a decent wage, a job I wouldn't be ashamed of, a house of my own or even a car, I wouldn't be able to trust anyone to love me for who I am rather than what I have. Now that I have nothing, I could understand someone falling in love with me. If, by any chance, however, I manage to get all these things people seem to crave so much, I wouldn't know how to tell if someone loves me or just sees an advantage in hooking up with someone who can provide her with decent living conditions.

That is what I believed when I was a child: Love, Honesty and Compassion.

It's about time I did away with childish things...

Black March

Well... Black March has started... if you're anything like me you've been hearing about protests over internet censorship for the better part of the past two months. If you're not, then this image should help.

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

All really nice words and ideas... sadly a name is not what makes a law. Most people don't even look into what is incorporated into those words. I can't say I do either but I do know that just from looking at the public, it's not a welcomed change. Alas, most people don't care to look beyond the names.

My main issue with them is that they allow for taking down websites based solely on allegation. I was shocked when I found people who thought it was a good idea. I can understand their thinking in a way, allegation is the first step in prosecution but there's a lot of other steps between that and deciding whether the accused is guilty or not. These acts simply give organisations the ability to decide whether a website is illegal or not based solely on their own decision. This in turn gives an organisation a very scary ability. It is now allowed to define what is right and wrong and always be right about it, without anyone having the right to argue their point.

What I found even more shocking is how some have said that while they can understand this point of view, this would not happen because an organisation of power would not abuse such power. This is a fair point since no organisation of power has ever been known to abuse their power.

I'm not really sure when reading George Orwell has stopped being a mandatory lecture in schools but apparently it did happen... either that or someone wasn't paying attention.

No, I don't see any of these as good ideas. They are a clear attack on culture, an attempt to stop people from engaging in it. Copyrighted material is used in speech constantly, talking about films and literature is a past-time between friends, modifying a still from a film as a form of a joke is funny, adding a clip from a film to your video review of it is expected by the viewers, drawing a character from a cartoon with your own hands is what makes people awe yet all of these are apparently illegal and you should be given a five year sentence to serve in prison for putting people out of their job.

This is really what this is about. The companies in the entertainment industry see their profits going down so they lobby to get laws like this passed. They think that by making it illegal for people to engage in their own culture, people will have no choice but to buy the culture they are producing. It doesn't matter whether the product they are giving is better or worse than the one someone else would offer, it only matters that the money goes to them.

So I think this Black March would be a good idea. I do actually like having books and DVDs. Enough so that I buy some on a monthly basis with the disposable income I have. I do want to support the people who are making the things I enjoy but then I am suddenly not allowed to even talk about it. It just doesn't make sense.

I did read an article once about how piracy has changed the entertainment industry. It argued that due to people downloading films, the movie industry doesn't want to invest in productions that they deem risky. In turn this causes the industry to invest in remakes and sequels. While this does make sense from a logical standpoint, it's just not the sort of impression I get from people. Whenever I talk about films, one of the most common questions I am asked is what sort of special effects are in it and what year is it from. This to me indicates that people just want special effects and care very little for the story or content of the film. Give people lots of Computer Generated Images and they'll awe at the brilliance of your film-making. Since this is apparently the main reason why people spend money on film, this is the main focus of film producers. And that has nothing to do with people downloading films.

In the end it all comes down to money and where it's going. A fact that is often forgotten is that you don't have to spend your money. I am amazed at how many people complain about spending their money on something they don't like (which was not a necessity) as if they had no choice in the matter.

Right now I don't like the attitude of the entertainment industry, instead of adjusting to live in this economy and this era, they try to halt our cultural progress. So I won't be buying anything in March and I hope enough people have heard about it so that this can actually work and someone can get a taste of the fear of their people...

Far Away Thy Love Lies

I rarely make calendar-themed posts but the subject matter has been on my mind for the past month, the reason for this is shrouded in mystery as deep as the sleep of Cthulhu, and since it's February, it's fairly appropriate I publish it for this day.

Many times I've heard the assertion that long-distance relationships can't work. From what I gather people seem afraid to give it a try because due to a long physical distance it's easy for the other person to do whatever they want. To me this isn't an issue with distance but with trust. Saying that not having someone around 24/7 enabled them to cheat on you is like saying that the act of moving in makes it impossible to cheat on you. Alas, since people divorce each other due to unfaithfulness, distance doesn't seem to be a factor in this.

My main view on long-distance relationships is that they are probably the strongest ones. One obvious thing about being in one is that it is really hard. It is undeniably hard to be away from someone you love for very long periods of time. Now the question is who would voluntarily be in such a hard relationship when there must be easier alternatives. The first thing that comes to my mind is someone who loves you.

Love isn't all beauty and happiness. It requires work: sometimes hard work, other times gruelling work... on the part of everyone involved. This is what makes it special, love that is easily made is also easy to shatter. When you have willingness to work through issues that seem impossible, that's a sign of more than just affection.

I once had this friend who had the choice between two guys and she went with the guy who wasn't about to move out of town. He cheated on her despite living in the same city. Then I have two friends who are in marriages with men who each first met online. One pair started out apart between two sides of a country and the other was transatlantic.

Many years ago someone wished me to find love as beautiful as a rose but with no thorns. To which I could only reply that a rose without thorns is not picking up. This is why I like the rose as a symbol for love. It's beautiful and sweet but must be cared for with a gentle touch or it drains your life away. That's what hard work is; not taking love for granted and making the relationship work despite issues and obstacles.

Naturally, not everyone is capable of that, some just can't deal with too much and there's nothing wrong with that. Everyone has different needs but couples who manage to make such a relationship work earn my respect.

A Rather Short Tale of Two Blogs

I had another blog at one point...

I thought I needed a place to ramble on about games and geek related things rather than put them up on here... this being a blog where I most just share stuff about life and whatever strange thought ends up embedding itself into my mind while travelling through the mental aether...

I kinda decided that blog was redundant... I partly wanted to have it there as a way of entry to creating a webzine and just generate interest in some way... I even got a few people to help with it at one point but that ended up not bearing much fruit... then Real Life took over... how I despise it when it happens... alas, it is inevitable...

The other issue was that I ended up not having the time to write. In the end I probably did make the right choice in focusing on writing my dissertation and getting a job that actually pays the bills instead of spending my time sitting at home and writing articles for a website.

I actually have post-it notes on the wall behind my laptop with all the titles of articles I want to write. They hang there and mock me every single day.

Jeśli to czytasz, Panie Q, to zapewniam, że nie zapomniałem o tych obiecanych artykułach i wiedz, że zostaną one napisane. Nadal mam wszystkie notatki... niestety najpierw chcę skończyć tą moją pracę pisać... bo już dłużej tego nie zniosę... z drugiej strony, już mi tak niewiele zostało do napisania, że zapewne skończę jeśli nie w tym roku to na początku następnego...

Back to a language that, statistically speaking, most of you should understand.

Then I had an interesting observation... if I put anything that relates to my geek nature outside of this blog, I end up with not having much to talk about. I mean, sure, it's not all I talk about and sometimes the things I like are only tangentially related to my posts... but when I take that aspect of my life out and limit myself only to things that I can talk about publicly (which you'd think is the norm on the internet... hint: it still isn't)... I'm pretty much left with nothing interesting to say...

I always said I'm a geek... I may not have realised how much though since I don't think I actually behave like some of those internet horror stories I read... some people are really obsessive about games and after witnessing it first-hand, I really can't put myself there...

so what's the point of this whole train of thoughts?

I don't know... just make something up that would satisfy you...

Internet Visitors

A while ago I've added this nifty flag counter thingy to this here blog... it pretty much logs in a unique visit to this site and checks what country it originated from... and ever since I added it, it made me look at this little website of mine in a slightly different way.

Before now... I thought there's only like 3 or 4 people who look at this thing... I'm still surprised when someone tells me "I've read your blog entry"... so surreal!

I've assumed as much that most people who would be reading this  would be either from the UK or USA... my posts being mainly written in English... and my social circles being in most part from those places in the world...

What I didn't expect is seeing Poland on the third place... I have no idea how that's possible... I don't think I even know 28 Poles... and those I know, only a few actually speak English... so I was thinking maybe 3 or 4 visits... but no... I have to be popular like that... Dlatego też pomyślałem, żeby od czasu do czasu napisać coś po polsku...

Then comes Russia... I always knew they were spying on me... trying to take my secrets...

Next up: Belgium... I was there once... maybe I should go there more often... they seem to like me...

Netherlands... I like that name... nether... very nihilistic... no idea how they got here... I suspect a conspiracy...

Australia... all right... I knew someone from Australia... if this goes suddenly goes up... I'll have to assume I'm being haunted...

Norway! I know who you are!

Denmark -> it's a postman...

and then it gets very murky... there's only a few countries I know people from... and that's mainly in the positive range of numbers no higher than 1... Finland, Canada (ok, I know two people, but we haven't talked in ages), Austria, Argentina, Japan, Estonia, France...

Yeah... I know someone who lives in FRANCE...

I'm surprised to see Germany with whole 3 hits... es ist Wahr dass ich habe ein Freund die kann Deutsch sprechen... aber er kommt aus Österreich... vielleicht sollte ich auch ein bissen mehr auf Deutsch blogieren... "blogieren" ist das ein Wort in Deutsch?!

Final note: one hit from Spain... sabemos...

On the Purchase of Games...

It took a while but my birthday present that was sent to me by my little sister has finally arrived a few days ago... and so, as it is only natural... I ended up playing a lot more on the Xbox than I did in the last several weeks... I don't remember the last time I actually spent half the day with a controller in my hands...

The game I'm referring to is Spider-man Web of Shadows that was released in 2008. I quite like it... which is in no small part due to Black Cat... this is probably the first time I am experiencing having a crush on a fictional character...

As it happens with networks that give you updates on what your friends are doing... and simply staying in touch with people... I know that the popular game right now is Skyrim...

So I have to say I did hear about Oblivion and heard lots of good about it but I never got to play it. Now that Skyrim got out I actually remembered about Oblivion and put it on my list of games to acquire. So now I often get a question filled with confusion and followed by explanation of how they are not in-continuity and one can easily play Skyrim without having played Oblivion first.

I get that but that's why I mention a game from three years ago in the beginning of this post. There are games that I would like to play. There are lots of games I would like to play. So I need to decide which ones to get and when.

Since I got an Xbox about a year ago, I managed to acquire a collection of a dozen games. It might not be much for people who have had hundreds games go through their life but it is a lot to me. I've only started playing now and it's been sporadic for me. I think about half of those games are ones that I didn't actually buy but were left over from my previous room-mate. In the end I actually have games to play so there isn't much point in going out and buying more games when I only finished 3 of the ones I have... and I can still play at least one of those due to topping up my account with a few quid every month and buying more content for it...

So yes, I decided not to buy more games when I haven't finished the ones I have. In terms of finishing a game's story line, that mostly takes time. Unfortunately, I'm not a person who would simply spend 30 minutes of spare time on playing a game. Another problem is that I just don't have several hours of spare time to give myself to playing a game... although... I did spend half a day and half a night playing Web of Shadows when I received it in the post... I needed a break -_-'

On the rare occasion that my previous two conditions are met, there is one more factor deciding game purchase... which is something that most people look at when buying stuff... the price...

Let's look at this example then. While Skyrim is all the rage, it costs £37.97 right now. In comparison, Oblivion costs £16.55. That's 43% of the price and you get expansion packs with that... As it is, I've yet to buy a newly released game... without having lots of time to play games and not seeing the reason to actually spend twice as much money on a new game than I can buy on an older game that interests me anyway... I might never catch up and be playing new games regularly...

but I can't say I really care...

Time to Time this Time

There's one thing that I seem to have trouble with that most people do not: the perception of time.

I'm not sure whether it's a problem of my memory not being good enough that assigning events to dates is not as important as remembering the events themselves or is it because I've been analysing grammar so long that I now see time only as Past, Present and Future. Whatever it is, the fact remains that if events do not have a logical connection between them, I won't even remember the sequence in which they occurred.

Ask me about something that happened last week and I won't be able to tell you anything. Sure, I can tell you what happened before now but not last week. The difference is that while most people, at least to me, are able to recall what they did during a specific period, I cannot. It is quite easy for people (like my mum) to call me on having last called them a few months ago while I'm bewildered because it felt like yesterday. Naturally, I understand the time differential between "a few months", "a few weeks" and "a few days ago"... but I simply don't feel it.

Usually, it's not a problem. I write down the deadlines I need and make a plan to get things done in that period. I've become good at managing projects like that but as I've told to one of my acquaintances one day, I simply do not consider the past as important as the future.

While I can see her point about the past being important; that it holds memories of happiness and of our achievements, I cannot see how the past can exist without the future. If we don't go forth to create those happy moments or work on achieving our goals, then the present that we have stagnates us and becomes a dull circular past with nothing of worth.

Na Zdrowie!

Me and alcohol have a strange relationship.

I was never a fan of alcohol. In my high school years, when everyone was trying to get their friends to buy lots of alcohol to go out into the forest at night for a drinking party... I was bored... I tried those parties a few times but beer just doesn't have the right taste for me and I have trouble consuming anything with a bad taste.

I got drunk once... never again... every time I feel like I'm losing grip on my stomach, I stop drinking for the night.

Not being an extremely social person, I didn't go to pubs all that often either so I only drank on my own for special occasions. Thus I hardly had any alcohol for a few years. In fact, the most I had was when going back to see my mom and have a cider every evening until I got fed up with it.

All this changed after I moved in to the Awesome Flat. It is a flat of such epic proportions that if you're not jealous of me living here, there's something wrong with you and you should go see your doctor so he can send you to a mental hospital... but I digress...

Going out to have a drink with my friends has become a regular thing. I actually started to enjoy drinking, something that I thought I'd never achieve and so I must say it's true that the enjoyment depends on the company.

Still... there is one interesting thing I noticed... there seems to be a point in the day where I just feel fed up with drinking. If I spend a few hours drinking one day, I have a lot less of a drive to drink the next day. It's like my body and mind wants to have a break from drinking. Which I don't mind since they spare me the joys of a hungover. Seriously, the worst I got was feeling like I had a stone in my stomach...

eh... drinking... still don't know how I feel about it... stuff was much simpler when it was all NO instead of the maybe of nowadays...

Adulthoodery

Growing up has always been a strange concept to me. It is a process of change, at which end we become adults. Becoming an adult has always been an important part of society, even today we have rites of passage in form of high school finals. Matura is called the Adult Test and the fuss about it is at that level. A few months later, it's forgotten so I'm always unsure why we put such a big importance on being an adult and have this strange concept of what an adult is.

When we had a party in primary school, someone spilled a drink on my food and the teacher said I shouldn't worry because it all gets mixed in my stomach anyway. I find that explanation as unreasonable today as I did then.

I still hold true to the ideologies that I had then, ignoring all those voices telling me I was too young/stupid to hold any. In essence, the only thing that changed about me is that I can express myself better and learned new social tricks. There's very little change involved in growing up, most of it is learning the ability to manoeuvre in social environments and a lot of self-discovery. Yet we have this notion of child and adult, two opposing concepts defined by visual perceptions.

We see kids play with toys, they're into games, comics, lego, transformers, anime and all that weird stuff. Seeing kids being into all that we associate it with what a child is, then our obsession with a rite of passage tells us there is a line between an adult and a child, that you can only be one or the other. We end up with situation where if you have a collection of superhero figures on a shelf in your house, you're acting childish. The only way to be an adult in that mindset is to leave those things behind and to offer yourself to work, paying bills and watching the news. It is irrelevant that having that collection doesn't immediately mean a person doesn't do any of those adult things, that the childish replaces the adult.

A child has the connotation of innocence, adult doesn't. So maybe an adult doesn't like people acting like kids because in some subconscious flare of symbolic logic, he wants to drag them into his pit of sin. On the other hand, an adult is responsible, a child isn't. We would like to deal with responsible people, who stick to their word and think before they do or say anything. Yet the world is filled with irresponsible adults who are not into childish things.

"When will you finally grow up?" becomes a strange question. It's hard to reply without seeing misguidance in it. Sure, buying a toy is expensive but I hardly have the same level of expenses as someone who spends his disposable income on alcohol and cigarettes. Is it really better to not spend anything at all and just hole yourself up in work? There's still family that you can turn to instead of work but then, family is a very childish thing. An adult can live alone but a child has real problems doing the same.

I'm going to be a child for as long as I live because I care about you, because passion should not die with age and be replaced by normality, because seeing the wonders of the world and the mind is never boring, because playing with children is more fun than drinking with adults.

Because buying a toy for half price makes me smile for weeks to come...

I learned something disconcerting about myself when I started thinking about my future plans.
I don't think that in this context I worry too much as I often do. I suppose we all think of where we're heading and what would be the best course of action. Decisions about education and choice of career, where to fit a hobby and entertainment in a busy lifestyle.

Right now I'm studying.
Before the northern hemisphere goes into summer, I hope to become a Bachelor of Linguistics.
During the summer I intend to take up a course that will give me teaching qualifications.
Then I'll wrest the demons of language to prove I'm worthy of the title, Master of Linguistics.
When that milestone is reached, I'd like to go to Germany (or Austria, hint!) to teach English and polish my German.
After a year, I was thinking of taking up an Open University course (it's like higher education over the internet) in Philosophy.
Although it so happens that I'd like to be a Doctor of Linguistics, so I think I'll spend two years familiarising myself with the linguistic community by reading journals and blogs to keep my knowledge fresh.
I suspect the Doctorate will halt my progress in Philosophy but that's fine with me, I'm patient like that.

On the other side of things there's my inherent creativity!
I want to spend the first year of my employment on saving up enough money to go see GenCon and possibly meet those Americans I talk to online.
I'm running online games, that won't stop.
I'm writing rp material.
I'll start a roleplaying blog with the start of 2009.
I want to try some more games.
I want to write books.
I want to practice drawing and try my hand at a webcomic one day.

I would say those are the two main aspects of my life but they are hardly the only ones.

So many things I want to learn: dancing (classical dance, because that thing people mean when they say everyone can dance is not dancing), martial arts, playing the violin, languages (I'm not going to stop on German), PHP, CSS...

and things that hold my interest in reading: mythology, philosophy, linguistics, folklore, fantasy, science fiction, sociology, theology, horror...

I love learning.
I love imagination.
I love art.

The only thing that really worries me is that I'm becoming self centred. I'm walking away from those years of waiting for a bright light to shine and take me out of misery because I no longer believe in that being possible. The question currently roaming through the vast expenses of my mind is quite simple: Is self improvement the way to being alone?

On one hand, I can see how many of the things I'm interested in can enhance my social experience.
On the other, I fear that I'll make myself into a workaholic.

Identity Crisis?

There is one thing I have to say

Exmiscellanea is right.

I need to stop worrying about relationships and patterns and just do what I always do, ride the current of reality up to the release of death...

I think I'm getting into some crisis.
I'm beginning to realise that I need not only think of a career but something more than that. Life apparently isn't just about going home/work. I need to fill it with something more than that. Gaming would be the obvious choice, but for some reason my mind thinks of it as the opposite of socialising... that old stereotype of a basement geek.

There's a real torment of emotion in me right now. To the extent that I don't really know what's happening. Being home doesn't help one bit because everyone wants me to do something. I don't mind most of them, I wasn't here a long time so it's understandable that my family wants to spend time with me. Unfortunately, that leaves me with little time to do anything else, while my family might think otherwise, keeping up with friends is also important.

I feel kind of drained, not really sure what to do, even though I have my projects (like cleaning this room)... depression? Maybe... is it wrong to hope that I'll find a job after graduating so I don't have to come home and listen to my mom telling me what I need to do as if I was stuck in one chapter of life, like life is going to be exactly the same after graduating like it was before?

I just want to do something with myself instead of waiting for a better future that will not come. I hope this summer I'll manage to do a few things that I wanted to try but been constantly putting them off.

The seeds have been planted, it's a fast growing plant, I just need to cut it right and enjoy the camp fire stories...

The Hole in my Mind

I'm kind of better now. I still have the same things tormenting me as before but to a lesser extent, I guess telling the internet "LIFE SUCKS!!!" helps... so I thought I'll extrapolate on what's annoying me at the moment...

I think it all started with Domi telling me that when looking for a job I need to think what it can enable me to do, pay-check-wise. Which got me thinking... what do I want? And that's actually quite a difficult question because technically, I don't want anything. I like roleplaying games, graphic novels, books, manga, cool shirts, etc. but I have a hard time saying that's what I want. It's a bit like with my sister, she hoards money, I hoard stuff. Buying all those things to me is probably like breathing to you, you don't really think of breathing as something you want to do all your life but as part of what you are. In fact, when I saw this really cool device allowing you to watch cable/satellite TV over the internet, my first thought was "Dad's going to love that one." so my first thought is still about someone other than me... it makes me realise that I don't think of myself as worth attention and this is something I have to change. Thus giving in to all those people telling me I have to be more egoistic.

Next up is my dad telling me about finding work. That I shall fail because I haven't found one for 2 years. Doesn't matter I have no idea how to look for a job. Doesn't matter I have no idea where to look for a job. Doesn't matter I have a fear of talking to new people. I didn't find one on my first few weeks here so there's no chance in hell I won't find one. In part, I agree, it's only my own fault I am incapable of finding a job. I have barriers instilled in me that need to be overcome before I succeed, but it isn't easy.

Domi later on said I need to find myself a girlfriend. Suddenly, my mind just gives me reason after reason not to have a girlfriend. For once, I lack the resources of money and time. I have no idea how a relationship works. I'm too fragile and living in a very unstable state, adding to the stress I already have will only make me go down further. By unstable meaning university life with no certainty of living in one place in the foreseeable future. And there's the whole thing about how sex enters the equation, it all seems like intercourse happens in the early stages of going out but I just don't see myself sleeping with a girl after a few dates out.

I have a really hard time coming up with ideas for my games. It's not that I burned out or anything like that. If I sit down and start writing, I can move the story forward no problem, but I feel that sting in my heart telling me I should be studying for an exam or something of that sort instead of gaming.

I think that's all that's on my mind... at least I believe it to be... you know how awful a memory I can have at times...

My internet presence is waning but I think it's for the best. I had a lot of thinking, made observations and finally concluded that changes need to be made.

My main problem is that I held too much to hope.

When I was in primary school, I thought that I just need to be patient, that in time people will grow out of their stupidity and the fists will stop. They did stop when I reached high school but instead of intelligence they were replaced with harsh looks, social exclusion and verbal abuse. Being patient didn't help in this case either, people at university still are more interested in fashion, alcohol, getting laid and "cool" stuff rather than education and the pursuit of knowledge.

I came to the conclusion that having values is an innate trait rather than one acquired through being raised. I don't mind people having fun, but the extent to which I find myself surrounded seems excessive and meaningless to me. What's the point of having sex if you know you won't see that person ever again? What's the point of drinking just to forget today? It's not my thing and no matter how much I try, it never will be. I don't need to slowly climb up the party ladder nor do I need to find the right people. Even when I'm with people I like to talk to, I am incapable of looking forward to drinking with them.

It often happened that I killed a conversation by saying "none" to questions about what music I listen to or what do I drink. Most people don't see that as an answer but as a way of politely saying to shut up, which in my case is incorrect. That single fact got me down more than once because I wanted to meet people and find some worth my time but now I think that if the first thing you want to talk about is either of the two, as far as I'm concerned, you're boring me...

Which brings me to my other point, being too polite. There were times when I skipped a meal because someone was using the kitchen and I didn't want to get in the way or when I didn't work on my thing because someone asked me for help... well, I decided that people were right when they told me I need to be more of an egoist and think more about myself. So I tried to be a bit more self-centric lately and it actually works quite fine.

I started working out more, 30 push-ups and 30 of each of those belly and back muscles exercises (that I constantly forget the name of, even though Encart told me once) a day, followed by leg muscle stretching... I'm spending too much of my time physically inactive these days and I'm quite annoyed that I'm having trouble keeping up my running speed for the usual amount of time. I think it's also the best way for me to gain weight as my body can't hold fat for long, so the next best thing to do is to get some more muscles. Of course, I didn't do rigorous training until now because I'm just that nice of a guy that I didn't want to be so strong as to hurt someone when I snap... like I said, I'm changing my attitude into "I'm me, if you don't like it, try and stop me."

So to sum up, I'm basically replacing my "hope" mentality with my "hate" mentality... it's not something that I thought I would ever do, but I'm tired of living in a fantasy world.
Life sucks, there's no point to it and there won't be any any time soon... so I might as well do what I want because I feel like it...

Thinking...

There's a couple that recently moved in. As with all couples they share a bed and since my room is next to theirs, I keep hearing exactly when they are engaged in intimate activities. It so happens that it's that time of the year that my mind drifts into the subject of relationships, love and sex. It's funny that my friend Domi recently told me "We need to find you a girlfriend." I think those are the words she used but due to my memory being as it is, I can't be certain. That, however, doesn't change the subject matter.

First of all, at the age of 20 I'm a total layman when it comes to having (or even pursuing) a relationship. During all those years I kept on having that dream of eventually finding a soul-mate. Two years ago a certain thing happened that made me realise how big a part sex plays in a relationship. I'm not sure what I was thinking until that point, maybe I thought it was some kind of supplement to love rather than the central point of two people getting together to share a life. As time went on I made some observations, read a bit about it and came to the conclusion that sex is an important part of being together, to the extent that not having sex is a sign of the relationship crumbling. Then there's also the fact that one night stands are quite a common occurrence where I live now but I never really thought of sex as being outside the realm of being in a romantic relationship, at the same time I didn't think of it as being part of it. I'm not even sure if I thought about it at all.

When I was a teenager, sex was a common topic in my age group. My disinterest in the subject always set me apart but I think it was mostly because I didn't feel the need to talk dirty about the opposite sex (something that I never grew out of). I remember how my peers kept talking about how hot some celebrity was, even if the actual person was indeed attractive, I couldn't see that in her picture. In fact, in most cases, the more attractive the woman in question seemed to be for my fellow teens, the less it applied to me. For some unknown reason I always had a problem relating to other males; football and cars just never interested me. On the other hand, I quite often read the women magazines my mum occasionally bought, the subjects therein were just more interesting.

At one point I thought all that would somehow make me a good partner since I could relate to women better and actually do things with them that they enjoyed. However, I'm constantly told that I need to be more as a guy to be a attractive as a man... but I'm fine with me being me, even if that means I'll have to be me alone. My magnum opus, the one I had since primary school, of forming a family doesn't seem like an option today. Nowadays I just feel like people my age have more experience and skill in building relationships than me. This means that on some level, I'm afraid of pursuing that relationship because I won't be able to meet the expectations of someone more proficient in this endeavour.

Yes, I got a bit mopy, but sometimes you have to let tears run free...

Being Smart

For quite some time, people kept telling me I'm intelligent. Before this started I only heard that being said to me from my parents as a reason for my social exclusion in school environments. Other than that, my peers felt it appropriate to call me an idiot.

I'm still fairly bewildered with this term being applied to me. I have only an above average score, nothing that would make me a Mensa member (and quite frankly, the one Mensa member I met on the internet was an arrogant prick who'd expect everyone to know everything). I have no idea where this claim of intellect comes from and I don't think I'll understand it any time soon.

I have to admit that every time this topic is brought up in a social context, I feel awkward. I am not sure how to react and just fall silent for a moment before disregarding the claim and moving on. Anything other than that would be either considered rude (disapproval) or arrogant (acknowledgement), at least to me.

The main reason why I don't consider myself intelligent is that simply put, I'm still bewildered with the world I find myself in. There's a great many things I don't understand and the moment I think I finally got it, the universe proves me wrong.

Krzyś is mean

There's one weird thing about me that a lot of people find a bit annoying. I felt like writing about it because it came up recently and it might have had a negative effect, though with the amount of sarcasm going around in the social circle, you never know. And hey, I still find social interaction confusing.

To start off, I'll remind you of something I wrote a very long time ago. I can be very mean towards my friends. I had said horrible things to my friend, which did hurt him and that he didn't take well. Not only that, I once punched him in the face because of an argument. In a way, that's an indication of a friendship bond existing between us.

I'm an honest person. I rarely lie because there's hardly a need for it, so when I speak I tend to do so truthfully. I will jest on subjects that aren't necessarily considered nice and I'll most likely do so in a sarcastic manner appropriate to the context of the interaction taking place. Meaning, I won't say something bad out of the blue and I will say it to you.

That's what I do to people I know and care about. I don't go around insulting everyone nearby because I just don't acknowledge their existence to a certain degree. They're not persons but social entities. Irrelevant to me as an individual. I only interact with them on a level appropriate to my social standing and the interrelations between our positions. The moment that interaction becomes something more, I start to act more freely around these people.

Unfortunately, I have raging emotions in me. I hit walls when I'm angry and I cry all the way through sad films. I am afraid when met with unknown situations and petrified to the extent I need to force myself to move if I'm met with an unknown dog. It often happens that those emotions are contradictory, like when I was holding my Godchild for the first time. I was happy, afraid and sad when he started crying.

I was happy because I just became a Godfather and I really do like children. I was afraid because I never held a baby and we all know how fragile they can be. Finally, I was sad because he started crying out of the blue and it traumatised me. So I said to my mom that when he gets older, I'll keep on reminding him that the first time I held him, he cried...

and that's mean! At the same time, that tells everyone that I really care about the little boy. I act the same way towards other family members because that's basically the way I am. I don't even remember what I criticise about because the content is irrelevant. There were times when I whined about having to do something while I was about to go do it and afterwards, I forgot about the whole thing. I suppose I'm just that pessimistic that I have to pick up on the flaws of people I like.

If you think being mean to people because you like them is mean, I am even more critical of myself. I'm a perfectionist and a pessimist because I pick up on every single one of my flaws. I remind myself constantly of them, even when I sleep I have dreams of people picking on my flaws in my voice. It's irrelevant of whether I'm awake or not, I can't stop telling myself how awful I am and that something needs to be done about it.

My family understands this, that I just have my moods. It's not logical to start an argument and then act like it was meaningless but that's the way I am around my closest social circles. In a way, that acts as a barrier for some, as they are unable to accept this and back off while they still have the chance. It's the rare few who can accept it and those are the people granted the friendship of a Scorpio.

While it's good to have lots of friends, I tend to go with quality over quantity when it comes to people.

Finally, I found out early on that no one is perfect so it's better to love people for their flaws.

Answers

I called a friend today and an interesting question came up. She's really down because she doesn't know what to do with herself now so she asked:

1. Do I know what I want to do in life?
2. Do I miss my country?

The answers, like always, just dragged me down...

1. I think I know where my life is heading. There are some prospects for me, like my tutor said: I could travel the world as an English teacher. I could technically go to any country and teach English there but it's just not what I thought would be happening. I always thought that by this time I would be planning on having a family, instead I constantly prove to myself I'm incapable of living with anyone but myself and that I keep dragging myself into work thus not seeing anything outside of that concept. Meanwhile, all the people I know have someone, some are thinking of marriage, while one of them has a baby. I bury myself in books and pretend I don't exist...

2. No. There's nothing holding me here, nor to any other place in the world. I never felt like I belong and neither do I feel that now. In a way I don't feel as if I changed, but I did change. I learned that life is not worth living and that I should not go against who I am. So I stopped rejecting my hate towards people, their stupidity and their egoism...