pouët.net

Lately, if any of you have noticed, I had been trying to reach the quality of BITS. Or would you prefer to change that last word with CRAP? Why have I chosen to do this? For many reasons but mostly I can say it was just mindless and a choice of moment. Or something I wished to try a long time ago. Well, it wasn't the first time (remember an account on pouet with the name predictable?) but this time it was different. I managed to release three demos(?) in three months. And I tried to keep ok with my conscience about that. The point was actually this. It's similar to when an artist gets frustrated by the art community and decides to release something controversial to the public. It's because I wanted to try to see the other side and not feel bad by releasing the lamest demos ever. To intentionally release some crappy demos in a new joke group and steer the controversy a bit. Especially that one inside my brain, which gets anxious about releasing a good demo. How about doing the opposite, intentionally releasing crap and trying to not care? I truly envy Solo2 and people like him. He can code enough but somehow there seems to be no evolution. And he doesn't seem to care. He doesn't seem bother as me about making a better demo, he doesn't seem to get sad as me when I feel a demo I just released is mediocre and I didn't managed to do something spectacularly good. He doesn't even seem to react to the massive thumb downs and fuckings from other people there on Pouet. Sometimes I wish I would be like Solo2. To not care. To be creative and do it for myself and not care if it looks and sounds like crap or if it's truly an awesome demo that one I have just finished. At least it seems like he is not caring but what really happens in Solo2's brain? But let's take it as an example that there possibly exist such people. And that this is and cannot be me.. It cannot be me because of evolution. When I have finish the first Otinanum demo I thought I would never do this again. The next demo was a demomaker. I have never done something so lame before, to release a demo with a demomaker and even thumb up myself on pouet. But I said that now I will never create a demo in demomaker again. The third demo was slightly better. I spend two evenings instead of one finish it, more effort, a bit better effects with not so sucky colors and textures. Still it was crapped but I felt like I got better. And then I look back and see. Even as a BITS-lookalike, I felt the need to evolve. Eventually I had seen that the Otinanum joke would come to an end. I was even planning to finish two good/average demos and release them as Otinanum productions to confuse a bit people, who would initially think they would be crap but see they are not bad. But the primary reason was not this, but that even if I tried to mimic BITS, I would eventually need to make something better demo after demo. And then I wonder. How do people like Solo2 or others not get the same feeling? That frustration, that sadness of your demo not being as good as you planned, the need to evolve and get better, to take more time on your next demo and not release the same crap again and again, is what makes you improve. Maybe that sadness and that frustration is really high on me, more high than others, but that doesn't mean it's so bad for evolution. Just painful. Sometimes I wish I didn't care, but I can't. I have to evolve, I have to stay in the demoscene (although I am seriously thinking of retiring or leaving for a while long) and do my best even if it will be mediocre. Because I can't pretend to do crap. Even as a joke, something burns inside me. I am not talking right now about what other people would think of me, but that me alone couldn't continue with the same crap because it was feeling like a step back in evolution. A friend told me about an article he read somewhere (and I am still trying to find that), where scientists (neuroscientists? I don't remember) tried to find and categorize the most basic to the core human emotions. And they found that naturally we have something like 1-2 unique possitive emotions and (I don't remember) something like 5-7 unique negative ones! Naturally, we are more prone to depression. Why is that? Because of evolution. If we were constantly happy, we would just sit there and do nothing. It's a lesson for me that maybe my sadness, my frustrations, even my anxiety are means to improve. Then why people mistakenly think I don't improve? Because evolution is slow and they can't clearly see it? Maybe. Although it's as painful as slow for me. Is it relative? Do I think I evolve more slowly than I'd wish because I am more of a perfectionist? Do I get more easily in sorrow with me not be good enough? Wouldn't that have as a result to improve faster? Yet, does it lead to opposite results because of the sorrow and frustration? Or is it just my idea that I evolve slower than I'd like and that other people do? Just look at my life, it's the same pattern and the same sorrow.. At least, what hit me is that I evolve no matter how hard I try to avoid it. BITS can release the same shit (no offense there :) for the hundredth time. Me on the other side, after two-three crappy (even intentionally, without wish for effort) releases, really wished for something better. I couldn't in no way continue the feat Solo2 started years ago. Not because I cared of my image in the scene or something. But because, naturally, after each crappy Otinanum demo I wanted to evolve from crap to not so crap and eventually reach my casual mediocre levels. I wouldn't never be able to release 50 crappy demos in a row without evolving enough. I really can't understand how Solo2 is doing it! And that's how I decided that I can't continue with this joke. It's not for me. I am for evolving, I am for improving, not staying stationary, not looking at crap I just did and feel ok with that, not stepping back in the ladder of evolution. Even if this evolution will be slow and painful. Although I wonder why does it work like this on me? Other people are living with the same burden of improving and negative yet motivating feelings for the mistakes in their previous works but they don't get in sorrow as me and they even release much better demos. I don't get it.. I will miss Otinanum. The group where I thought I would be able to release every crap I'd wish and stop caring at all. I failed to be BITS. The more I am reading magazines about the paranormal, the more I am listening to what people involved in the metaphysical say, the more I watch specific tv shows or being informed about it, the more I side on with the skeptics. And so much more I can understand the war they are on, why some of them are so radical, why this fight can now be considered as a humanistic process. Don't get me wrong, this is not my style. I always disliked the way radical skepticism works. It's sad that it happens, when bringing specific subjects into discussion (about unexplained phenomena) some so-called skeptic people spontaneously rush to reply that all these stuff are bullshit. It's like they already have prepared the position they hold and you can't change their mind. I prefer honest skepticism. Although, the more I accumulate knowledge about the whole issue (not only the phenomena, but even articles concerning how easily we are deluded or the question of why do we believe) the more I come to side with skeptics, even the fanatical ones. It's not the way I perceive and work on situations, but I can now understand their anger. Not only that, but now I discover that this side is more reliable than it's opposite. The paranormal is a world that always interested me. At least some portions of it. I was always (and still am) fascinated by the stories about UFOs or other strange phenomena. I can't say why. If you tell me a reason, it might or might not be that. Everybody must have his own reasons for being interested to these stuff. For example, I never really dug the new age alike ideas, somehow I hated it when they were talking about higher planes of existence, the universe being one and such stuff that are usually more popular among girls. UFOs or extraterrestrials (even though it's not sure they are necessary connected with each other) were more close to my interests, maybe because space always fascinated me and the phenomena as described were very strange and outlandish. Of course all that could be seen with other more down to earth explanations. Although I preferred to keep an open mind or that was (and still is) the way I am used to think. Some people have a need to skeptically respond to such claims as if, when they don't it would feel like they accepted. But this is not how I think. I am fascinated at first and then let it open. It doesn't mean that I believe or I accept a story if I don't counteract. Imho. Anyways, arriving from that world and after few personal frustrations with the paranormal community (because for some reasons I am a real maniac concerning the search for some answers and I got fed up by the ever-growing confusion in these cycles) I started reading more skeptical articles on the internet. Even if at some times they make equally improbable assumptions in order to debunk some improbable claims, there are some really good stuff in there, which for my case it was something new and I felt like I was reborn. (That teaches me that when I am stuck for years in the same ideas, I should try switching to the opposite information, the one I always avoided taking into consideration or even touching) Nowadays I trust and sympathize more with any kind of skeptics. I still prefer the more honest and less radical ones. In any way I feel like I can trust these people more than others concerning reliability, if I wish to know more about these subjects and avoid confusion. There is even another interesting kind of war here. Maybe it's not a bad thing. Needless to say, it's very interesting to me. It seems that there is some kind of split up in worldviews of scientists that could be described as a war between materialism and spiritualism. Some scientists believe that we are nothing more than a brain mass but others keep a more dualistic view of ourselves, either believing in the existence of a soul, higher planes of consciousness or generally something unmeasured with conventional scientific methods that is parallel to the material world. And the fascinating thing is that scientists around the world are eager to research these assumptions. If you ask me, I am more on the side of the monistic view that all we have is a brain. Two and a half reasons for that. First, I am fascinated by the whole research on how the brain works. Although I don't have a clue about neuroscience, I am really curious about the answers the research into this field might give us. The second reason is an aftereffect of the first, the fact that this research gives us more clues than the dualistic views do. At least I think so. And all I want is some good answers, not metaphysical confusion. The half reason is already mentioned several lines above. I am allergic to several new age worldviews. I don't know why but they either sound so naive or I simply hate them. And the dualistic views of many of these fringe scientists are sounding alike. So, would I dismiss the fringe science? No. I am not one hundred percent on the side of materialist scientists. I just found them more reliable and more compatible to my worldview. But I do have a keen interest in those things that scientists are afraid to touch, the ones that could produce an outrage and I like that these scientists have the guts to do their research on those taboo fields. At the same time I really enjoy and support the skeptic reactions towards fringe scientists because I believe that they help to keep a balance between radical denial and naive openmindness. It's only the best when both sides have strong and honest arguments. Yet the question remains. Would even these fringe scientists be "dangerous"? In what way? What are we afraid of here? I was watching some greek tv show today (pyles tou anexigitou) and then I really started worrying and understanding the humanistic aspect of being a skeptic. There is such absurd meta-literature on everything that makes you cringe and wonder how come people blindly believe all these stuff and what could be the forecoming consequences. And then there is the dilemma whether I worry too much or whether each side is a bit too radical or too crazy or too deluded. One thing is for sure though, that I am clearly getting closer to the skeptics side rather than the naive metaphysical worldview. A friend once said the following hilarious quote: "I have thought of a theory so insane that even myself doesn't believe in it! I just thought of a single one after walking out in the city and eating two gyros :) When they ask me if I believe in extraterrestrials I like to reply that I don't. My last view before this one was that I surely believe there must be intelligent life (in so many galaxies, so many stars, blabla.. it MUST have evolved). Although the real question here is whether they have visited us or not. Nevertheless, I recently like to reply (maybe less seriously and just to surprise people) that I don't believe in extraterrestrials. And that is concluded from my belief in the multiverse :) I have an obsession with an idea of the multiverse. It was derived from some scientific theories I might have heard somewhere but my own vision of it could reach a religious point of view. It's the acceptance of all possibilities. Actually not exactly :) The multiverse as a science fiction theory is a big set of all the possible infinite parallel universes. First of all it supports a better alternative of time travel theory and helps us to avoid the well known time traveler paradoxes. In a parallel universe I am not just sitting right here writting this blog but I may be still outside or I may be coding something on my computer or I may be 20 pounds lighter or I may be dead right now. The set of these parallel universes is all alternative realities I could be living right now, all alternative history events, all alternative possible worlds. Our universe is only one single posibility of all that exist in parallel. Some suggest another form of parallel universes where not only the different outcomes occur but also different set of physical laws. Through these kind of thoughts your perception can go far far away and maybe you will loose it as I did :) Anyway, the point about aliens is: It's very improbable that a universe with billions of galaxies and each one bearing billions of stars, would not be host to at least one other intelligent species except us. But in the multiverse of infinite possible universes there must exist also those that happen to accommodate only us. There must exist those few but still sub-infinite sets of universes where for one or another reason it renders us totally alone inside them. Who can say that we haven't been unlucky (or lucky?) and our universe happens to be one of those lonely ones that out of seer luck happened to favor life on earth and nothing else? Or imagine some other sets of possible universes where a small number of intelligent species did exist somewhere else but at our current time they have all been destroyed by war or physical catastrophes. It's one improbable posibility but who can prove our universe is not amongst them? And yes, we have not reached the improbable theory I was thinking at the way home yet! I made a similar question about god. Ok, god is something that they ask me if I believe in but what I can't understand is what the heck is the definition of god. This is another big matter that I have made various strange thoughts about and I'd like to stretch it on one of my next posts. I am not sure what god is and whether it can be defined. But let's assume that it's very improbable that he exists. According to Dawkins, the idea of all infinite, all powerful, all seeing god is like a skyhook coming from nowhere. If god created the universe then who created god? And who created the god of god? The idea of god just existing without needing a creator is so improbable in the views of science and evolution that the other alternative is simply to imagine an infinite perfect uberbeing or something. But then we simply put god outside the equation. So in order for such a perfect ultimate being called god to exist it has to not being able to be measured by scientific methods. But if we can't measure it then how can we prove it? In a nutshell that's how I think that god (or actually the notion of god) is highly improbable. And then we come to the multiverse point of view. I know, I know, it's predictable, there is a universe or a few sets (yet sub-infinite) of universes in the multiverse where this improbable god entity exists. Then I come to the following question: "But if the ultimate being exists then why being a part of only a small sub-portion of the multiverse?". And then somehow I remember to have reached the conclusion that since we have proven that he exists in a single universe of the multiverse and since it's the ultimate being then he should be the god of all multiverse. And therefore I thought for once that I have proven the existence of god. Until it sounded so absurd right now I am writing this that I abandoned the idea :) Crazy, I know. After falling down to the level of BITS, it felt like time to reach the universe of LCF (can't reach his personal site with his weird ideas right now). What's next? Sotsoft??? I am recently thinking of some common pitfalls in my multiverse view. Of course this is just my lousy view derived from the scientific theory about it (I have read somewhere that David Deutsch prooved mathematically that parallel universes exists, not sure what that could practically mean though). One problem with my lousy view of the multiverse (that every possibility I can or even cannot imagine could exist either in this or in another universe) is similar to the problam of god. If god is the ultimate being out there, couldn't we think of a god that is so perfect that is even more perfect than himself? Or the joke about the god who creates a rock so heavy that he even can't lift it? Similarly, in the multiverse, which is the notion of endless posibilities, where everything can exist somewhere (even fairies and the flying spaghetti monster :), I could imagine of a multiverse that doesn't hold all posibilities, a multiverse with infinite universes in which the laws are same or in all of them there exists no god or where there are always extraterrestrials. With my notion that the multiverse is the infinite set of universe where every improbability exists then there also exist the improbabilities which abolish the great notion of the multiverse of all possibilities since it hosts also the possibility that deny itself. As in the skyhook example I can simply say that the multiverse which hold only half of the possibilities is wrongly called a multiverse but it is an uberverse (a set of parallel universes but not the only one) which is only a part of a greater set of uberverses called the multiverse. Then someone can tease me with an example of a multiverse as a set of uberverses that since it holds all the possible outcomes, it also holds the improbable probability that negates the initial notion of the perfect multiverse. Then I'd continue telling him this is another uberverse (similar to someone saying that there is a god who created god who created god who created god to infinity) or to say it better, the multiverse is the supreme notion that cannot be analyzed. And here I come to an analogy with the not to be analyzed supreme entity called god and I realize that the notion of multiverse I have created with my own philosophical thoughts about it, is a very similar idea to the absurd notion of god and thus the multiverse is a god itself. Now, something even more crazy that came into my mind. Imagine this whole unreachable multiverse being a computer simulation in which we live inside. And that the people who wrote the software are living in another universe inside an uberverse inside a multiverse which they don't that is simply a part of another simulation of reality software of some other beings which are also...... you got the idea. Now think that to infinity and loose your minds! =) I need to get a break.. I used to worry about what people think about me, concerning being different, not "normal", etc (as you know from all my past blogs). Today it affects me less and even less as time goes because I know more and I also stopped to care. I have to admit though that at a time this whole situation drove me to create my own enemies. Characteristic phrases and ideas even if unwanted they forced me to take a defensive position that could create misunderstandings. For example, phrases like "get a life" or that ancient greek quote which is the only one most greeks recite today as it is the meaning of life, things like that could even make me react arrogantly towards the persons reciting these things because I felt like they were indirectly trying to tell me that I should change and be just like the rest. Well, most of the times this was their real plan imho, but few of the people said these quotes and even ideas of how a "normal" life should be without hard feelings, maybe unintentionally. Even though they were unwittingly transferring a message that I still feel it's wrong in the greater sense, that we are all the same and should act the same way or else we are deviating from what is normal behavior or the natural way of life. That's why I am still trying to speak of the alternative idea that each one of us is a little or more different and we can't always compare different people and easily claim who is right and who is not. But if I was going to create a polemic today it would no more be against the specific ideas but against patronizing. Even though I wouldn't like to create another schism. I want to avoid here splitting people or attitudes in a "good versus evil" dichotomy. So I will just speak a little about patronizing itself as it had affected me without making a judgment on it's value. So it wasn't the ideas themselves at the very core that made me sad in my early life. It was a specific kind of attitude that I will call patronizing. I have noticed few things (which although I cannot prove but only feel them) about the people who are into this kind of attitude: They have a great zeal when they are doing it. They talk to me or other people, trying to force all their energy on changing me. Like it is very important in their life that I will change too. Without even knowing me. They are sure, really sure, that there are specific things in life that are right and others that are ultimately wrong. They never give it a second thought. They always transfer a negative energy to the persons they are claiming they want to save. They tell you that something is wrong with you, not only in the obviously bad sides of your life which you know too and you don't need to hear again and again. But also for trivial stuff in my opinion. They invent problems about you where they don't exist and then you feel more miserable for something that is not necessary there. They do more bad to you and almost never good. Most people who do this patronizing, especially the ones who do it with more zealotry, it seems to me they are doing it a little roboticaly. It's like they don't have a wider view that I am a human being with emotions and that I know that there are some things not very developed in specific aspects in my life but it's not that simple. The way they preach me what is right or wrong is like they think I have not understood it yet and it's simply a rational thing. Which is not because if the solution was so simple I wouldn't be here just right now to hear your preaching! Most of those zealous preachers tell me that they were just like me in the past and are just trying to help because they know my position (Which I doubt because everyone is a little bit different. Maybe you were introverted in the past just like me, but was it the same introverted? Or under the same exactly family/social conditions?). My guess is that most people who preach me to change and be "normal" were not (and still are not) normal. If there is such a thing as normal. I'd say they are geeks in disguise. They (maybe under social oppression) changed abruptly to what is considered normal and now they preach to others about it, most probably in order to gain more self-esteem. In a nutshell, a similar image that resembles those kind of people is the one of a heavy smoker who under a great effort finally quit smoking. He now breaks the balls (ehm.. preaches) of all his smoker friends to quit too because it's bad. It's like he never understand how hard it was initially for him and speaks now in a rational tongue, forgetting that it's not that simple. I always wonder about these people. Can't they see the wider image? Do they really have changed or out of luck? I mean, if it was hard for them too, they should have brought a good change in their life after deeply understanding what's the roots of the problem that they managed to wipe out and preach others against it right now. Except if they robotically (under social pressure) invented or followed some paradigms in order to change the way they acted or looked and match closer to the image/idea of "normality" most people in society have today. Maybe it would be a bad thing to say, but what I foresee for these people is that they might return back one day to their old situation. A heavy smoker who suddenly stopped his habit and preaches to other people to stop it by using simple useless arguments like "it's bad" is one who would not understand how hard it is. But wasn't he in the same condition? How about that rapid change? If he was he wouldn't be preaching. Did he understood the inner reasons that make smoking hard to quit? Does he remember his past inability to quit? Has he forgotten all these? What does it say to you that he now preaches to others to stop as if it was so simple and rational? I have a feeling about why some people are doing it. As I said above, they gain something. They feel better with themselves, by preaching to others (and maybe degrading them too). They gain some self-esteem (and suck yours) via the feeling that: 1) They solved their problems, 2) They have control over other persons by helping them to solve them too. I don't say that everyone who tries to help others is doing it for egoistic reasons (Even though I believe it. And egoism is not entirely bad for me) but what essence these people bring to me is that they truly need it. Patronizing is a need. As the feeling of having control or helping others and feeling superior than them because of that is a need for some. This for me is more noticable with the people who do it with great zeal and share some of the characteristic I wrote above. Somehow the idea that you know what's wrong with people and you are going to change them helps you cure your lack of self-esteem. Everyone does in a lesser or greater degree. I admit I did in the past once or two. But I know it's too absolute the way it's done by some. Why do we always need to find clues of how bad someone is? Why not trying to find the good elements? Maybe it's a basic need for most humans, only those who are taking it to the extreme are getting too annoying and don't help anyone at the end. Sometimes I wake up and have this strange feeling. That my dedication for the scene is over but somehow I cannot perceive that. What drives me still wanting to code new demos is some kind of habit, an after-effect of that old force with no drive anymore. It feels like being in a zombie condition. Something from the past wants me to code new demos but the initial reasons that motivates me aren't there anymore. I think that my obsession with demomaking was a side effect of puberty at the beginning. Now, after 10 years this force doesn't have any effect anymore. What is left is a habitual desire to do something that still gives me a meaning in my life. And that is another problem. The void that is left. Maybe another reason I cannot or don't want to understand that my desire for demomaking doesn't work anymore as it did in the past is that if I understand this, then I will find it more reasonable to quit, although I'll have to find something to fill the gap. Not just the creative gap (was I ever doing this activity for pure creativity or is that a lie?) but the one in my early days, maybe the need for recognition (which came in another form than what I had in my mind), maybe making my life feeling important. It wasn't bad, just an after-effect of puberty but now it's ten years after and I have not understood that it's not like those years anymore. It does make a sense why I can't get motivated. Because I am not in puberty anymore and don't need a self-esteem boost anymore. But I do have a need for making my life worth living, I still need a meaning, I need to wake up and think I have accomplished something today. Yesterday in my great surprise I had that feeling of the past, that I have found something to fill the everlasting gap, something new and better suited for my current age. I had that same feeling which came suddenly as it spontaneously came in the past. I am not going to reveal what it is right now. It's not the obvious one, not a girl, not real life stuff. It might be silly and I just had it yesterday. Time will tell. Although some real life things I did lately (getting a job, renting a home, etc) opened another root in my life that helped me feel I am doing something (even in a different root than demoscene) worthy in my life. Things seem to move on in the positive direction. And what about the demoscene? I still don't think I will quit so easily. What I am trying to do is to exorcise the ghosts of the past. A way, no matter how silly you may think it is, was to release the most ugly demo ever and try not to care about any negative or even positive comments at all. To do something and try to stare your reaction emotionless (if it is possible). To stop thinking about who thumbs up or down my release, to avoid being distracted and annoyed by what people think of my demos. I am doing this (and imagining this) everyday. What I am trying to do here is to break any preconceptions between myself and the scene. As I said in the nfo file this is a way to release my creativity burden, it really is also the lurking technique of Castaneda! Wat? Maybe I'll do another demo that doesn't suck or two in the future. I still have to break that curse, creating a demo that I will finally like in terms of code and design, one that will not feel like a half-finished job but something complete in my eyes. It's a good reason for me to not quit the scene yet and try to do something good. It's not having to do with what sceners expect from me or what do I want from sceners. As I said, I have to break those connections, for they have a negative effect on me. It will be purely a test, a bet upon myself, whether I can finally do such a demo or not. Many things will change. I am almost reaching thirty. I will be watching demos. I will be tempted to make something. But that initial dedication is rotten. I'd like to focus my energy on something else. See you at Breakpoint. So many things are happening inside me. So many thoughts and ideas I want to write about. Once upon I feel I have an image of things and then it dissapears. Lately I managed to keep some of these ideas, it doesn't feel anymore like the past where all my thoughts were scattered. There is a ground to base upon. All these posts are just pieces of the puzzle. I am just confused and I want to write. There are some recent ideas I am more familiar with, which I would like to analyze. It feels they make perfect sense although I spend too many words when I try to describe them. But they make a simple perfect sense. I only don't know how some of these can help me right now in some aspects of my life. But they have released the anxiety and blame upon myself on other domains. Today I will write about meaning. I am not sure what people mean when speaking of nihilism but I think I am approaching it more recently. Which is not necessary bad. Nihilism for me is not about thinking your life has no meaning. It's not that black. It's an understanding of a possibility. The possibility that maybe there is no meaning. Or at least it might be not a good idea to waste your time and nerves searching for what isn't there. Which is not what I am doing in my blog, since I am used to desperately analyze thoughts and ideas trying to find an end. And never finding it.. Nihilism can also mean to feel things flat. Like you were a non-human entity observing human societies and shed no tears about what's happening in there. You observe and accept that each person acts in it's own way. Some people try to be loyal because they want to, learned to or are oblidged to, some people steal and murder because they have to or they like to. Some people are sad, some don't care about certain things but show interest for other stuff. You can't change that. Everyone has a different idea about what is right and what is wrong but there is a common social consensus which dominates the other views. Things happen. I was born, grew up and here I am. The age and place I was born defines the way the society is and what most people tend to believe. Maybe the way I am is incompatible with what most people would like to see. Most people dislike or are afraid of those who differ for some reasons I don't know. I am still searching of these reasons. It happens that right at the moment I am who I am. Both biological and enviromental reasons play their role to what I am right now. My knowledge of these reasons might play a role to what I will become in the future. I need to know. I am trying to give a meaning to all these, to explain why am I what I am and in which ways is that incompatible with the society I am living in. I don't see any proof of an external meaning but I see cause and effect. Everything just happens. I only accept the fact that humans seek for a meaning or need something to believe on. I do that too sometimes. But a naked view of the blurry truth is here. Who am I, why am I, what is the society and why? And I need to know! In order to know I have to start from ground zero. Things happen. This is what I am now. This is the society. People have motives. People like to feel good. Things are not always what they seem to be or what we like them to be. How can we look straight at the naked truth? Good luck. I had those dreams. Dreams of rage. Rage about the things as they are, rage about the past, rage as a relief or a means to shout at people or an excuse to accept things as they are, including me. An emotion that helps me to deny the things as they want it to be and understand me. Not even that. I don't even care if they understand. As if they ever tried to make a sense out of this.. Rage out of desperation. I get criticized. I believe them. And suddenly I realise that nobody really cares. They think they have the rights to make me feel miserable. And they think they are doing it for my good. Rage about my past. About those young people who thought they had the right to treat me badly. How could they know? Do they know now? They thought they had the right. They still do.. In my dream, I was screaming. "I don't understand it! I don't understand it!". Maybe I don't want to understand it. I deny understanding it. I don't accept it. I had enought with it so I decided oneday to stop listening to it. Rage out of desperation and a hope of change. Will things ever change? Or am I bound to feel the same way? I wish I went back to the past right now that I know, to react differently. To be straight and strict towards anyone who would like to tease me or harm me. To speak straight towards anyone who tries to criticize me. Because right now I do know better who I and which is my position in a society like this. But I am too hurt. I am wondering if this is the reason why I have lost all my energy. They can't understand. They don't want to understand. At social situations you don't speak the truth but what people want to hear. There is no attempt to really look deep into the problem rather than present opinions as a show off that you and me are really into the same social circle. It creates a feeling of belonging. You exchange predictable opinions that puts you into a place of social acceptance. I cannot describe. I may be doing it too at times. Except when the truth matters to me. Others may be doing it and not being aware of. Maybe I will be or not be doing it in the future while being aware of the facade. An ironic or pesimistic feeling of how things are. Nobody ever cared about the truth.. I took everything seriously. There are the facts and there is cognitive dissonance. It's when you take every fact in account and you try to solve a puzzle. Things must make a sense. Both the facts about the world around you and the facts about yourself. The problem is that it is unsolvable. Maybe it's an evolutionary advantage to not trying to be one hundred percent perfect about your thoughts, your feelings and the world. Everything contradicts with each other and itself. Although I haven't chosen to think like this. I think it is in my brain. I can't but notice things that doesn't seem right. My mind or emotions can't easilly let discrepancies go. When they criticized me they seemed serious to me. I was wrong. There are several other reasons to criticize people. Caring about what is really true and right is a rare one. The problem is that I took their criticism seriously. As if they showed a piece of the truth that made me feel awfully. And that truth was predictable, it was "common sense", it was one that everyone kept repeating again and again. It was my compulsive thoughts that lowered my self-esteem. But if it was true and if it was obvious then why are there people like me who are not like most people? Are they too stupid to understand what is right and what is wrong? Or are they stubborn? For a long time I was lost in these questions. If people move on, if they are sucesful as students and workers, if they are social and not shy like me, have it easy with girls, are always looking cool and are not slow thinkers like me and they do not have the same cognitive problems as me then what am I doing wrong? Am I lazy? Am I stubborn? Am I stupid? Can I accept that? Do I have to feel that bad to change? Why haven't I still changed? If there is really a problem with me that justifies my unsucess then what can I say about people who claim that they were just like me and they tried and changed? Does this mean that I have no excuse? That I am just stupid, stubborn and every negative label the people who criticize me can give me? Why do they keep doing this when all they achieve is to kill more of my missing self-esteem and put me deeper in the ground? Do they believe that I will break and suddenly decide it's time to change my life? It never really happened.. So many years have past. After the initial point when the idea was first implanted in my brain. So many years during which I have evolved into ruminating thoughts concerning what I am and what other people think about me. In fact I kept being tortured by my very own thoughts. My thoughts which were their thoughts. Why? I don't understand it!!! Out of rage I decided it's time to play the game my way. I have made a split in three. About the truth and my connection to it. The true facts The facts that you tell to yourself The lies you tell to others In the past I had a great need of all three making perfect sense together. Which is quite naive. But I really needed for things to make sense. The truth (total objectivity), my feelings (facts compatible with my personality) and the ideas of the world (the social consensus). I always felt dissatisfied as expected. Most people even made me feel they already knew the truth (the obvious, the predictable memes of what is socially accepted and what is not) and that I was the naive and still puzzled. But the third factor is usually motivated by socialization and not the seek for what is really there. I learned that later. I thought people were based on the truth. Even if they thought they did, there were other motives. Not truth itself. Nobody really cared even if they made me think so. It doesn't make a sense. Out of rage I decided to not care anymore. Seeking for the truth is going on, I can't stop it. It's interesting. It will go on. But I will stop caring about the rest. I managed after all these years to persuade myself to take another root concerning the personal feeling and social way (two and three). I can tell myself the facts I wish to make him feel better. It's not easy, while in slot one I will keep the possibility of the hard truth, but since I will never be sure about that I can speak of something else that myself prefers to think about. If (for example) I lost my job because I felt I was not competent one but nobody told me so, I only assumed they didn't tell me, then I can keep it as a possibility but say to myself that I did my job well and there were other acceptable reasons of why I had to be fired. And number three. Number three, what do I tell to others about that needs a whole paragraph itself. It's the game that we play and I never thought it was so until now. Number three, the lies I'll tell to the others. Since I wrongly thought people were serious and they care about the truth, since it never occured to me to think that some people might criticize me because it makes them feel better by degrading me or thinking they try to help me just to feel nicer, since I never thought that even people seemingly criticizing me just wanted to say their opinions because that's the way someone socializes and they will of course refer to predictable and socially accepted facts instead of their own opinion, since this is a game where things are going bad for me because I am different and the common sense is incompatible to that, I decided that in number three is where I am gonna care the less. This can mean various things. It means that if someone criticizes me or asks for my opinion on something, I can play games and I can move towards any path. If I am in the mood I can speak of the truth as it is, as I feel it, as I prefer to feel it or I can also agree in a way without believing it in order to avoid the discussion or not become aggresive when I am not in the mood. I can make tricky questions, confuse them, give them examples that show the contradictions of what they tell me. Depends on the person, the mood, the situation, the fun. Since it's meaningless at number three then why not play the game people always did and never told me? But rage remains. I want to get out and criticize those who criticized me. When people degrade those in need of self-esteem and they claim to be helping them, when they think they have the right as young persons to bully you at school and as grown up persons to criticize you for your incompetent life and when they feel they are doing right then it is the time when I want to get out and shout! There comes the time when I feel the urge to continue searching for the truth, because at the stake of it is where the game is played. The truth, the belief of what is right and what is wrong, and which of these "truths" are more common to the public, thus actions based on them are blindly accepted. One thing remains. Why am I searching for the truth? Is it the truth itself or some motives? A thing of the past? Rage out of the fact that I don't know. I don't know what to believe. I don't know why am I here and why I am doing all these. I don't even know how to improve things in my life that may indirectly affect this urge. Millions of things in my mind and a blatant search for perfection. Would just shouting do anything for me? What for? To ask for more later??? Starting idea: We have neural networks. They work in parallel. When you see a picture millions of them are fired, thousands of ideas on a simple object, both the details but mainly the whole image. When you see a picture you instantly recognise a house, the trees, the people, the cars, whatever is in the image and is familiar. A computer would see that as a series of pixels, colored areas, shapes and not even that. We had to train it. But what would you tell the computer when it asked you: "How the hell did you managed to perceive in nanoseconds that it's a house surrounded by trees, windows, cars, people, etc and even receive ideas about how beatiful or peaceful or nice it seems plus millions afterthoughts?". Would you say that it just occured to you? That it's obvious? Or would you recollect and find some reasons: "It's a house because it has windows, roof, door". And how did you recognised instantly that something is a door or a window? Is it the texture? The bricks? The wood? And what are all these? When you give a mathematical problem to someone and instantly he can feel which is the right and easy way to solve it and where are the traps, when he has already decided in few seconds or a minute which method to follow and you wonder how the fuck did he thought about it, it is like the same thing. I am a mathematician. I have a good picture of mathematical notions, symbolism, a visual perception of maths but I am missing one thing. In university exams it's very possible I will fail, especially when the subjects are tricky. I will read a problem and maybe follow an obvious path that leads to too much calculations or prooves to be hardly solvable this way. To solve the problem, someone might have to add and substract a new variable, draw a non obvious straight line on a geometrical problem, generally do something non so obvious making you wonder "How the fuck did he know it?". Either he has already solved the exercise somewhere else or,.. he has a talent! Talent? Btw, I have that talent in programming but never asked myself how the hell did I thought a crazy optimization idea or a non standard solution to an algorithm. People that study programming and come to me for help are wondering about specific notions of programming they can't understand or how the hell are they supposed to create anything. And their questions seems preety much obvious to me. I am the human intelligence and they are the computers. In analog, the math genious is the human intelligence and I look at him with awe as I am a stupid computer. We don't know why we know what we know. It's obvious to us human intelligences. It's unreachable, it's a talent to the corresponding stupid computers. There is no single definition of intelligence. It can be everything. Someone might be very good at solving Sudoku even if it's unpractical. I am very good at programming but suck at math. No, even math intelligence can be separated in subsections of intelligence. I am good at understanding the concepts especially visually. I am good at making a practical use of them. But I always sucked at solving mathematical problems just to pass the exams. I also suck at studying (The alternative path for exam success would be to solve one thousand exercises per month and have a very good memory too). Yet I am better at programming than maths. I can find in a very short time alternative solutions or optimizations to algorithms, a kind of coding intuition, people staring at me and wondering where the hell do they sell inspiration and I bought some? Humans are intelligent at interpreting imagery. We instantly see houses, faces, cars, dogs, cats, plants and even smaller details in a blink of an eye. Computers need to be prepared with sophisticated image recognition software to achieve that. If I ask you to add all numbers from 1 to 100 you may either take a long time to make all the additions one by one (each of you may either be preferably more fast according to the means: paper and pencil, calculator or abacus) or use your intelligence to invent an equation to do it fast (like Pascal did iirc) but a computer would still do that from zero to one million in nanoseconds. That's why they are called computers :) They say that great pianists had in such way evolved neural networks in their brains that justified their unique talent. Say that because of my long lasting occupation as a computer programmer I have evolved in such way my neural networks that I can instantly have a whole image of programming and algorithmical problem solving and is quite easier for me to read a programming exercise in university exams and know what to do. The same way it's easy for a math genious which leaves me wondering how it's possible. I am not even aware that it's a talent. Evolution is slow. It seems obvious to me, I even don't remember when there was a time that I wasn't able to grasp the primary notions. Imagine that each of us has some overdeveloped networks of neural nets that help them perform specific functions faster and better than others while we have weak or badly developed networks on other aspects. I am good at programming and optimization, bad at planning, lazy in studying, not a good socializer. Others are better or worse on various other aspects. Viewing it like this it gave me a lot of possible answers to what is intelligence, talent, intuition, habits, personality and the main questions raised are what are the reasons we have evolved our brain this way and how easilly can some things change. I mean, I am good at programming because I was into programming for years and my brain has learned to deal with these kinds of problems before my eyes. But there must be a time I wasn't good at programming. There must be an initial moment when my skills on programming, maths, socialization or even things like my resistance and attitude to laziness, ability to plan, reaction to emotions or habits, where all set at zero. There was a time that when I should start learning how to approach girls or drink beer, I was lost into binary logic. Why maths and no girls? Why girls and no maths? Why computers and no maths? Why not everything? Why avoiding or not being interested in some? What dragged me into others? I am thinking of two or three primary reasons. And you can add more. Questionable is how biology plays a role. Then it is our choices in the past. And then it is emotions. Someone would add social or school or family environment, inspirations from the outside world, etc. These are secondary but I believe that the whole of them can fit into one bigger image. Brain biology: I was always a fan of this notion. I have the feeling that I am better or worse at some things no matter how I try because of this. Of course there is a possibility that this could be a delusion. Maybe, if after the years I overdeveloped the neural networks for programming and underdeveloped those having to do with socialization then it all seems to hard to change. So hard that it feels like I was born with that. But even the sole idea that everything is tabula rasa doesn't wipe out the influence that brain biology can bring to the game. Some people are too emotional and others are psychopaths. Some have more analytical way of thinking and others are more capable socialy. Even if I can't answer to the question whether this brain differences where initial or evolved. Actually what could be initial would be the biological inclination to evolve to each different path. If for example analytical thought favours certain brain parts that happened to be in better communication with each others at birth, then there is a higher posibility for certain choices or habits. It doesn't predict if he will evolve his neural networks towards being good at math or a good socializer though. But it affects. It affects the path that will bring us to now and make us think why we are what we are. Put an asterisk to that though, it's great for studying further (and I am not a neuroscientist to know). Choices. I often wonder. What would happen if I had not taken the path to become a great computer programmer? Would I have not evolved my neural networks into that. Would I now be staring at algorithm solutions and optimizations uncapable of thinking how is this possible? Would I have instead found a purpose in my studies and become a genious at math? Would I met some other people, another hobby, another purpose and be something completely different? That initial moment when I was 16 and was teased by my classmates and thought I would proove them smarter or gain my lost self-esteem by becoming great at something nobody understands. That initial moment could have happened by chance? Chance is how I am currently thinking it. They say that evolution is not exactly chance. There is a purpose but no creator. It's more like natural selection. Of course chance exists, my attention could have been drawn by something else and snap a different choice. But in the big picture when you see all the pieces together you can see a patern. They ask me what would happen if there were no computers in the world. Would I be just like the rest? Would I just engage in regular boring activities? Most probably I would have found another geeky hobby. If I was a neandertal I would invent fire or something. I know it :). But things could slightly change, I would be good at maths instead of programming, with different friends or parents I could have evolved slightly different habbits, different ways of reacting to my negative emotions, family and society could surely play a role in the way my neural networks evolved. But the primary motive would still be here. My brain wanted to learn, to be creative, I couldn't stop analyzing things (Remember the number one reason here). Emotions. They can make you love or hate things. Maybe it's the reasons I am not motivated to solve maths or study. And remember, some old habits, some old evolved neural networks are hardly changed if not modified. In order to be really good at maths as I am in programming I'd have to be motivated to solve thousands of exercises just to pass the exams. What if I studied computers science and had maths as a hobby? Still something missing. Motivation. I am motivated to solve problems with a practical use unlike math problems at school which are useful just to pass the exams. I use maths but for algorithms. They are not the same. Maths at exams are like sudoku puzzles, at least some of them. And the rest are boring. I could put motivation into the equation among with emotions and a sense of purpose for what we do. Emotions, there can be negative. You can hate things. They form your habbits. Maybe I always liked the idea of great scientists that dragged me into wishing to become a great computer programmer or something. Maybe that was the initial tension at 16 to follow that path which after a lot of practice evolved my neural brains in such a way to be easilly for me to fiddle with algorithms and stuff. I am wondering now if negative emotions among other people led me into avoiding socialization. Currently I believe that being too emotional makes me being extremely overwhelmed when into social situations. Emotions complicate matters too much. They form our personality, our habits, our tensions to follow or avoid any path. And when we follow our habits, that piece of neural networks which is connected with that is preserved more and more as much as it used and should be abandoned for a very long to be wiped out and/or replaced with a parallel path. That's why it's too hard to change. When you have learned to hate social situations or the people who criticise you for being weird and not having a life then how easy is to change? And why change the habit of thinking too much or programming when they are such valuable talents to most? And when they keep telling you that you are not normal and you keep reacting to the negative emotions with the same boring way then imagine what happens in your brain and how badly you enstregthen the chronic situation. A big turn has to be done there. You have a path that split in two. At the initial point where you have to make a choice, not speaking about the different realities at stake, it seems that at the initial point you didn't have a preference. Let's say that you didn't. From that point and later, what follows forms a tendency. Say that initialy I decided to become a great programmer. I started coding slowly slowly, then I learned a little, then a little more, then I liked what I was doing because I became better at it. Then my neural networks had already evolved a little into that direction. When you walk a road you can't just go back and take another one. As long as a tendency to work on programming problems was slowly slowly formed into my brain, as long as new neural cells were infected by my engagement in programming, the more my neural nets were fired towards that direction. I could even stare at an image or hear a word having nothing to do with computers and somehow relate it to my hobby because there were more cells infected with programming specific things. I am not really into neuroscience (even if I'd like to learn more) to know how neural cells or networks work (I am even feeling I am using the wrong terms) and how they evolve, if they grow, even if it's an empty hard disk or new trees are born, I just speak out of how I feel the whole picture of what I am talking about. Anyways, the more you are engaged with something, the more your brain is filled with that stuff and the more it's filled, the more you are inclined to be more engaged with that. Kinda like a vicious circle. But there was that initial point where the skill was near zero and there was no inclination towards it just pure chance. Or wasn't it? It wasn't. Computer programming was not a thing I was aware of once I was born. But there were other notions related to it. Somewhere I have heard that programmers are scientists. Somewhere else I have heard that scientists are smart or cool. I have also heard that computer is the future. I liked their colors and shapes. Did I always have that visual mathematician way to view things? Or did it evolve too? If scientists were cool and computers were fancy and I also needed an injection of self-esteem that would make a good match but how did I have the notions of good and cool and sexy and smart? There was an initial point where everything was at zero. I knew nothing. Pure chance? Or also brain biology? You can say that I was an analytical brain. But what if this was a tension too? What if I decided to think too much? What if at a very early stage a primary tension/tendency/inclination towards thinking and analyzing was build up, some of the first evolved neural networks were build upon this scheme? And this scheme made me seek for knowledge and understanding? It could be with others too. I am not the only who thinks in here. But why do I think so much? Why do I think much more than others? Could we say it's just psychological? I think it's a biological difference in brain. But this part is still in debate. Still thinking about tendecies is important. I found one that one primary reason at the time that I initialy have chosen to become a good programmer was that it snapped me that I would heal my bad self-esteem during that moment. Which didn't happened. But left me with the ability to do really spectacular things with a compiler. I am recently healing my self-esteem following a different path. Which is also snapped me. After I have seen results I have said "Wowa! How did I do this?". In the same way that I get that inspiration and I don't know why. The same way someone solves a problem and things it's obvious. Before several months it wasn't that obvious. Parenthesis here. I found that at my 16 but I later forgot I wasn't programming because programming is good but because it snapped me at my 16. This doesn't make sense but wtf. All I mean is there are influences from my birth that evolved my neural networks one after the other and brought me into this time. Some talents, some bad habits, both can't easily change. There could be a reason, not chance but natural selection, like I was inclined to be geeky as I was meaned to be lazy. Some can change. Lack of self-esteem was not something I tried to avoid. I really wanted it. I recently feel like having it but started being build since the first time I asked for it. It took time. Or maybe? Self-esteem took time while programming much less time? Was my brain inclined towards one and against the other? One can achieve something if he really wants it but does the biology play such a big role? How can specific children at 6 or 8 years old play the piano, write assembly or solve higher maths? It all points to the brain. Chance maybe but that is changed to natural selection. Different paths are being followed but the initial inclination to chose one in favor of others are primary the brain and then aditionally social/family growth, evolved emotion (things we learn to love or hate) and habits formed. But the primary paths, the tendencies/inclinations, the roots. I'd like to know more.. Nah. I am used to it. I was thinking that in the same way that you instantly see the whole picture out of smaller parts and meanings while the computer needs sophisticated image recognition software to do just that, in the same way I am truly struggling to disclose the bigger image of thoughts and ideas about everything (the reason for my big texts) in order to let myself out of the cognitive dissonance I had been through all these years. And neural networks are evolving towards that direction too. Even those that let me decide a nicer way to react to the negative emotions produced by incompatibility of ideas. They are build and most of the time without a conscious plan but out of my primary motives. I was lost into thoughts of not being normal and one day I was fed up. The change didn't immediately came, just the timid decision to stop caring. Other things, ideas, happenings led me to a similar decision. All these together slowly slowly evolved into acceptance of myself and the world around me, while also killing softly my old habit of self-pitty. But it came so slowly that I wasn't conscious of it until one day that I woke up and thought I was getting better at something I thought I was lost. I felt know that what I believe is obvious. I was the stupid computer. I am the human intelligence. I evolved. It's nice thinking of everything this way. A different point of view that I recently found important. Some of it's primary aspects are things I have been thinking in the past and someone would say that it's not something new. But here comes the part where they see doors and windows and a brick wall but they can't see the whole bigger image, they can't see the house. Here is the part where I have that greater feeling of a whole that explains a lot but it might sound trivial to many of us. It's not an entirely new view, it always combines previously written ideas because that's how evolution works. The big image inherits older ideas combined together, which each of them inherits much older ideas and when I feel so great about writting a blog post like this is when suddenly this cloud of thoughts, this confusing puzzle suddenly seems to be forming the bigger whole. Those are very randomly written thoughts. Not exactly the whole picture. I also wished to write a new post and put the last article down (enough bashing "hackers" :P). From those scattered writtings I might privately make some notes hopefully into a good scheme of things (I never did that no matter how many times I wanted to really organize my thoughts :PP) It seems that my anti-hacker posts will never seize to appear. In fact I am really motivated to get more into it in any way possible :P I will just make some comparisons now of the average person in three different communities. And two funny analogies too.. (my favorites :) First, some distinctions have to be made. I will be shortly talking about the hacker, the cracker and the scener. I will define their meaning at least as used in this post. I need to be sure that no misunderstandings will take place because of a different understanding of the same words and that my point will be understood. The hacker: I know that you don't like the use of this term to describe these electronic pranksters as seen on TV (Neither do I). In this post though I will use it as it is (even without the quotes) and I will mean only the definition as portrayed by the mass media and adapted by our own culture. I will not mean in this post by the word "hacker" the hobbyist programmer, the computer enthousiast or the computer pioneers of the past. Please understand this is just for the purpose of the post and as means to be understood even by the illiterate. The cracker: Be careful to my definition of this term for the purpose

Havoc really likes optimus.

Lately, if any of you have noticed, I had been trying to reach the quality of BITS. Or would you prefer to change that last word with CRAP? Why have I chosen to do this? For many reasons but mostly I can say it was just mindless and a choice of moment. Or something I wished to try a long time ago. Well, it wasn't the first time (remember an account on pouet with the name predictable?) but this time it was different. I managed to release three demos(?) in three months. And I tried to keep ok with my conscience about that. The point was actually this. It's similar to when an artist gets frustrated by the art community and decides to release something controversial to the public. It's because I wanted to try to see the other side and not feel bad by releasing the lamest demos ever. To intentionally release some crappy demos in a new joke group and steer the controversy a bit. Especially that one inside my brain, which gets anxious about releasing a good demo. How about doing the opposite, intentionally releasing crap and trying to not care? I truly envy Solo2 and people like him. He can code enough but somehow there seems to be no evolution. And he doesn't seem to care. He doesn't seem bother as me about making a better demo, he doesn't seem to get sad as me when I feel a demo I just released is mediocre and I didn't managed to do something spectacularly good. He doesn't even seem to react to the massive thumb downs and fuckings from other people there on Pouet. Sometimes I wish I would be like Solo2. To not care. To be creative and do it for myself and not care if it looks and sounds like crap or if it's truly an awesome demo that one I have just finished. At least it seems like he is not caring but what really happens in Solo2's brain? But let's take it as an example that there possibly exist such people. And that this is and cannot be me.. It cannot be me because of evolution. When I have finish the first Otinanum demo I thought I would never do this again. The next demo was a demomaker. I have never done something so lame before, to release a demo with a demomaker and even thumb up myself on pouet. But I said that now I will never create a demo in demomaker again. The third demo was slightly better. I spend two evenings instead of one finish it, more effort, a bit better effects with not so sucky colors and textures. Still it was crapped but I felt like I got better. And then I look back and see. Even as a BITS-lookalike, I felt the need to evolve. Eventually I had seen that the Otinanum joke would come to an end. I was even planning to finish two good/average demos and release them as Otinanum productions to confuse a bit people, who would initially think they would be crap but see they are not bad. But the primary reason was not this, but that even if I tried to mimic BITS, I would eventually need to make something better demo after demo. And then I wonder. How do people like Solo2 or others not get the same feeling? That frustration, that sadness of your demo not being as good as you planned, the need to evolve and get better, to take more time on your next demo and not release the same crap again and again, is what makes you improve. Maybe that sadness and that frustration is really high on me, more high than others, but that doesn't mean it's so bad for evolution. Just painful. Sometimes I wish I didn't care, but I can't. I have to evolve, I have to stay in the demoscene (although I am seriously thinking of retiring or leaving for a while long) and do my best even if it will be mediocre. Because I can't pretend to do crap. Even as a joke, something burns inside me. I am not talking right now about what other people would think of me, but that me alone couldn't continue with the same crap because it was feeling like a step back in evolution. A friend told me about an article he read somewhere (and I am still trying to find that), where scientists (neuroscientists? I don't remember) tried to find and categorize the most basic to the core human emotions. And they found that naturally we have something like 1-2 unique possitive emotions and (I don't remember) something like 5-7 unique negative ones! Naturally, we are more prone to depression. Why is that? Because of evolution. If we were constantly happy, we would just sit there and do nothing. It's a lesson for me that maybe my sadness, my frustrations, even my anxiety are means to improve. Then why people mistakenly think I don't improve? Because evolution is slow and they can't clearly see it? Maybe. Although it's as painful as slow for me. Is it relative? Do I think I evolve more slowly than I'd wish because I am more of a perfectionist? Do I get more easily in sorrow with me not be good enough? Wouldn't that have as a result to improve faster? Yet, does it lead to opposite results because of the sorrow and frustration? Or is it just my idea that I evolve slower than I'd like and that other people do? Just look at my life, it's the same pattern and the same sorrow.. At least, what hit me is that I evolve no matter how hard I try to avoid it. BITS can release the same shit (no offense there :) for the hundredth time. Me on the other side, after two-three crappy (even intentionally, without wish for effort) releases, really wished for something better. I couldn't in no way continue the feat Solo2 started years ago. Not because I cared of my image in the scene or something. But because, naturally, after each crappy Otinanum demo I wanted to evolve from crap to not so crap and eventually reach my casual mediocre levels. I wouldn't never be able to release 50 crappy demos in a row without evolving enough. I really can't understand how Solo2 is doing it! And that's how I decided that I can't continue with this joke. It's not for me. I am for evolving, I am for improving, not staying stationary, not looking at crap I just did and feel ok with that, not stepping back in the ladder of evolution. Even if this evolution will be slow and painful. Although I wonder why does it work like this on me? Other people are living with the same burden of improving and negative yet motivating feelings for the mistakes in their previous works but they don't get in sorrow as me and they even release much better demos. I don't get it.. I will miss Otinanum. The group where I thought I would be able to release every crap I'd wish and stop caring at all. I failed to be BITS. The more I am reading magazines about the paranormal, the more I am listening to what people involved in the metaphysical say, the more I watch specific tv shows or being informed about it, the more I side on with the skeptics. And so much more I can understand the war they are on, why some of them are so radical, why this fight can now be considered as a humanistic process. Don't get me wrong, this is not my style. I always disliked the way radical skepticism works. It's sad that it happens, when bringing specific subjects into discussion (about unexplained phenomena) some so-called skeptic people spontaneously rush to reply that all these stuff are bullshit. It's like they already have prepared the position they hold and you can't change their mind. I prefer honest skepticism. Although, the more I accumulate knowledge about the whole issue (not only the phenomena, but even articles concerning how easily we are deluded or the question of why do we believe) the more I come to side with skeptics, even the fanatical ones. It's not the way I perceive and work on situations, but I can now understand their anger. Not only that, but now I discover that this side is more reliable than it's opposite. The paranormal is a world that always interested me. At least some portions of it. I was always (and still am) fascinated by the stories about UFOs or other strange phenomena. I can't say why. If you tell me a reason, it might or might not be that. Everybody must have his own reasons for being interested to these stuff. For example, I never really dug the new age alike ideas, somehow I hated it when they were talking about higher planes of existence, the universe being one and such stuff that are usually more popular among girls. UFOs or extraterrestrials (even though it's not sure they are necessary connected with each other) were more close to my interests, maybe because space always fascinated me and the phenomena as described were very strange and outlandish. Of course all that could be seen with other more down to earth explanations. Although I preferred to keep an open mind or that was (and still is) the way I am used to think. Some people have a need to skeptically respond to such claims as if, when they don't it would feel like they accepted. But this is not how I think. I am fascinated at first and then let it open. It doesn't mean that I believe or I accept a story if I don't counteract. Imho. Anyways, arriving from that world and after few personal frustrations with the paranormal community (because for some reasons I am a real maniac concerning the search for some answers and I got fed up by the ever-growing confusion in these cycles) I started reading more skeptical articles on the internet. Even if at some times they make equally improbable assumptions in order to debunk some improbable claims, there are some really good stuff in there, which for my case it was something new and I felt like I was reborn. (That teaches me that when I am stuck for years in the same ideas, I should try switching to the opposite information, the one I always avoided taking into consideration or even touching) Nowadays I trust and sympathize more with any kind of skeptics. I still prefer the more honest and less radical ones. In any way I feel like I can trust these people more than others concerning reliability, if I wish to know more about these subjects and avoid confusion. There is even another interesting kind of war here. Maybe it's not a bad thing. Needless to say, it's very interesting to me. It seems that there is some kind of split up in worldviews of scientists that could be described as a war between materialism and spiritualism. Some scientists believe that we are nothing more than a brain mass but others keep a more dualistic view of ourselves, either believing in the existence of a soul, higher planes of consciousness or generally something unmeasured with conventional scientific methods that is parallel to the material world. And the fascinating thing is that scientists around the world are eager to research these assumptions. If you ask me, I am more on the side of the monistic view that all we have is a brain. Two and a half reasons for that. First, I am fascinated by the whole research on how the brain works. Although I don't have a clue about neuroscience, I am really curious about the answers the research into this field might give us. The second reason is an aftereffect of the first, the fact that this research gives us more clues than the dualistic views do. At least I think so. And all I want is some good answers, not metaphysical confusion. The half reason is already mentioned several lines above. I am allergic to several new age worldviews. I don't know why but they either sound so naive or I simply hate them. And the dualistic views of many of these fringe scientists are sounding alike. So, would I dismiss the fringe science? No. I am not one hundred percent on the side of materialist scientists. I just found them more reliable and more compatible to my worldview. But I do have a keen interest in those things that scientists are afraid to touch, the ones that could produce an outrage and I like that these scientists have the guts to do their research on those taboo fields. At the same time I really enjoy and support the skeptic reactions towards fringe scientists because I believe that they help to keep a balance between radical denial and naive openmindness. It's only the best when both sides have strong and honest arguments. Yet the question remains. Would even these fringe scientists be "dangerous"? In what way? What are we afraid of here? I was watching some greek tv show today (pyles tou anexigitou) and then I really started worrying and understanding the humanistic aspect of being a skeptic. There is such absurd meta-literature on everything that makes you cringe and wonder how come people blindly believe all these stuff and what could be the forecoming consequences. And then there is the dilemma whether I worry too much or whether each side is a bit too radical or too crazy or too deluded. One thing is for sure though, that I am clearly getting closer to the skeptics side rather than the naive metaphysical worldview. A friend once said the following hilarious quote: "I have thought of a theory so insane that even myself doesn't believe in it! I just thought of a single one after walking out in the city and eating two gyros :) When they ask me if I believe in extraterrestrials I like to reply that I don't. My last view before this one was that I surely believe there must be intelligent life (in so many galaxies, so many stars, blabla.. it MUST have evolved). Although the real question here is whether they have visited us or not. Nevertheless, I recently like to reply (maybe less seriously and just to surprise people) that I don't believe in extraterrestrials. And that is concluded from my belief in the multiverse :) I have an obsession with an idea of the multiverse. It was derived from some scientific theories I might have heard somewhere but my own vision of it could reach a religious point of view. It's the acceptance of all possibilities. Actually not exactly :) The multiverse as a science fiction theory is a big set of all the possible infinite parallel universes. First of all it supports a better alternative of time travel theory and helps us to avoid the well known time traveler paradoxes. In a parallel universe I am not just sitting right here writting this blog but I may be still outside or I may be coding something on my computer or I may be 20 pounds lighter or I may be dead right now. The set of these parallel universes is all alternative realities I could be living right now, all alternative history events, all alternative possible worlds. Our universe is only one single posibility of all that exist in parallel. Some suggest another form of parallel universes where not only the different outcomes occur but also different set of physical laws. Through these kind of thoughts your perception can go far far away and maybe you will loose it as I did :) Anyway, the point about aliens is: It's very improbable that a universe with billions of galaxies and each one bearing billions of stars, would not be host to at least one other intelligent species except us. But in the multiverse of infinite possible universes there must exist also those that happen to accommodate only us. There must exist those few but still sub-infinite sets of universes where for one or another reason it renders us totally alone inside them. Who can say that we haven't been unlucky (or lucky?) and our universe happens to be one of those lonely ones that out of seer luck happened to favor life on earth and nothing else? Or imagine some other sets of possible universes where a small number of intelligent species did exist somewhere else but at our current time they have all been destroyed by war or physical catastrophes. It's one improbable posibility but who can prove our universe is not amongst them? And yes, we have not reached the improbable theory I was thinking at the way home yet! I made a similar question about god. Ok, god is something that they ask me if I believe in but what I can't understand is what the heck is the definition of god. This is another big matter that I have made various strange thoughts about and I'd like to stretch it on one of my next posts. I am not sure what god is and whether it can be defined. But let's assume that it's very improbable that he exists. According to Dawkins, the idea of all infinite, all powerful, all seeing god is like a skyhook coming from nowhere. If god created the universe then who created god? And who created the god of god? The idea of god just existing without needing a creator is so improbable in the views of science and evolution that the other alternative is simply to imagine an infinite perfect uberbeing or something. But then we simply put god outside the equation. So in order for such a perfect ultimate being called god to exist it has to not being able to be measured by scientific methods. But if we can't measure it then how can we prove it? In a nutshell that's how I think that god (or actually the notion of god) is highly improbable. And then we come to the multiverse point of view. I know, I know, it's predictable, there is a universe or a few sets (yet sub-infinite) of universes in the multiverse where this improbable god entity exists. Then I come to the following question: "But if the ultimate being exists then why being a part of only a small sub-portion of the multiverse?". And then somehow I remember to have reached the conclusion that since we have proven that he exists in a single universe of the multiverse and since it's the ultimate being then he should be the god of all multiverse. And therefore I thought for once that I have proven the existence of god. Until it sounded so absurd right now I am writing this that I abandoned the idea :) Crazy, I know. After falling down to the level of BITS, it felt like time to reach the universe of LCF (can't reach his personal site with his weird ideas right now). What's next? Sotsoft??? I am recently thinking of some common pitfalls in my multiverse view. Of course this is just my lousy view derived from the scientific theory about it (I have read somewhere that David Deutsch prooved mathematically that parallel universes exists, not sure what that could practically mean though). One problem with my lousy view of the multiverse (that every possibility I can or even cannot imagine could exist either in this or in another universe) is similar to the problam of god. If god is the ultimate being out there, couldn't we think of a god that is so perfect that is even more perfect than himself? Or the joke about the god who creates a rock so heavy that he even can't lift it? Similarly, in the multiverse, which is the notion of endless posibilities, where everything can exist somewhere (even fairies and the flying spaghetti monster :), I could imagine of a multiverse that doesn't hold all posibilities, a multiverse with infinite universes in which the laws are same or in all of them there exists no god or where there are always extraterrestrials. With my notion that the multiverse is the infinite set of universe where every improbability exists then there also exist the improbabilities which abolish the great notion of the multiverse of all possibilities since it hosts also the possibility that deny itself. As in the skyhook example I can simply say that the multiverse which hold only half of the possibilities is wrongly called a multiverse but it is an uberverse (a set of parallel universes but not the only one) which is only a part of a greater set of uberverses called the multiverse. Then someone can tease me with an example of a multiverse as a set of uberverses that since it holds all the possible outcomes, it also holds the improbable probability that negates the initial notion of the perfect multiverse. Then I'd continue telling him this is another uberverse (similar to someone saying that there is a god who created god who created god who created god to infinity) or to say it better, the multiverse is the supreme notion that cannot be analyzed. And here I come to an analogy with the not to be analyzed supreme entity called god and I realize that the notion of multiverse I have created with my own philosophical thoughts about it, is a very similar idea to the absurd notion of god and thus the multiverse is a god itself. Now, something even more crazy that came into my mind. Imagine this whole unreachable multiverse being a computer simulation in which we live inside. And that the people who wrote the software are living in another universe inside an uberverse inside a multiverse which they don't that is simply a part of another simulation of reality software of some other beings which are also...... you got the idea. Now think that to infinity and loose your minds! =) I need to get a break.. I used to worry about what people think about me, concerning being different, not "normal", etc (as you know from all my past blogs). Today it affects me less and even less as time goes because I know more and I also stopped to care. I have to admit though that at a time this whole situation drove me to create my own enemies. Characteristic phrases and ideas even if unwanted they forced me to take a defensive position that could create misunderstandings. For example, phrases like "get a life" or that ancient greek quote which is the only one most greeks recite today as it is the meaning of life, things like that could even make me react arrogantly towards the persons reciting these things because I felt like they were indirectly trying to tell me that I should change and be just like the rest. Well, most of the times this was their real plan imho, but few of the people said these quotes and even ideas of how a "normal" life should be without hard feelings, maybe unintentionally. Even though they were unwittingly transferring a message that I still feel it's wrong in the greater sense, that we are all the same and should act the same way or else we are deviating from what is normal behavior or the natural way of life. That's why I am still trying to speak of the alternative idea that each one of us is a little or more different and we can't always compare different people and easily claim who is right and who is not. But if I was going to create a polemic today it would no more be against the specific ideas but against patronizing. Even though I wouldn't like to create another schism. I want to avoid here splitting people or attitudes in a "good versus evil" dichotomy. So I will just speak a little about patronizing itself as it had affected me without making a judgment on it's value. So it wasn't the ideas themselves at the very core that made me sad in my early life. It was a specific kind of attitude that I will call patronizing. I have noticed few things (which although I cannot prove but only feel them) about the people who are into this kind of attitude: They have a great zeal when they are doing it. They talk to me or other people, trying to force all their energy on changing me. Like it is very important in their life that I will change too. Without even knowing me. They are sure, really sure, that there are specific things in life that are right and others that are ultimately wrong. They never give it a second thought. They always transfer a negative energy to the persons they are claiming they want to save. They tell you that something is wrong with you, not only in the obviously bad sides of your life which you know too and you don't need to hear again and again. But also for trivial stuff in my opinion. They invent problems about you where they don't exist and then you feel more miserable for something that is not necessary there. They do more bad to you and almost never good. Most people who do this patronizing, especially the ones who do it with more zealotry, it seems to me they are doing it a little roboticaly. It's like they don't have a wider view that I am a human being with emotions and that I know that there are some things not very developed in specific aspects in my life but it's not that simple. The way they preach me what is right or wrong is like they think I have not understood it yet and it's simply a rational thing. Which is not because if the solution was so simple I wouldn't be here just right now to hear your preaching! Most of those zealous preachers tell me that they were just like me in the past and are just trying to help because they know my position (Which I doubt because everyone is a little bit different. Maybe you were introverted in the past just like me, but was it the same introverted? Or under the same exactly family/social conditions?). My guess is that most people who preach me to change and be "normal" were not (and still are not) normal. If there is such a thing as normal. I'd say they are geeks in disguise. They (maybe under social oppression) changed abruptly to what is considered normal and now they preach to others about it, most probably in order to gain more self-esteem. In a nutshell, a similar image that resembles those kind of people is the one of a heavy smoker who under a great effort finally quit smoking. He now breaks the balls (ehm.. preaches) of all his smoker friends to quit too because it's bad. It's like he never understand how hard it was initially for him and speaks now in a rational tongue, forgetting that it's not that simple. I always wonder about these people. Can't they see the wider image? Do they really have changed or out of luck? I mean, if it was hard for them too, they should have brought a good change in their life after deeply understanding what's the roots of the problem that they managed to wipe out and preach others against it right now. Except if they robotically (under social pressure) invented or followed some paradigms in order to change the way they acted or looked and match closer to the image/idea of "normality" most people in society have today. Maybe it would be a bad thing to say, but what I foresee for these people is that they might return back one day to their old situation. A heavy smoker who suddenly stopped his habit and preaches to other people to stop it by using simple useless arguments like "it's bad" is one who would not understand how hard it is. But wasn't he in the same condition? How about that rapid change? If he was he wouldn't be preaching. Did he understood the inner reasons that make smoking hard to quit? Does he remember his past inability to quit? Has he forgotten all these? What does it say to you that he now preaches to others to stop as if it was so simple and rational? I have a feeling about why some people are doing it. As I said above, they gain something. They feel better with themselves, by preaching to others (and maybe degrading them too). They gain some self-esteem (and suck yours) via the feeling that: 1) They solved their problems, 2) They have control over other persons by helping them to solve them too. I don't say that everyone who tries to help others is doing it for egoistic reasons (Even though I believe it. And egoism is not entirely bad for me) but what essence these people bring to me is that they truly need it. Patronizing is a need. As the feeling of having control or helping others and feeling superior than them because of that is a need for some. This for me is more noticable with the people who do it with great zeal and share some of the characteristic I wrote above. Somehow the idea that you know what's wrong with people and you are going to change them helps you cure your lack of self-esteem. Everyone does in a lesser or greater degree. I admit I did in the past once or two. But I know it's too absolute the way it's done by some. Why do we always need to find clues of how bad someone is? Why not trying to find the good elements? Maybe it's a basic need for most humans, only those who are taking it to the extreme are getting too annoying and don't help anyone at the end. Sometimes I wake up and have this strange feeling. That my dedication for the scene is over but somehow I cannot perceive that. What drives me still wanting to code new demos is some kind of habit, an after-effect of that old force with no drive anymore. It feels like being in a zombie condition. Something from the past wants me to code new demos but the initial reasons that motivates me aren't there anymore. I think that my obsession with demomaking was a side effect of puberty at the beginning. Now, after 10 years this force doesn't have any effect anymore. What is left is a habitual desire to do something that still gives me a meaning in my life. And that is another problem. The void that is left. Maybe another reason I cannot or don't want to understand that my desire for demomaking doesn't work anymore as it did in the past is that if I understand this, then I will find it more reasonable to quit, although I'll have to find something to fill the gap. Not just the creative gap (was I ever doing this activity for pure creativity or is that a lie?) but the one in my early days, maybe the need for recognition (which came in another form than what I had in my mind), maybe making my life feeling important. It wasn't bad, just an after-effect of puberty but now it's ten years after and I have not understood that it's not like those years anymore. It does make a sense why I can't get motivated. Because I am not in puberty anymore and don't need a self-esteem boost anymore. But I do have a need for making my life worth living, I still need a meaning, I need to wake up and think I have accomplished something today. Yesterday in my great surprise I had that feeling of the past, that I have found something to fill the everlasting gap, something new and better suited for my current age. I had that same feeling which came suddenly as it spontaneously came in the past. I am not going to reveal what it is right now. It's not the obvious one, not a girl, not real life stuff. It might be silly and I just had it yesterday. Time will tell. Although some real life things I did lately (getting a job, renting a home, etc) opened another root in my life that helped me feel I am doing something (even in a different root than demoscene) worthy in my life. Things seem to move on in the positive direction. And what about the demoscene? I still don't think I will quit so easily. What I am trying to do is to exorcise the ghosts of the past. A way, no matter how silly you may think it is, was to release the most ugly demo ever and try not to care about any negative or even positive comments at all. To do something and try to stare your reaction emotionless (if it is possible). To stop thinking about who thumbs up or down my release, to avoid being distracted and annoyed by what people think of my demos. I am doing this (and imagining this) everyday. What I am trying to do here is to break any preconceptions between myself and the scene. As I said in the nfo file this is a way to release my creativity burden, it really is also the lurking technique of Castaneda! Wat? Maybe I'll do another demo that doesn't suck or two in the future. I still have to break that curse, creating a demo that I will finally like in terms of code and design, one that will not feel like a half-finished job but something complete in my eyes. It's a good reason for me to not quit the scene yet and try to do something good. It's not having to do with what sceners expect from me or what do I want from sceners. As I said, I have to break those connections, for they have a negative effect on me. It will be purely a test, a bet upon myself, whether I can finally do such a demo or not. Many things will change. I am almost reaching thirty. I will be watching demos. I will be tempted to make something. But that initial dedication is rotten. I'd like to focus my energy on something else. See you at Breakpoint. So many things are happening inside me. So many thoughts and ideas I want to write about. Once upon I feel I have an image of things and then it dissapears. Lately I managed to keep some of these ideas, it doesn't feel anymore like the past where all my thoughts were scattered. There is a ground to base upon. All these posts are just pieces of the puzzle. I am just confused and I want to write. There are some recent ideas I am more familiar with, which I would like to analyze. It feels they make perfect sense although I spend too many words when I try to describe them. But they make a simple perfect sense. I only don't know how some of these can help me right now in some aspects of my life. But they have released the anxiety and blame upon myself on other domains. Today I will write about meaning. I am not sure what people mean when speaking of nihilism but I think I am approaching it more recently. Which is not necessary bad. Nihilism for me is not about thinking your life has no meaning. It's not that black. It's an understanding of a possibility. The possibility that maybe there is no meaning. Or at least it might be not a good idea to waste your time and nerves searching for what isn't there. Which is not what I am doing in my blog, since I am used to desperately analyze thoughts and ideas trying to find an end. And never finding it.. Nihilism can also mean to feel things flat. Like you were a non-human entity observing human societies and shed no tears about what's happening in there. You observe and accept that each person acts in it's own way. Some people try to be loyal because they want to, learned to or are oblidged to, some people steal and murder because they have to or they like to. Some people are sad, some don't care about certain things but show interest for other stuff. You can't change that. Everyone has a different idea about what is right and what is wrong but there is a common social consensus which dominates the other views. Things happen. I was born, grew up and here I am. The age and place I was born defines the way the society is and what most people tend to believe. Maybe the way I am is incompatible with what most people would like to see. Most people dislike or are afraid of those who differ for some reasons I don't know. I am still searching of these reasons. It happens that right at the moment I am who I am. Both biological and enviromental reasons play their role to what I am right now. My knowledge of these reasons might play a role to what I will become in the future. I need to know. I am trying to give a meaning to all these, to explain why am I what I am and in which ways is that incompatible with the society I am living in. I don't see any proof of an external meaning but I see cause and effect. Everything just happens. I only accept the fact that humans seek for a meaning or need something to believe on. I do that too sometimes. But a naked view of the blurry truth is here. Who am I, why am I, what is the society and why? And I need to know! In order to know I have to start from ground zero. Things happen. This is what I am now. This is the society. People have motives. People like to feel good. Things are not always what they seem to be or what we like them to be. How can we look straight at the naked truth? Good luck. I had those dreams. Dreams of rage. Rage about the things as they are, rage about the past, rage as a relief or a means to shout at people or an excuse to accept things as they are, including me. An emotion that helps me to deny the things as they want it to be and understand me. Not even that. I don't even care if they understand. As if they ever tried to make a sense out of this.. Rage out of desperation. I get criticized. I believe them. And suddenly I realise that nobody really cares. They think they have the rights to make me feel miserable. And they think they are doing it for my good. Rage about my past. About those young people who thought they had the right to treat me badly. How could they know? Do they know now? They thought they had the right. They still do.. In my dream, I was screaming. "I don't understand it! I don't understand it!". Maybe I don't want to understand it. I deny understanding it. I don't accept it. I had enought with it so I decided oneday to stop listening to it. Rage out of desperation and a hope of change. Will things ever change? Or am I bound to feel the same way? I wish I went back to the past right now that I know, to react differently. To be straight and strict towards anyone who would like to tease me or harm me. To speak straight towards anyone who tries to criticize me. Because right now I do know better who I and which is my position in a society like this. But I am too hurt. I am wondering if this is the reason why I have lost all my energy. They can't understand. They don't want to understand. At social situations you don't speak the truth but what people want to hear. There is no attempt to really look deep into the problem rather than present opinions as a show off that you and me are really into the same social circle. It creates a feeling of belonging. You exchange predictable opinions that puts you into a place of social acceptance. I cannot describe. I may be doing it too at times. Except when the truth matters to me. Others may be doing it and not being aware of. Maybe I will be or not be doing it in the future while being aware of the facade. An ironic or pesimistic feeling of how things are. Nobody ever cared about the truth.. I took everything seriously. There are the facts and there is cognitive dissonance. It's when you take every fact in account and you try to solve a puzzle. Things must make a sense. Both the facts about the world around you and the facts about yourself. The problem is that it is unsolvable. Maybe it's an evolutionary advantage to not trying to be one hundred percent perfect about your thoughts, your feelings and the world. Everything contradicts with each other and itself. Although I haven't chosen to think like this. I think it is in my brain. I can't but notice things that doesn't seem right. My mind or emotions can't easilly let discrepancies go. When they criticized me they seemed serious to me. I was wrong. There are several other reasons to criticize people. Caring about what is really true and right is a rare one. The problem is that I took their criticism seriously. As if they showed a piece of the truth that made me feel awfully. And that truth was predictable, it was "common sense", it was one that everyone kept repeating again and again. It was my compulsive thoughts that lowered my self-esteem. But if it was true and if it was obvious then why are there people like me who are not like most people? Are they too stupid to understand what is right and what is wrong? Or are they stubborn? For a long time I was lost in these questions. If people move on, if they are sucesful as students and workers, if they are social and not shy like me, have it easy with girls, are always looking cool and are not slow thinkers like me and they do not have the same cognitive problems as me then what am I doing wrong? Am I lazy? Am I stubborn? Am I stupid? Can I accept that? Do I have to feel that bad to change? Why haven't I still changed? If there is really a problem with me that justifies my unsucess then what can I say about people who claim that they were just like me and they tried and changed? Does this mean that I have no excuse? That I am just stupid, stubborn and every negative label the people who criticize me can give me? Why do they keep doing this when all they achieve is to kill more of my missing self-esteem and put me deeper in the ground? Do they believe that I will break and suddenly decide it's time to change my life? It never really happened.. So many years have past. After the initial point when the idea was first implanted in my brain. So many years during which I have evolved into ruminating thoughts concerning what I am and what other people think about me. In fact I kept being tortured by my very own thoughts. My thoughts which were their thoughts. Why? I don't understand it!!! Out of rage I decided it's time to play the game my way. I have made a split in three. About the truth and my connection to it. The true facts The facts that you tell to yourself The lies you tell to others In the past I had a great need of all three making perfect sense together. Which is quite naive. But I really needed for things to make sense. The truth (total objectivity), my feelings (facts compatible with my personality) and the ideas of the world (the social consensus). I always felt dissatisfied as expected. Most people even made me feel they already knew the truth (the obvious, the predictable memes of what is socially accepted and what is not) and that I was the naive and still puzzled. But the third factor is usually motivated by socialization and not the seek for what is really there. I learned that later. I thought people were based on the truth. Even if they thought they did, there were other motives. Not truth itself. Nobody really cared even if they made me think so. It doesn't make a sense. Out of rage I decided to not care anymore. Seeking for the truth is going on, I can't stop it. It's interesting. It will go on. But I will stop caring about the rest. I managed after all these years to persuade myself to take another root concerning the personal feeling and social way (two and three). I can tell myself the facts I wish to make him feel better. It's not easy, while in slot one I will keep the possibility of the hard truth, but since I will never be sure about that I can speak of something else that myself prefers to think about. If (for example) I lost my job because I felt I was not competent one but nobody told me so, I only assumed they didn't tell me, then I can keep it as a possibility but say to myself that I did my job well and there were other acceptable reasons of why I had to be fired. And number three. Number three, what do I tell to others about that needs a whole paragraph itself. It's the game that we play and I never thought it was so until now. Number three, the lies I'll tell to the others. Since I wrongly thought people were serious and they care about the truth, since it never occured to me to think that some people might criticize me because it makes them feel better by degrading me or thinking they try to help me just to feel nicer, since I never thought that even people seemingly criticizing me just wanted to say their opinions because that's the way someone socializes and they will of course refer to predictable and socially accepted facts instead of their own opinion, since this is a game where things are going bad for me because I am different and the common sense is incompatible to that, I decided that in number three is where I am gonna care the less. This can mean various things. It means that if someone criticizes me or asks for my opinion on something, I can play games and I can move towards any path. If I am in the mood I can speak of the truth as it is, as I feel it, as I prefer to feel it or I can also agree in a way without believing it in order to avoid the discussion or not become aggresive when I am not in the mood. I can make tricky questions, confuse them, give them examples that show the contradictions of what they tell me. Depends on the person, the mood, the situation, the fun. Since it's meaningless at number three then why not play the game people always did and never told me? But rage remains. I want to get out and criticize those who criticized me. When people degrade those in need of self-esteem and they claim to be helping them, when they think they have the right as young persons to bully you at school and as grown up persons to criticize you for your incompetent life and when they feel they are doing right then it is the time when I want to get out and shout! There comes the time when I feel the urge to continue searching for the truth, because at the stake of it is where the game is played. The truth, the belief of what is right and what is wrong, and which of these "truths" are more common to the public, thus actions based on them are blindly accepted. One thing remains. Why am I searching for the truth? Is it the truth itself or some motives? A thing of the past? Rage out of the fact that I don't know. I don't know what to believe. I don't know why am I here and why I am doing all these. I don't even know how to improve things in my life that may indirectly affect this urge. Millions of things in my mind and a blatant search for perfection. Would just shouting do anything for me? What for? To ask for more later??? Starting idea: We have neural networks. They work in parallel. When you see a picture millions of them are fired, thousands of ideas on a simple object, both the details but mainly the whole image. When you see a picture you instantly recognise a house, the trees, the people, the cars, whatever is in the image and is familiar. A computer would see that as a series of pixels, colored areas, shapes and not even that. We had to train it. But what would you tell the computer when it asked you: "How the hell did you managed to perceive in nanoseconds that it's a house surrounded by trees, windows, cars, people, etc and even receive ideas about how beatiful or peaceful or nice it seems plus millions afterthoughts?". Would you say that it just occured to you? That it's obvious? Or would you recollect and find some reasons: "It's a house because it has windows, roof, door". And how did you recognised instantly that something is a door or a window? Is it the texture? The bricks? The wood? And what are all these? When you give a mathematical problem to someone and instantly he can feel which is the right and easy way to solve it and where are the traps, when he has already decided in few seconds or a minute which method to follow and you wonder how the fuck did he thought about it, it is like the same thing. I am a mathematician. I have a good picture of mathematical notions, symbolism, a visual perception of maths but I am missing one thing. In university exams it's very possible I will fail, especially when the subjects are tricky. I will read a problem and maybe follow an obvious path that leads to too much calculations or prooves to be hardly solvable this way. To solve the problem, someone might have to add and substract a new variable, draw a non obvious straight line on a geometrical problem, generally do something non so obvious making you wonder "How the fuck did he know it?". Either he has already solved the exercise somewhere else or,.. he has a talent! Talent? Btw, I have that talent in programming but never asked myself how the hell did I thought a crazy optimization idea or a non standard solution to an algorithm. People that study programming and come to me for help are wondering about specific notions of programming they can't understand or how the hell are they supposed to create anything. And their questions seems preety much obvious to me. I am the human intelligence and they are the computers. In analog, the math genious is the human intelligence and I look at him with awe as I am a stupid computer. We don't know why we know what we know. It's obvious to us human intelligences. It's unreachable, it's a talent to the corresponding stupid computers. There is no single definition of intelligence. It can be everything. Someone might be very good at solving Sudoku even if it's unpractical. I am very good at programming but suck at math. No, even math intelligence can be separated in subsections of intelligence. I am good at understanding the concepts especially visually. I am good at making a practical use of them. But I always sucked at solving mathematical problems just to pass the exams. I also suck at studying (The alternative path for exam success would be to solve one thousand exercises per month and have a very good memory too). Yet I am better at programming than maths. I can find in a very short time alternative solutions or optimizations to algorithms, a kind of coding intuition, people staring at me and wondering where the hell do they sell inspiration and I bought some? Humans are intelligent at interpreting imagery. We instantly see houses, faces, cars, dogs, cats, plants and even smaller details in a blink of an eye. Computers need to be prepared with sophisticated image recognition software to achieve that. If I ask you to add all numbers from 1 to 100 you may either take a long time to make all the additions one by one (each of you may either be preferably more fast according to the means: paper and pencil, calculator or abacus) or use your intelligence to invent an equation to do it fast (like Pascal did iirc) but a computer would still do that from zero to one million in nanoseconds. That's why they are called computers :) They say that great pianists had in such way evolved neural networks in their brains that justified their unique talent. Say that because of my long lasting occupation as a computer programmer I have evolved in such way my neural networks that I can instantly have a whole image of programming and algorithmical problem solving and is quite easier for me to read a programming exercise in university exams and know what to do. The same way it's easy for a math genious which leaves me wondering how it's possible. I am not even aware that it's a talent. Evolution is slow. It seems obvious to me, I even don't remember when there was a time that I wasn't able to grasp the primary notions. Imagine that each of us has some overdeveloped networks of neural nets that help them perform specific functions faster and better than others while we have weak or badly developed networks on other aspects. I am good at programming and optimization, bad at planning, lazy in studying, not a good socializer. Others are better or worse on various other aspects. Viewing it like this it gave me a lot of possible answers to what is intelligence, talent, intuition, habits, personality and the main questions raised are what are the reasons we have evolved our brain this way and how easilly can some things change. I mean, I am good at programming because I was into programming for years and my brain has learned to deal with these kinds of problems before my eyes. But there must be a time I wasn't good at programming. There must be an initial moment when my skills on programming, maths, socialization or even things like my resistance and attitude to laziness, ability to plan, reaction to emotions or habits, where all set at zero. There was a time that when I should start learning how to approach girls or drink beer, I was lost into binary logic. Why maths and no girls? Why girls and no maths? Why computers and no maths? Why not everything? Why avoiding or not being interested in some? What dragged me into others? I am thinking of two or three primary reasons. And you can add more. Questionable is how biology plays a role. Then it is our choices in the past. And then it is emotions. Someone would add social or school or family environment, inspirations from the outside world, etc. These are secondary but I believe that the whole of them can fit into one bigger image. Brain biology: I was always a fan of this notion. I have the feeling that I am better or worse at some things no matter how I try because of this. Of course there is a possibility that this could be a delusion. Maybe, if after the years I overdeveloped the neural networks for programming and underdeveloped those having to do with socialization then it all seems to hard to change. So hard that it feels like I was born with that. But even the sole idea that everything is tabula rasa doesn't wipe out the influence that brain biology can bring to the game. Some people are too emotional and others are psychopaths. Some have more analytical way of thinking and others are more capable socialy. Even if I can't answer to the question whether this brain differences where initial or evolved. Actually what could be initial would be the biological inclination to evolve to each different path. If for example analytical thought favours certain brain parts that happened to be in better communication with each others at birth, then there is a higher posibility for certain choices or habits. It doesn't predict if he will evolve his neural networks towards being good at math or a good socializer though. But it affects. It affects the path that will bring us to now and make us think why we are what we are. Put an asterisk to that though, it's great for studying further (and I am not a neuroscientist to know). Choices. I often wonder. What would happen if I had not taken the path to become a great computer programmer? Would I have not evolved my neural networks into that. Would I now be staring at algorithm solutions and optimizations uncapable of thinking how is this possible? Would I have instead found a purpose in my studies and become a genious at math? Would I met some other people, another hobby, another purpose and be something completely different? That initial moment when I was 16 and was teased by my classmates and thought I would proove them smarter or gain my lost self-esteem by becoming great at something nobody understands. That initial moment could have happened by chance? Chance is how I am currently thinking it. They say that evolution is not exactly chance. There is a purpose but no creator. It's more like natural selection. Of course chance exists, my attention could have been drawn by something else and snap a different choice. But in the big picture when you see all the pieces together you can see a patern. They ask me what would happen if there were no computers in the world. Would I be just like the rest? Would I just engage in regular boring activities? Most probably I would have found another geeky hobby. If I was a neandertal I would invent fire or something. I know it :). But things could slightly change, I would be good at maths instead of programming, with different friends or parents I could have evolved slightly different habbits, different ways of reacting to my negative emotions, family and society could surely play a role in the way my neural networks evolved. But the primary motive would still be here. My brain wanted to learn, to be creative, I couldn't stop analyzing things (Remember the number one reason here). Emotions. They can make you love or hate things. Maybe it's the reasons I am not motivated to solve maths or study. And remember, some old habits, some old evolved neural networks are hardly changed if not modified. In order to be really good at maths as I am in programming I'd have to be motivated to solve thousands of exercises just to pass the exams. What if I studied computers science and had maths as a hobby? Still something missing. Motivation. I am motivated to solve problems with a practical use unlike math problems at school which are useful just to pass the exams. I use maths but for algorithms. They are not the same. Maths at exams are like sudoku puzzles, at least some of them. And the rest are boring. I could put motivation into the equation among with emotions and a sense of purpose for what we do. Emotions, there can be negative. You can hate things. They form your habbits. Maybe I always liked the idea of great scientists that dragged me into wishing to become a great computer programmer or something. Maybe that was the initial tension at 16 to follow that path which after a lot of practice evolved my neural brains in such a way to be easilly for me to fiddle with algorithms and stuff. I am wondering now if negative emotions among other people led me into avoiding socialization. Currently I believe that being too emotional makes me being extremely overwhelmed when into social situations. Emotions complicate matters too much. They form our personality, our habits, our tensions to follow or avoid any path. And when we follow our habits, that piece of neural networks which is connected with that is preserved more and more as much as it used and should be abandoned for a very long to be wiped out and/or replaced with a parallel path. That's why it's too hard to change. When you have learned to hate social situations or the people who criticise you for being weird and not having a life then how easy is to change? And why change the habit of thinking too much or programming when they are such valuable talents to most? And when they keep telling you that you are not normal and you keep reacting to the negative emotions with the same boring way then imagine what happens in your brain and how badly you enstregthen the chronic situation. A big turn has to be done there. You have a path that split in two. At the initial point where you have to make a choice, not speaking about the different realities at stake, it seems that at the initial point you didn't have a preference. Let's say that you didn't. From that point and later, what follows forms a tendency. Say that initialy I decided to become a great programmer. I started coding slowly slowly, then I learned a little, then a little more, then I liked what I was doing because I became better at it. Then my neural networks had already evolved a little into that direction. When you walk a road you can't just go back and take another one. As long as a tendency to work on programming problems was slowly slowly formed into my brain, as long as new neural cells were infected by my engagement in programming, the more my neural nets were fired towards that direction. I could even stare at an image or hear a word having nothing to do with computers and somehow relate it to my hobby because there were more cells infected with programming specific things. I am not really into neuroscience (even if I'd like to learn more) to know how neural cells or networks work (I am even feeling I am using the wrong terms) and how they evolve, if they grow, even if it's an empty hard disk or new trees are born, I just speak out of how I feel the whole picture of what I am talking about. Anyways, the more you are engaged with something, the more your brain is filled with that stuff and the more it's filled, the more you are inclined to be more engaged with that. Kinda like a vicious circle. But there was that initial point where the skill was near zero and there was no inclination towards it just pure chance. Or wasn't it? It wasn't. Computer programming was not a thing I was aware of once I was born. But there were other notions related to it. Somewhere I have heard that programmers are scientists. Somewhere else I have heard that scientists are smart or cool. I have also heard that computer is the future. I liked their colors and shapes. Did I always have that visual mathematician way to view things? Or did it evolve too? If scientists were cool and computers were fancy and I also needed an injection of self-esteem that would make a good match but how did I have the notions of good and cool and sexy and smart? There was an initial point where everything was at zero. I knew nothing. Pure chance? Or also brain biology? You can say that I was an analytical brain. But what if this was a tension too? What if I decided to think too much? What if at a very early stage a primary tension/tendency/inclination towards thinking and analyzing was build up, some of the first evolved neural networks were build upon this scheme? And this scheme made me seek for knowledge and understanding? It could be with others too. I am not the only who thinks in here. But why do I think so much? Why do I think much more than others? Could we say it's just psychological? I think it's a biological difference in brain. But this part is still in debate. Still thinking about tendecies is important. I found one that one primary reason at the time that I initialy have chosen to become a good programmer was that it snapped me that I would heal my bad self-esteem during that moment. Which didn't happened. But left me with the ability to do really spectacular things with a compiler. I am recently healing my self-esteem following a different path. Which is also snapped me. After I have seen results I have said "Wowa! How did I do this?". In the same way that I get that inspiration and I don't know why. The same way someone solves a problem and things it's obvious. Before several months it wasn't that obvious. Parenthesis here. I found that at my 16 but I later forgot I wasn't programming because programming is good but because it snapped me at my 16. This doesn't make sense but wtf. All I mean is there are influences from my birth that evolved my neural networks one after the other and brought me into this time. Some talents, some bad habits, both can't easily change. There could be a reason, not chance but natural selection, like I was inclined to be geeky as I was meaned to be lazy. Some can change. Lack of self-esteem was not something I tried to avoid. I really wanted it. I recently feel like having it but started being build since the first time I asked for it. It took time. Or maybe? Self-esteem took time while programming much less time? Was my brain inclined towards one and against the other? One can achieve something if he really wants it but does the biology play such a big role? How can specific children at 6 or 8 years old play the piano, write assembly or solve higher maths? It all points to the brain. Chance maybe but that is changed to natural selection. Different paths are being followed but the initial inclination to chose one in favor of others are primary the brain and then aditionally social/family growth, evolved emotion (things we learn to love or hate) and habits formed. But the primary paths, the tendencies/inclinations, the roots. I'd like to know more.. Nah. I am used to it. I was thinking that in the same way that you instantly see the whole picture out of smaller parts and meanings while the computer needs sophisticated image recognition software to do just that, in the same way I am truly struggling to disclose the bigger image of thoughts and ideas about everything (the reason for my big texts) in order to let myself out of the cognitive dissonance I had been through all these years. And neural networks are evolving towards that direction too. Even those that let me decide a nicer way to react to the negative emotions produced by incompatibility of ideas. They are build and most of the time without a conscious plan but out of my primary motives. I was lost into thoughts of not being normal and one day I was fed up. The change didn't immediately came, just the timid decision to stop caring. Other things, ideas, happenings led me to a similar decision. All these together slowly slowly evolved into acceptance of myself and the world around me, while also killing softly my old habit of self-pitty. But it came so slowly that I wasn't conscious of it until one day that I woke up and thought I was getting better at something I thought I was lost. I felt know that what I believe is obvious. I was the stupid computer. I am the human intelligence. I evolved. It's nice thinking of everything this way. A different point of view that I recently found important. Some of it's primary aspects are things I have been thinking in the past and someone would say that it's not something new. But here comes the part where they see doors and windows and a brick wall but they can't see the whole bigger image, they can't see the house. Here is the part where I have that greater feeling of a whole that explains a lot but it might sound trivial to many of us. It's not an entirely new view, it always combines previously written ideas because that's how evolution works. The big image inherits older ideas combined together, which each of them inherits much older ideas and when I feel so great about writting a blog post like this is when suddenly this cloud of thoughts, this confusing puzzle suddenly seems to be forming the bigger whole. Those are very randomly written thoughts. Not exactly the whole picture. I also wished to write a new post and put the last article down (enough bashing "hackers" :P). From those scattered writtings I might privately make some notes hopefully into a good scheme of things (I never did that no matter how many times I wanted to really organize my thoughts :PP) It seems that my anti-hacker posts will never seize to appear. In fact I am really motivated to get more into it in any way possible :P I will just make some comparisons now of the average person in three different communities. And two funny analogies too.. (my favorites :) First, some distinctions have to be made. I will be shortly talking about the hacker, the cracker and the scener. I will define their meaning at least as used in this post. I need to be sure that no misunderstandings will take place because of a different understanding of the same words and that my point will be understood. The hacker: I know that you don't like the use of this term to describe these electronic pranksters as seen on TV (Neither do I). In this post though I will use it as it is (even without the quotes) and I will mean only the definition as portrayed by the mass media and adapted by our own culture. I will not mean in this post by the word "hacker" the hobbyist programmer, the computer enthousiast or the computer pioneers of the past. Please understand this is just for the purpose of the post and as means to be understood even by the illiterate. The cracker: Be careful to my definition of this term for the purpose

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Bah, fucking retroactive hotlinking protection.

What's your point havoc?