So I have to explain some internet terminology first. (In my own style)
Flamewar - When two competing sides of an internet debate (see: argument) get so inerged in the fantastically insignificant details of a petty (or sometimes not so petty) argument; that virtual blood is spilt. For a brilliant example of this (in the sense of it being archetypal flamewar material - not in the sense of this ludicrous behaviour being brilliant, because, quite frankly, reading any forum for more than five minutes gestates suicidal thoughts within me) see any 'mac vs PC,' 'debate.' Obviously the PC is better, so I don't know why everyone is so worked up over such a thing.
Secondly, another brilliant example would be the five yearly console war, between Nintendo fans, Sony fans and recently, Microsoft fans. (What, people actually support Microsoft in one of their endeavours? Perish the thought.) People literally cry when a new console is announced. Most fanboys cry twice. Once when their company announces an amazing new console; and once again when the enemy announces theirs. The astute will notice a glaring mistake, three's a company right?
In this case, the three companies in question are usually divided by: Most loved. (Cue tears.) Most hated. (Cue tears of rage.) And the 'meh,' category. Time for another definition:
Fanboy - Someone so blinded by their irrational love of _________ , that they cannot see the virtues of competing products, or in some cases, anything else at all.
All this arose from a couple of comments on my previous post about what to do with a broken bone. I maintain that you don't ice breaks, but let's get the flamewar started!
So my internet geekology lessons aside, what else is happening?
Well I'm glad you asked Sam, because I get paid tomorrow. For the last four days I've been living on the meagre contents of my fridge. This meant eggs every day (usually more than one. How unhealthy is that? Seriously I need that question answering) with leaves of some description, onion, garlic (contrary to popular belief you can never have too much garlic, and it makes everything taste better) rice, bread, butter, some spreadable cheese and water...
All I can say is, I hope vitamin pills do work.
Joking aside, four days of living a terrible diet isn't too bad. As far as is humanly estimable, every other person on the planet orders takeaway four or five nights a week, and that's unhealthy. That's unhealthy in more ways than I can describe in a lifetime. And as mentioned, vitamin pills are surely good for you. In the future all our meals will be consumed in pill form, so I'm merely working ahead of everyone else...
So this weekend was a complete scrub. I did some marking, went to the gym for an hour, (it's amazing how much a crippled finger can destroy plans) and that was it. The rest of the time I phoned home, slept and was hungry. It was absolutely, fundamentally the correct decision to bring my ps3 with me, exactly for weekends such as this. Unfortunately I don't have the right cables for it.
It's 1AM here, and I'm really not sleeping well. The problem of having nothing to do, is that you think. Thinking can only take two forms, invariably these are thinking about the past; or thinking about the future. One is littered with stupidities, oddities and mistakes; the other is scattered with the possibility of mistakes, stupidities and oddities. Which to choose from? It's a tough decision; so tough that I wish I had enough money for beer, a well enough finger that I could go to the gym and wear myself out, or a working playstation. Remember, these things exist for this very reason: Living life in the now is hard.
Just for this weekend, I really wish I'd had an 'opt-out,' button.
Showing posts with label thinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thinking. Show all posts
Sunday, 30 May 2010
Sunday, 13 December 2009
What to Do...?
So I'm sitting in my bed, unable to sleep. This is not an uncommon occurrence, in the world of Me; what is frustrating is my lack of combatative ability. People swear by green tea, honey and lemon this, or herbal that, and it's what works for them. Obviously; these remedies are purely psychological, they stem from nothing more than a willingness, the minds' own tricks to help perform ephemeral tasks. What is sleep, afterall?
This has been a constant problem for me, and one I feel deserves something more than a mere patch of lines within the internet-ether; but this ability to trick yourself into believing nonsense is one that I've never quite mastered. I must clarify this somewhat, before I continue.
I am not talking about being duped. Being duped is something I am a past master at, and consider myself lucky to be so gullible, on occasion. On the less fortunate occasions I have found myself on the receiving end of lifes little hidings, as per my final year at university; however life evens out eventually, so the bad times, due to naivety, will be righted by my blundering, naively (as naivety and ease of dupedness, are one and the same in my eyes) into a positive situation. Being duped then, is something that happens to everyone. Not knowing something is false is an easy trick to master.
Knowing something is false, and believing it with your whole heart. Now, we're onto some kind of David Blain magic trick here.
And yet people do it all the time. Drinking your green tea is great, despite the fact it contains caffeine, which increases all the pressures and rates that make sleeping harder. If I told you it was a magic sleeping potion, and you knew no better as to what tea was, then great; you would fall asleep in a heartbeat. But knowing what tea is, and still falling asleep. Again, magic tricks. This follows onto a whole host of other things: Tarot cards, mind reading, magic tricks, (ironic, no?) the zodiac (Although I'm a dragon, and that's just goddamned cool as hell). The list is endless, and includes such things as vitamin pills and protein shakes.
Interestingly, I take the last two things, although I'm not entirely convinced they're useless (yes I see the irony in this statement, jeez). This is an interesting grey area that surely warrants more research. If a product has dubious proof as to its' verisimilitude, and a person doubts the product; does the inverse square law apply here? Mathematicians rejoice, the ninth unsolvable conundrum has been posed. Alas, I cannot offer a million dollars to the solution provider, I have a mars bar and a five pound note. Good luck, pioneers.
And so ultimately this is why I've always rued my chance at being born american. If you simply believe what you're told, and you are told everything that you need to do, in order to live; your life will be as happy and fulfilling as the order-givers allow it to be. In this case, those who give the orders are the government. Eat X number of calories a day, eat X number of vegetables, drink this much water, etcetera. Your entire life is planned out for you - from the basic requirements of everyday living, through to your overarching destiny. You will live here if you meet this demographic, you will have this many children, you will have this many cars. Anyone who ventures there from a country where some kind of independence is taught, good luck. You may find it liberating to be the one eyed man, but it may also be crushing. To anyone who comes from a country that neglects these values in favour of more idealisms; you should fit right in.
If you don't have to think about anything, you don't have to know why. 'Why' is the question that essentially breaks my illusion; 'why' is what makes people sad, annoyed, angry etcetera. 'Why' is never the question that makes you happy. 'Why' gives you momentary glimpses of happiness, whether it be the answering of a question that has puzzled you, giving an endorphine based rush that lasts all of five seconds; but it never gives a person more than those five seconds. If you must be pedantic and argue those five seconds is a time of giving, then I would argue that 'why' is as guilty of taking those pleasures away, as giving them. If Adam and Eve had never stepped foot in the garden of eden, and had simply lived upon the Earth as we know it now; they would not have been sad or heartbroken at their loss, because there would have been no loss.
Before I get concerned communiques about my newfound religious ideals; I have none. It's just an example. Get over it. You know who you are; all three of you!
And even after all this writing, that will surely take some time to vet, I am not inclined to sleep. I wonder at what stage not sleeping becomes physically unhealthy. Not in terms of single stints of sleeplessness, because I know death can occur around eight days or so, (depending on the individual, a lot longer is viable) but in terms of the many years that this has happened to me. Neural degradation is likely, as they might say on Star Trek.
Anyway. I could write forever in the state I am in, or at least until my brain dissolves; which will be roughly twenty minutes, at my current gas mark level.
This has been a constant problem for me, and one I feel deserves something more than a mere patch of lines within the internet-ether; but this ability to trick yourself into believing nonsense is one that I've never quite mastered. I must clarify this somewhat, before I continue.
I am not talking about being duped. Being duped is something I am a past master at, and consider myself lucky to be so gullible, on occasion. On the less fortunate occasions I have found myself on the receiving end of lifes little hidings, as per my final year at university; however life evens out eventually, so the bad times, due to naivety, will be righted by my blundering, naively (as naivety and ease of dupedness, are one and the same in my eyes) into a positive situation. Being duped then, is something that happens to everyone. Not knowing something is false is an easy trick to master.
Knowing something is false, and believing it with your whole heart. Now, we're onto some kind of David Blain magic trick here.
And yet people do it all the time. Drinking your green tea is great, despite the fact it contains caffeine, which increases all the pressures and rates that make sleeping harder. If I told you it was a magic sleeping potion, and you knew no better as to what tea was, then great; you would fall asleep in a heartbeat. But knowing what tea is, and still falling asleep. Again, magic tricks. This follows onto a whole host of other things: Tarot cards, mind reading, magic tricks, (ironic, no?) the zodiac (Although I'm a dragon, and that's just goddamned cool as hell). The list is endless, and includes such things as vitamin pills and protein shakes.
Interestingly, I take the last two things, although I'm not entirely convinced they're useless (yes I see the irony in this statement, jeez). This is an interesting grey area that surely warrants more research. If a product has dubious proof as to its' verisimilitude, and a person doubts the product; does the inverse square law apply here? Mathematicians rejoice, the ninth unsolvable conundrum has been posed. Alas, I cannot offer a million dollars to the solution provider, I have a mars bar and a five pound note. Good luck, pioneers.
And so ultimately this is why I've always rued my chance at being born american. If you simply believe what you're told, and you are told everything that you need to do, in order to live; your life will be as happy and fulfilling as the order-givers allow it to be. In this case, those who give the orders are the government. Eat X number of calories a day, eat X number of vegetables, drink this much water, etcetera. Your entire life is planned out for you - from the basic requirements of everyday living, through to your overarching destiny. You will live here if you meet this demographic, you will have this many children, you will have this many cars. Anyone who ventures there from a country where some kind of independence is taught, good luck. You may find it liberating to be the one eyed man, but it may also be crushing. To anyone who comes from a country that neglects these values in favour of more idealisms; you should fit right in.
If you don't have to think about anything, you don't have to know why. 'Why' is the question that essentially breaks my illusion; 'why' is what makes people sad, annoyed, angry etcetera. 'Why' is never the question that makes you happy. 'Why' gives you momentary glimpses of happiness, whether it be the answering of a question that has puzzled you, giving an endorphine based rush that lasts all of five seconds; but it never gives a person more than those five seconds. If you must be pedantic and argue those five seconds is a time of giving, then I would argue that 'why' is as guilty of taking those pleasures away, as giving them. If Adam and Eve had never stepped foot in the garden of eden, and had simply lived upon the Earth as we know it now; they would not have been sad or heartbroken at their loss, because there would have been no loss.
Before I get concerned communiques about my newfound religious ideals; I have none. It's just an example. Get over it. You know who you are; all three of you!
And even after all this writing, that will surely take some time to vet, I am not inclined to sleep. I wonder at what stage not sleeping becomes physically unhealthy. Not in terms of single stints of sleeplessness, because I know death can occur around eight days or so, (depending on the individual, a lot longer is viable) but in terms of the many years that this has happened to me. Neural degradation is likely, as they might say on Star Trek.
Anyway. I could write forever in the state I am in, or at least until my brain dissolves; which will be roughly twenty minutes, at my current gas mark level.
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