Long Time Coming

It's been.. about 165 days since I've posted last. Another birthday swept past relatively unnoticed, I did, actually, fail two of my classes that quarter, and I now live with Jared and Dani.

So, first I'll reply to myself.. the Apartment is much less filthy now, my room hasn't changed much but the rest of the place has. Far more credit is due to Jared and Dani than myself for that, though. Photography's fallen by the wayside. Other things to do, mostly. I got a D in my Freshman Seminar class. Picked myself up, tried a little harder, failed English again but got B's in both Logic and Microecon. This quarter I'm taking most of my classes on campus. We'll see how that goes, I'm kind of concerned about my Speech class.. it seems like it involves more work than my other three classes. Fun. Creative Writing, Aelora, Go, Design, Servers, SRCG and Game Design. None of this has happened, because I've been trying to work on school and being somewhat more sociable. I don't think it will, in the near future, either. I'm more concerned about school and I'd much rather focus on that than everything else.

It's remarkably fascinating how quickly one's entire mood can shift, from what appears to almost be depression into something infinitely more bearable. I would dare say that I'm almost happy right now. There are certainly things that aren't going as well as I'd like, but there are plenty of things that are going much better than could have been expected, six months ago. In four weeks, I will have been back here at this company for exactly a year. I'm OK with that. I've been a full time employee for 6 months and a few days. My time spent in Seattle still sits in the back of my mind, progressively shading everything that I process in terms of my life and my greater goals. Out in Seattle, I realized that I don't want to pursue a technical field. They're too rigid, too static. Certainly, there is a huge amount of growth in the technical fields, with technological leaps occuring at ever-increasing rates. But vertical growth isn't the only thing important to me. Horizontal is too, lateral movement is absolutely necessary.

Because of this, and numerous other experiences from my life, I've decided that Philosophy is the field I am going to pursue. I'm going to take it a single step at a time, but I know where those steps are going. I plan to get my AA or AS from Columbus State, then to get my BA in Philosophy from Ohio State, and then I will pursue a PhD program, somewhere. I will see where I am when I've got that BA and that will help decide what graduate schools I apply to. That is my plan, and that's where I'm going. Wish me luck, as it's a long road to travel.

State of the Soul Address

These are my projects. I am failing at all of them reasonably effectually. First, front and center.. cleaning. The apartment is filthy and disgusting. My room has no space, due to large pieces of unused furniture happily consuming floorspace in the least efficient way possible. Said furniture can't be moved as there are smaller things surrounding them.. luggage, clothes, containers, books. We'll see if we can't get that fixed sometime in the near future.

Photography. I need material. I need something. I need to sit down and apply thought to this.. to plan something. To actually decide on something to shoot and then get my mother's camera and shoot the hell out of it. Until I do that, this does nothing but stagnate.

School. I'm not failing per se, I'm failing per quod. My grades aren't horrible, but I can feel it skittering barely outside of my grasp. We'll see how this weekend goes.. if it goes well, I should be back on track. For what it's worth, I'm currently at 16/20 for Freshman Seminar (80 points outstanding), 25/40 for Western Civ (480 points outstanding) and 97/130 in English (410 points outstanding).

Creative Writing.. this is a nebulous one that ties into others. I need to spend more time writing, honestly. For anything.. I don't write enough. Then again, why do I write? As near as I Can figure, I do it because I like the reactions other people give me when they read my writing.. and I really don't get them. Seems kind of moot, at some point, huh?

Aelora. I'd like to organize information and get this centralized and useful. I'm sure Jared would appreciate the effort, as well. This ties into writing and other items as well.

Learning Go. I want to learn some of the basic strategies of Go. It seems like a fun game to play. Really not much else here.. I could buy a Gokoban and maybe a book or two.. aside from that, nothin'.

Website Design. I've let my domain expire.. I need to come up with a new site and new idea.. something that we can all share. Then again, that may not be possible either, heh. I have an itch, and don't know where to scratch it.

Server(s). Getting my server back in good shape will help facilitate numerous of these other things, serving as a central hub for all of my whatnots and whosits.

SRCG. I need to re-approach this from a more rigorous perspective and actually reevaluate it. I still want to do it, but since I've been absent from Shadowrun, it completely fell behind.

Game Design. I'd like to get into this, either on the basis of Aelora or just as random games.. maybe both. Either way, I miss actually working on code and mechanics, and Flash makes it easier.. there are other routes. I might even poke at the XBLA stuff, since that seems like a decent way to monetize small games. And, well, if I do the work in the context of Aelora, I think I could do well to get the IP exposed in slivers as such.

So.. this is my petition to whoever deigns this worthy of reading.. help. I'm not sure how to work on these.. how to decide what gets first swing and what gets the last swing.. and how to schedule my time and actually get this work done without feeling obligated or guilty for it.. that's completely aside from the empirical assistance I would almost certainly need.. writing, ideas, images.. so.. if you can, please feel free and let me know what you think. Also, I've left out a couple of more personal things that I, quite specifically, don't want blanket help with.

A Secret.

I have a secret.. I utterly despise all of my friends.

Yeah, that's fucked up, isn't it? I mean, I love them dearly.. they are truly the only reason I stay sane at times, but on some level I find myself resenting them, hating them, despising them. I think it's some little incarnation of envy.. I would rather be them than be me. I don't live life vicariously through television or children, I do it through my friends. That's kind of twisted, I think.

It's hard to explain, and it probably sounds worse than it really is.. but it's something that I've started to notice recently. There are multiple pieces in my mind constantly warring for my focus and attention. One piece wants me to walk away from everything in the world.. to jump out of the airplane and see where I splat. Another piece, rightfully, thinks that's a really fucking stupid idea. A third piece points out that the world is all I have, so why would I want to walk away from it? What benefit would doing such serve? And, finally, a fourth piece says "Think about the children!", or some such. That piece doesn't speak up much and is basically just a guilt-maker, so I kick it in the shins and tape it to the ceiling.

I want to run, walk, cower and laugh in fifteen different directions in fifteen different ways all at the same time. I can't possibly think that's at all normal, but it's what I am so I really don't bother caring if it is normal or not. I'm not sure if I ever vocalized it to anyone, but there've been times in the past year where I've thought that having a lobotomy would save me a lot of time and frustration. To be able to trade intelligence and talent and foresight for simplicity, complicity and bliss would be.. something I might seriously consider.

This whole post is starting to sound way more emo than I'm intending. I'm not really in a bad mood, I'm actually in a good mood.. it's just that I'm more contemplative than anything. These are things that strike me as though they should be said because to say them is to place them into reality, and to open lines of discourse. They say the first step to getting help is admitting you have a problem.

Well..

I think I am the problem.

On the growing resentment of all things gaming

So, there's this growing.. thing.. in the bottom recesses of my mind. It's weird because it's not something that makes sense on any surface level. Basically, I'm starting to get exceedingly frustrated with the entire concept of gaming. It's an insidious little thing, but it's one that's starting to have a noticeable affect on my social interactions.

I find myself having a genuine issue really caring about gaming. I don't just mean video games, I quite literally mean all kinds of gaming. I was speaking to a friend this morning about pen and paper games, and I just couldn't feasibly care less. The only reaction she managed to elicit from me was when she said Palladium died like Dungeons and Dragons died. I blinked at her and corrected her. That has little to do with gaming and just my general sense of knowledge and truth.. she believed that Palladium was more popular than D&D. It.. isn't. It wasn't. It never has been. I have trouble with people that declare beliefs as facts, honestly.. and sure, I probably come across as being an arrogant dick. I don't really care, if they don't believe the things I tell them, I'll show them as much proof as I can muster.

It bothers me because I really do love games. They're something that's reasonably important to me, and it just suddenly strikes me that, for as much fondness as I have for them, I just don't care.

On another occasion, I realized that I also don't really like most of the players. The consumers of the gaming industry generally just bother me. I mean, how can any sane human throw that amount of themselves into something that is so.. futile? I perfectly understand wasting time in games. I do that frequently. But people treat their game of choice as though it were a life or death situation. They construct their entire self worth and existence through this virtual reality. What happens when they get unplugged? If your self worth is based entirely on your favorite shirt, what happens when it rips?

I don't have any answers. I can only say that it bothers me, and maybe speculate as to why. I wish I knew, because that would let me really pin it down. I suspect it would also help me uncover some remaining bits of dissatisfaction I find myself grappling with in the wee hours of the night, laying in my pitch black room alone with my thoughts.

New Hobby, Ethics and Other Stuff

Time does move profoundly fast occasionally. It's only been 12 days since my last post, though, so I seem to have caught it reasonably quickly this time. I would like to return to posting at least once per week, but that may or may not occur, truthfully.. I just don't have terribly much to say about much of anything.

The power went out due to the rather insane windstorm this previous Sunday, so that was interesting. Classes start next Wednesday, so that should be interesting. I think I may discuss my work, there, on here. Someone might find it fun to read. Meanwhile, I think I've officially decided that Photography is my latest hobby. Of course, I doubt anyone would be particularly surprised by that.

My next major purchase is going to be a vehicle, of some form. I need more reliable transportation from point to point, so hopefully I'll be able to gather up enough funding to purchase myself a small beater that'll do when necessary. Beyond that, I'll probably start saving for Photo gear and/or a Laptop. Both, I think, would serve me well.

So, I've been contemplating the intersection of Ethics and Journalism as of late.. I find it interesting that it seems the code of ethics that sit within Journalism's walls is slowly disappearing. Faded by corporate interests and power grabs, it seems that a large piece of modern journalism just entirely misses the point.

I suspect this has to do with the return to individuals standing on their soapboxes, preaching about whatever ills them. In addition to this, there's an insidious creep across the board of people trying to talk about incredibly complex issues and missing entire pieces of it. To really talk about some modern issues, you truly need to comprehend it from multiple places. I wish I could give concrete examples of this, but as of right now it's just an idea that's bouncing around and kind of sinking a root or two into my deeper thoughts. If you want more, go read up on Media Bias.

On yet another random topic, I need to pursue personal fitness more thoroughly. Once I get more of the apartment clean, especially either my bedroom or the living room, I think I may start doing a minor workout routine. Additionally, I suspect it would behoove me to start going for bike rides occasionally.

Finally, I have an idea for an article about the vagaries of Ni and Ne bouncing about.. I may work on that later, but it strikes me as being a similar form of miscommunication as there stands between Ti and Te. It isn't always a negative thing, but it can definitely cause misunderstandings. Generally, I suspect, in intent. More on that later.

Randomly long post for you, if you have any thoughts, drop me a line.

*blank*

So, finally put some pieces on the table.. there's still blood under the bridge. So that's that. Feel better knowing.

Ties bother me.. they start to feel suffocating after awhile. That bothers me.

I wish I had more to say about things, but there isn't much going on, altogether. Work's plodding along steadily. I try to get fired, they praise me.. it's weird. I miss idle conversation.

I have nothing else...

Random Journalish Entry

So.. I've been reading rather a lot about rather a lot of things, and I'm starting to notice a couple of topics where I find myself prodding at them incidentally. Primarily.. Philosophy, Technology, CogSci and Education. Now, when I say Philosophy, I really mean to different fields. First is Ethics which I enjoy contemplating and the Second of a more generic range of fields that are fun to catch glimpses of now and then. I also enjoy where most of the fields intersect.. the Philosophy of Education, the Education of Philosophy, the Neuroscience of Learning, the Philosophy of Consciousness, the Ethics of Technology, the Technology of Neuroscience.. basically all sorts of weird crossbreed mutations between the fields. Why am I mentioning this? I don't know. Thought someone'd appreciate knowing that.

I guess, on some level, I like studying these fields for the same reason I have a very, very passing interest in Anthropology, Archaeology, Sociology et al. Because the more I learn in these fields, the more I can make an argument from various angles. I've noticed that it's very much breaking the paradigm, when you argue multiple.. zones of influence. I don't know the terminology of what I'm talking about, I just know that I do it and that it aggravates people that can't keep up. I'll argue, say, the rationality of something and as a riposte to their followup, argue the evolutionary standpoint of something. I'll bounce between fields and paradigms and systems of thought. I mean, it makes sense to me because you can't argue a point without taking in the entire surrounding framework, and since, truthfully, humans are my most common stepping point, I feel you need to take in as much of the framework as possible. This framework includes all of the work from evolutionary psychology to modern memetics and sociology.. neuroscience to anthropology.. and you can't really play with these fields individually, because eventually you'll miss a point that can't be contained on one area but is perfectly explained in another. So, there's that.

I am still interested in Aelora, by the by.. since I'm sure it seems like I've dropped it off the wayside like so many other projects. Well, I -have- but it isn't forgotten. I suspect I'll pick up on it again when I've got more motivation and fewer other things going on.

This seems like more of a journal update than anything.. but I'm OK with that. I can't say I have terribly much by way of profound thoughts right now.. I've been poking at my 'perfect' government, which amuses me but it entirely unreal as it would require the breaking of two of our culture's strongest mores.. and I don't see that happening any time soon.

Anywho, that's all for now.