Hello lo lo.

I realize that it has been a while since my last update, and while the lack of an update has not been intentional, there hasn’t been a real urge to  write for the blog either. It has been a slightly busier period, with me having to juggle between work, a side project and an insatiable desire to simply rest. There are a lot of things that I would like to do, and while that may not be a problem to some people, I have the need to know that I’m doing them well.

That is perhaps the issue on hand, that I divide my attention so broadly I no longer do anything extremely competently.

It’s only common sense to attempt to conquer and master a certain area before trying to move on to other areas, else risking a position where you are able to perform various duties sufficiently but not well. That is the problem here right now, and while I’m sure many before me have been able to quickly subdue multiple disciplines efficiently, I have recently been finding myself in a position where I crave to do nothing at all.

And I do mean literally nothing, to the point where existence alone is enough. That is perhaps the most pathetic thing I’ve admitted to, but when you are placed in a position where you go to a place every weekday to do things you have an extreme distaste for, I can’t quite imagine that I am alone in this predicament.

The lack of readership for this blog has also deterred me a little from putting effort from my side project into this space. Imagine this, I’m talking to a theatre right now. It may not be entirely empty, but it also happens to be nowhere close to full. It doesn’t matter that what I say do not sell out seats like hotcakes.

What matters is that no one is speaking back.

Supersonic.

I think it’s important to note that I am on a train as I type this. It is of the moving kind, and I cannot fathom any other useful type except for maybe momentarily stationary. I find this information integral to the reading experience from the reader’s (you) viewpoint, and instead of imagining a bitter existence in a small room typing this, I am encapsulated in a rapidly accelerating and decelerating metal canister.

Instead of having a full keyboard before me, my thumbs are literally the only faculties of input available to me on my phone. The keys are laid out in the full QWERTY layout, but each of them are so minute that it would be daft to employ all ten of my fingers. It isn’t more difficult, nor is it more tedious, but it does make for an interesting experience.

Mobile blogging or writing is interesting because at any point in time the writer is at all times in transition. The root of the experience is derived from having multiple, changing landscapes that continue to influence your focal point, and this renders having a post about a single point difficult.

Yet as all experiences go, mine will differ from yours, should you attempt this. Perhaps you’re less easily distracted, more inclined to be focused than I am, but as I type this I wonder if I should write of the pretty lady standing across the cabin or the absurd difficulty of typing a long post while standing. I assure you, writing wasn’t made to be done standing across a pretty lady in a moving cabin.

The inability to judge how long the post will be is also a disconcerting one. I now no longer have any idea if I should keep the last paragraphs short or to string them out. The lack of any spatial awareness on a screen significantly smaller than my palm is a definite short coming, but that’s a gripe so small it becomes negligible.

There is a truth about writing in transition, and the truth is that it’s more entertaining for me to write than for you read. Transition is the key here, since typing while stationary hints at the intention to settle down and write, whether at the comfort of home or at a coffee place. It’s entertaining for me because it provides activity for the mind as I transit, and less so for you because it doesn’t really make a difference where I write it.

But think of it this way, every word I type here was made as movement occured, and in some ways that is interesting because each of them carry various ideas as my eyes and mind capture different things at any one moment. It would be impossible for me to thoroughly describe all of them, but as you read these, some words see the rising sun, while others depict the boredom of travel.

I started this post without much of a point in hand, since all I wanted was to remove some of the tedium with regards to travelling to he office. But now I have a post that has been to places, leaving bytes of information in a trail for others to pick up, and that will (for some reason) continue to amuse me as I step into the ridiculously boring office day.

So do pardon me now, for I literally have to go.

To Be.

I’ve been watching and reading more science fiction lately, inclining slightly away from non-fiction, and it has been a refreshing change of pace. Both genres have their defining moments, and while I enjoy them almost equally , it’s hard not to be swayed by the ideas and philosophy behind these stories. That’s not to say I agree with everything presented to me, since half the point of reading is to decide whether the concepts behind the words are to be agreed with, and I continue to struggle to grasp one of the most common ideas in science fiction.

Across a wide range of mediums, science fiction goes back to one idea that has become a staple of the genre – the notion that robots would want to be human. It’s a concept that has been explored time and again, and I cannot understand why writers would think this is remotely plausible. It isn’t entirely beyond me why being human could be a captivating experience, since after all I’ve been one for a long while now and I enjoy multiple aspects of it. What escapes me is the continued arrogance in the assumption that they would want to be us.

Being human involves a lot more than most people realize, it is a challenging endeavour that even we struggle to be proficient at. We perspire, we bleed, we cry and we experience countless of other experiences that continue to define our species as unusual yet not unique since these properties are shared across multiple living creatures. That is perhaps the greatest obstacle that prevents me from truly believing that machines would want to be human, that there is nothing truly outstanding about us, not even our sentience or intelligence.

We are, as a species, proficient at overcoming and eradicating. We epitomize change, yet we do not embrace it ourselves, applying it only to the world that we inhabit. As individuals we are weak and helpless, yet in the grander scheme of things we are hardly more in groups. We obsess over love, emotions and pain, becoming the victims of ourselves. We hold on to every tiny ray of hope because it has become a rare commodity that we have become increasingly good at taking away.

And the question comes back to why we are convinced that what we created would want to assume our positions, is it our immense fallibility or is it due to our incessant desire to reach our own gods? It’s not a question that I obsess over, but it will perhaps one day swing back and I will ask it once more, for I cannot understand why we would assume that a race of immortal, perfect machines will want to be part of a species that continues to hate itself.

To Infinity, And.

This is hands down the most, in my opinion, incoherent thing I’ve written. Some of you will make sense, less will like it. But inside here is a post that matters to me, and continues to remind me the simple virtue of planning.

The new year has come, and like the other new years before it, the hype surpassed the realization of the event. It came, proceeded along as though the new number meant nothing, and mocked the hordes that expected the second coming. It ’s probably evident that I’m not one to be excited by dates or milestones. While they do represent a progress of sorts (believe me when I say I am tied by such a measure), they do not mark anything special in itself, and I continue to be amazed at the people who embrace the date for nothing more than the day itself.

That was supposed to be the customary new year address most blogs entertain. It didn’t turn out to be the hopeful, endearing paragraph I thought it should be, but it captured very nicely my nonchalance at this annual event and I’ll leave it as it is.

I’m currently at a point in life where I’m trying to decide what to do eventually, and that has been time and spirit consuming to a degree that I find myself depressed at it all. It could be due to the stasis my gender has put me in, but beyond that the blame is mine to shoulder.

Drive is an interesting word, it gets thrown around more than it should, alongside passion. They are apparently good values to have in one’s life, and if devoid of them, a revaluation should occur. I’ve never been blessed by these qualities, sadly, since I’ve also never been a sucker for bandwagons. The problem however, is that at any point in life I was at least clear with what I wanted to pursue, at least until now. There is currently a large amount of options with very little room to exercise all of them, and it continues to frustrate me to no end.

I’ve had conversations with people who deem life too long, and perhaps there’s some truth in it; but no matter how I examine it, it appears to me to be too short. It is beyond most people, yet it is truly finite, and that quality of it continues to sadden me. There are many things I would like to do and to be, but it is difficult to proportion quantities of necessity and desire in a cup that is rapidly filling. Many tell me my life is still long, but believe me, in a lot of ways I wish it were longer.

Growing up is possibly the most difficult thing I had to do, and now I want to go back. Of course you can’t go back, but that impossibility does not strip away from us the desire to do so. Exiting my youth and accelerating into adulthood isn’t scary at all, no, it isn’t. But it’s sad. Being an adult involves taking away all the dreams you’ve had and taking the ones  that others  have dreamt for you. It involves admitting that the time has come for you to accept that life can and will one day expire before any of us are truly ready for it.

I continue to dream a little when time allows for it, when my cognitive capabilities let me. I know many before me have ceased to explore possibilities anymore, but I hope I grow old continuing to dream. It is not because I believe in dreams, or in ambitions and I don’t sincerely buy the saying of reaching for the stars. What I truly believe in, is that when we dream, we embrace our fallibility, our insignificance and ultimately, our humanity.

Importance of Being Idle.

I’ll update soon, trust me on this. The new year’s just been a little tiring, annoying, stale and a little of everything else.

I’m sure you understand.

All of the Stars.

It’s not common knowledge, and I suppose if it were it would defy all logical explanation, but recently I’ve been attempting to branch beyond writing. It hasn’t been an endeavour long enough to have substantial results, but I thought I’d share this foray into a new field with you.

Perhaps I should give some background to this pursuit. It has been a while since I’ve been intending to try out the waters of photography, because although it isn’t any shallower than the field of drawing or design, its barrier of entry is a whole lot lower. Talent while necessary seemed to me to be a less demanding issue with regards to photography, and thus beginners are naturally drawn to that. I could be terribly wrong, but it doesn’t matter since between excelling at photography and me stood and still stands a camera that I cannot afford.

So one could say the entire paragraph above is a prelude, since it served as nothing more than a basis. It’s no red herring though, as far as intention is concerned, and now we can finally move on to what I’m actually doing now. I’ve been attempting, and attempt being the key term here, to draw pleasantly. The last word is important, because anyone can draw, but to produce an aesthetically pleasant piece requires more work, discipline than most people realize.

Talent is a concern here too, and while I don’t think I’m devoid of it, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this ambiguous quality means nothing without practice. It’s a relentlessly difficult pursuit where progress is impossible to quantify, and without a mentor the need for tenacity only rises. Yet it’s a hobby that I keep getting drawn to, spending more time on that than I do on writing. Perhaps it’s because whereas writing requires the viewer to spend time on absorbing any information, a picture takes a glance to appreciate, and the power of that medium continues to fascinate me and my urge to create.

It’s our generation that has permeated the notion that instant gratification while not better, is easier to enjoy in quantity. That explains the surge of interest in graphic novels and video streaming applications online, image is instantaneous whereas words require time, an increasingly rare commodity despite the longer human lifespan. I would curse it and lament, since it comes dangerously close to removing what I enjoy most – writing, but at the same time I embrace the sheer difficulty in perfecting the art of drawing and the fact that ultimately I end up doing what I set out to do, to entertain.

Regardless of whether it’s writing or drawing however, the one thing that has dawned upon me as I sought out tutorials and other resources is how small I truly am. Not physically, but in a world filled with talentless hacks, there is a pool of people that are excellent at what they do, and it’s a pool so vast that I continue to be awed at my own insignificance in this world.

One Word At A Time.

Reading isn’t as captivating to me as it used to be, and while it isn’t worrying, it’s nevertheless puzzling. There has been a great exponential decline in the amount of books I read throughout my life, and I’m inclined to think that it’s due to my increase in interest towards writing. I’ve always had the impression that they are intricately linked and share a relationship where interest in one would fuel the other; apparently this is not how it is. At least not for me.

I’ve been trying to squeeze in as much reading as possible, but whereas some people seem perfectly content to set aside time to read, I cannot do so. Reading, and I refer to books, can only occur in momentary gaps of inactivity in my life. Examples include bus rides and trips to the toilet, and one can infer from this that perhaps books only have a place in my life when I’m (literally) in transition. I cannot, for the life of me, indulge in a book when I have settled into a static state, be it at home or at work. I’ve found myself on multiple occasions preferring to do absolutely nothing than read, and that is intriguing.

That has been the case and I assume it shall always be, and although (as I have mentioned) not a source of concern, it is the root of my limited book reading experience. I’ve started on a great number of books, but finishing a book to me is a tough act, often requiring myself to glaze over the boring bits and surging towards the end. It’s come to a point where I consider completing a book a tiny accomplishment, a benchmark in my life and a milestone that I could peg my linguistic progress to. It’s a tiny bit pathetic, I know.

Evidently, writing, or the attempt to, has been taking up the bulk of my time shelved away for such purposes, and while I like it, it hasn’t proved to be much easier. Of course a single written post doesn’t warrant a reaction akin to that of scaling a mountain, but there’s still a tingle that I feel every time I hit the “submit” button. I also spend unnecessary amounts of time on the dashboard of the blog, especially on the statistics page where I can see how many people have read the blog on that day.

Now, it may appear to be an obsession, but I’m sure I’m not the only blog owner that feels joy when he knows that what he has writen is being read. After all, there is no point in writing anything if there were nobody there to read. I won’t bore you with details about the amounts of hits I get, but lately there has been a slight increase in the readership, and that has been motivating me a little better. But the lack of comments has been disconcerting, and with my personal objection towards tagboards alongside the inability (as far as I’m aware) for WordPress to incorporate them, the comment box located below is my only means of knowing what any reader thinks.

I’m sure it must be in some ways ironical for me to write, since I hardly read. But the two processes go hand in hand, where there must be readers there are writers, and in some ways I hope I can entertain enough to forge a place as a writer eventually. It is with utmost certainty that there are countless of other people who will compete with me for that, but I don’t write for them.

As Real As It Gets.

If blogs are avenues of declaration, then allow me to tell you that I’m currently playing a massively multiplayer online role playing game, otherwise abbreviated very conveniently as MMORPG. I used to shed away from games like these due to their time consuming nature, since they mimic life in ways that can surprise strangers to the genre, but time isn’t a huge concern anymore.

These games are caught in a very unique position where they have to balance between including real social effects such as consequences and arranging content to be as entertaining as possible. It’s a tough scale to balance, one that logically cannot be done, but is being done nonetheless.

And I simply cannot understand how.

The easy answer to why such games are immensely popular is that they provide a form of escape from the dull rigidities of life, providing another realm for people to explore and do things that would otherwise be impossible. From casting spells, leading a horde of warriors, commanding a fleet of ships, these are less than a fraction of what one can do in these games, and it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that it’s the reason why they continue to enthral millions of people.

Social aspects come very strongly into play here too. With the ability to customize how you look in-game, aspects that alienate people (especially those that are beyond one’s ability to change) can be removed altogether, and that provides an amazing avenue of escapism. A platform where your decisions are the only reasons why you succeed or fail, at least within the confines of the game; that is beyond what life can offer in the foreseeable future.

It’s not difficult to see, with the aforementioned examples, why such games are popular. But they do not offer a good explanation as to why they are more popular than other genres, and while I am vividly aware of other reasons (such as having an impact on a persistent world where other players can appreciate the changes) that contribute to the popularity, I believe there must be a greater, perhaps even higher, reason behind this arcane calling towards them.

MMORPGs mimic life extremely closely, and I don’t refer to the spells or the inability to die for good (even then, there are games where you can). The properties of life are translated almost perfectly into them, and that is why most people call playing such games leading a second life. Making a wrong decision hurts, whereas a right one can reward immensely; your actions can be severe or light; you can fall or rise to greatness. You get the idea, it’s about repercussions and how they can reverberate through the game world without any real consequence.

It’s paradoxical to think of it that way, but I enjoy the notion that I can make mistakes without being punished too severely. I like the fact that there are consequences, but are limited to the virtual world, and that’s both appealing and the fabric that holds such communities together. You have the random person that (knowing nothing can really be done to him or her) intentionally causes trouble for the rest, but much more people that commit to improving without the fear of making mistakes.

Perhaps a metaphor would be wise. Try pushing two books of similar thickness towards each other; push hard enough and they are forced upwards. The same effect applies in these communities. Without the fear of being forced into oblivion should a mistake occur, communities within the realms can work, experiment and innovate together to foster a better environment.

One could really nitpick with me and tell me my theory is related to escapism, but I don’t think so. In fact, I think it’s the very opposite of that. Games such as this succeed because participants rush head first into putting very real hours into intangible projects, they allow players to embrace motivations, social norms, build communities that are as real to them as life is to us. Perhaps that is why they succeed enormously, where players keep going back, because it isn’t about escaping, it’s about having no fear of failing.

Now all we need to do is replicate that in our lives.

It Glows.

I’ve recently acquired for myself a new computer, not a laptop but a desktop, and within this portability obsessed, bite size driven society of ours, the choice of a massive space consuming tower over a tiny  slab of metal and plastic doesn’t appear to be the norm. Nevertheless, I’m quite happy with my purchase, and it’s a noteworthy one because it’s been a while since I’ve had a computer of any kind that I could truly call mine.

That is not to say that I didn’t have access to a computer, in fact I had two laptops before this, simultaneously, and I’m aware of my privileged position with regards to this. The catch however, is that when put together, their age rivals mine, since they were both my mum and my brother’s. They were both on the verge of breaking down, and it wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that any more usage would require vast amounts of duct tape.

Unpacking a new gadget of any kind is extremely exciting, from mobile phones to laptops, you never know what you may find. I know that sounds like absolute rubbish, since if you found a carrot (for example) in a box that should contain an laptop it would be aggravating and most peculiar. My point here is that you know exactly what you bought, you’ve seen it in pictures and in showcases but when the said object is now yours in all its shiny wrapping and styrofoam packaging it is almost surreal.

This is of course followed by the reveal, where you slowly peel off its protective covering, allowing it to bask in its ultimate, unprotected, virgin glory. My words cannot describe the tingle that surges through your fingers, so let me quote this text from a web-comic that I read:

” We’ve tried to contain the illicit character of the form in today’s strip. The last panel attempts to marry a satirical voice with an assertion of genuine truth, which is that the film that protects our new devices – and the gentle tug, as it resists – is one of this life’s great pleasures.” – Tyco

Yes, it truly is.

This Is My Hypothesis.

I like writing.

That much I know, but beyond that there’s a wide expanse of ambiguity that I haven’t had the time or heart to explore. Like I’ve mentioned in the past few entries, it isn’t easy to be a writer, especially to be one that you want to be. It takes a whole lot more discipline that most people realize and takes a considerable amount of practice and skill, that latter of which I’m starting to doubt I have.

I used to actually feel bad for not updating as though I’m bound by obligations to keep writing, and while they are of my own binding, it doesn’t void the guilt entirely. It’s a different matter now however, and whatever determination or drive I had to keep writing has now hidden somewhere away from me. You see, my life has hit a plateau. It has come to a point where there aren’t too many surprises, and when you lack the sudden surges or crescendos one might expect from life, there is also a sudden void where inspiration should be.

It’s a huge gaping leak and if inspiration were something transferrable, I imagine myself to be extremely inspiring. I know exactly when this plateau would end, and that gives me a certain sense of hope that one day life would return to its usual business. That said, it also works both ways. Knowing when something will end also means that you are aware of how long something will last, and that’s like dispensing salt on the wound whenever I remind myself how much longer. Half full or half empty doesn’t really matter when the content is essentially shit.

The pain isn’t from the boring regularity of it all, I expect the source of the pain is from the inability to move, metaphorically speaking (otherwise it would just be daft).  There is a distinct lack of options with regards to my life aside from the brand of toothpaste that I prefer or what I would be having for lunch, which even then suffers from a severe lack of variety, and this is disconcerting.

Most people would appreciate having a path to tread on, a set of milestones to guide themselves in whatever they do. It gives them an idea of security, having some freedom taken away from them in exchange for guaranteed improvement, but when your benchmarks cease to be how far you’ve come in your life and is instead about how long you’ve been there it can become a painfully boring affair.

Going back to a lack of inspiration to write, perhaps the fault lies in me. After all, maybe I’m not leaking anything but am instead not absorbing. Inspiration lies everywhere, and life is the source of creativity. So perhaps I’m not very good at this writing business, or maybe I’m simply lazy, but one thing that I can hold on to is that I know writing makes me happy, and not many people can point out what makes them happy despite the pursuit of happiness being the human creed.