Subliminal Talk

Let's get back to regular random rambling schedule. Today's word of the day is:

Hamartia

Ham-art-what? Google it, OK? I know this word for 2 days or so, therefore whatever research you'll do in a blitz will probably be as good as mine. What I will do is I will give you my interpretation, not encyclopedic knowledge. Treat it as a disclaimer.

So, Hamartia is a decision or, more broadly, framework of thought leading to decisions which lead to tragedy, as in Greek tragedy. Such decision is not made with bad intent, only with foresight so one can ascertain that the decision was wrong. Think of Oedipus killing his father. It wasn't that he killed somebody, it was that of all the people he killed his papa, albeit unknowingly. And also that other think Freud loves to reference...

Hamartia is not about throwing blame, it's about tragic outcome due to lack of knowledge. Remember that Ancient Greeks believed in fate and such so Oedipus was on the path of damnation from the very start (also self-fulfilling prophecy, I always love these). It wasn't his fault, there was no way he could stray from the path dictated by the gods. So, there is really nothing to learn from this idea. At least if you believe in free will, like I do.

Still, I find the idea kinda beautiful. I wouldn't call it Hamartia but how many times did you do something and some time later there were strange (good or bad or just bizarre) consequences of that particular action? If you knew what would happen, would you still follow your instinct and experience? Damn, what if the outcome was great but in process of decision the outcome changes and you don't get that again - you must not want it to get it kind of idea. Now that would be tragic - Hamartia indeed.

Ham art I am xD

I really didn't want to post today. It's been a long day but good one - I met up with my old friend, had some laughs and down some top shelf brandy. There is something though, something I found out when I was finally left alone.

Maybe I Believe

It's no secret that there are times when I like to listen to songs on repeat. My last post was sponsored by "Hounds of Hamartia" by Poets of the Fall, a group from Finland which has many songs I could write posts about. Today when we were listening to my friend's CDs I've encounters "Maybe I Believe" by Volbeat. When I came back home I had an urge to find this song and can't quite get it from my hand.

I believe (well, maybe) that it's song about dying. Consider first and second verse.

Quote:Starting to believe life is love
Starting to believe that I can lose control
High and low with emotions
Woah-oh, oh-oh, oh
I've drained the cup of disappointment
Cleaning out my closet 'cause I know I fear
All the boots at my doorstep
Woah-oh, oh-oh, oh

Important note - this verse is repeated verbatim twice.

These are beautiful words, ain't they? Something to follow, right? I'd agree. But, given what's said later, it seems like these are words of someone who has nothing to lose. Someone who is about to move one and realizes simple but profound truths about life which before were... obstructed. Not as clear as they should be. It's hard to live each day as if it was your last - in this sense these words are truly something to follow. Let go, embrace your emotions, acknowledge your ups and downs but have no fear. Let. Go. Live. And Life is Love.

Quote:The day has gone
Wherever I may go
The page has turned
Woah-oh, oh-oh, oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Yeah, he's leaving. The page is turned, there is no coming back. Whatever may happen, the past is meaningless and the future is uncertain.

Quote:Gather around me please, together we're fine
Nothing is unleashed but the darkness and the light
Maybe our wounds forever will burn
We're taking some of yours, for nothing in return

Gather around the coffin. Don't cry though hurt will stay. You need to stick together as together you'll be stronger, you can support and love each other. You still live and so you can (should?) love. There may be no closure, accept that. He will ease your pain asking for nothing as you can give him nothing.

Quote:Higher above, we'll have to see the reason for everything
Who will save the picture of all of us?
On that day, we'll greet our fallen ones
I believe
Yeah, maybe I believe

We'll have to see the reason as otherwise what's the point of all of this? Anyhow, remember. You live not as long as you breathe but as long as you are remembered. Anyhow, this part seems kinda... egocentric, compared to the rest? And it's obvious. Dead don't care about the past life. They cannot change or influence it as they move on. That's the reason they can take part of your pain, just as towel takes part of your moisture. But still we must remember, we owe them that one.

Last verse.

Quote:Freedom our souls demand
Never to get out of hand
I can no longer feel
The fire won't cleanse the soul
The burning will close up the wound
I can no longer breathe, yeah

If it wasn't obvious by now it is now. He's dead. He cannot feel, he cannot breathe. Fire can heal us but only physically, it won't touch our souls. But still, there is hope? There is memory. He wants us to save that picture.

We would want our picture to be saved, we wouldn't want to be N.N. on some forsaken patch of weeds and grass, right?

Damn, all of it reminds me of my dad. I hope he'd be proud of me.

I do not feel all that great, but not terribly either. I still think a lot about death but when you think a lot about something your mind kind of saturates and it goes to the background as you need to focus on other things as well.

The worst thing right now is the upcoming Christmas. The first Christmas since my dad passed away and I doubt it will be a happy one. I just want to get over it as soon as possible.

Anyway, my plans and goals for the next year are starting to become clearer. I don't want to set them yet but I think I will set myself 3 or so goals that I want to accomplish by the end of the next year. Chief among them will be losing are rest of my excess fat, about 15 kilos in 12 months seems plausible. Given my weight is stuck for 3 months or so a little more effort should get me there.

Also I consider running DMSI since LTU does not seem likely to be released any time soon. There will be 3 occasion (one in December, one in January and one in February) where DMSI might be handy. And sure, I might not be aligned with the goal of DMSI but I know I will have to get out of my shell sooner or later.

That DMSI run would not be a serious one as I might need to cut it short once LTU comes near. Still, even a couple of weeks of good exposure might be nice. There are a couple of useful modules in there I might benefit from, interest from beautiful women notwithstanding.

I'm at my mother's. Well, I'm there since Friday. And it's been just as one'd expect - kinda sad and absent. This thing this year, it ain't Christmas. It's just a couple of days off.

I've played DMSI to try it out as there is no news on new LTU and I don't feel much. That's why I will not start proper run of it - I'm neither aligned with DMSI goals nor I want to run it long enough to see results. I'll run it for fun. I might find it useful next week.

As for work, now I have 2 week long vacation, up until 7th of January I think. That's grand for two reasons. First I can use time to reorganize my priorities, stop chasing geese and get some larger picture - feat quite hard when you have backlog of things to do. Secondly, I'll be able to use this time to set priorities for myself in the 2020. I have already chosen my second commitment.

I have a lot of ideas what to do, but I often forget about them. Now, whenever I'll have an idea - that I should do something or buy something or whatever - I will write it down in a notebook. When I accomplish it, I will simply cross it out. And every week or two I will sit down, tear down the pages and rewrite them all. I want these small ideas to be kept in my head and I want a "pressure" to do them". Easy example - I'm often in a position where I have time and while not bored I could spend it more usefully, I just have no idea how. Now I'll have the notebook to give me ideas on what I can do. Simple yet brilliant.

One more thing about my work. Before the vacation I've talked with my older colleagues and I found them... Let's just say they are all good people and all but I don't wanna end up like them. They are not bitter but cynical I guess. They are their work. And it's funny that while I was trying to do this very thing for the past 4 months the very thought of the end result scares me. One more reason to maybe go and try my luck somewhere else. Year and a half till that choice so there is no rush. It's just that... Do I want a job that is fulfilling but you become it or do I want 9-to-5 job that I will hate but after I'm done with it I'm done.

Right now I'm procrastinating and I enjoy the hell out of it.

Merry Christmas Everyone! Wishes a little bit late but certainly sincere!

Back in the city, for a short time though. My time at my mother's was tough, I won't lie. One's not really eager when you anticipate that your mother will cry at the Christmas feast and that's exactly what happens and there is nothing you can do as you've already done everything these past months. Anyway...

In September I said that the coming weeks will be time to be spent in my comfort zone without any challenges except these self-imposed. And that was true, I kept to that word. This ends tomorrow though as I'll be going to a wedding where I know nobody except for the bride. That's the reason I wanted to listen to DMSI - I ended up listening to 10 loops tops so yeah - and I'm very curious how I'll deal in this situation. I think I'm prepared, let's hope I'll have a good time.

I won't be lying, I must start going out of my comfort zone eventually and this will be a good start. Complete blank slate, far from home, with perfect excuse to be drunk as a log. Serendipitous indeed.

Why I didn't listen to more DMSI? Well, because of anxiety, I didn't want to add fuel to the flame. Yesterday I checked my "stress level" as my phone can do and behold, I had maximum. Without taking any caffeine, soon before bed. I simply did not want to add to that as I'd fear DMSI would not help me with that.

My New Year's (Decade's) commitments are growing more coherent in my head. While I feel a little bit guilty about slacking my standards in December it really allows me to look at my self-improvement from the outside-in kind of way. As I have no plans for the New Year's Eve and I don't plan on making any for any reason other than to prove others I don't need to spend this day lonesome, I will commit this day to writing down and brainstorming ideas.

It might sound funny that I'd commit so much time for something like this but it's not. I want to analyze my past failures, set up rough goals and timetables etc. I want these goals to be realistic and something I'll stick to by developing habits, not something I'll abandon and forget two weeks in.

Most importantly I want to make use of my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I have a year (and on some things even longer) of good data I can analyze, set myself goals that are realistic and challenging at the same time and figure out ways to gamify the self-improvement. I get quite a rush from beating my records and setting good averages on my autistic excel spreadsheets after all.

I am truly a strange fellow. Who else sits in the church during wedding ceremony and considers matrimonial love as an act (or rather process) of great submission in the context of philosophy and occult. Such an act allows one to learn a lot about oneself. Left-handed path if I recall correctly. I am yet to experience such an act.

Okay, so the deal is I'm back in the city, wedding was a huge fun. The analysis? Too much to talk about to be honest but I was able to have lots of fun despite the fact that I knew pretty much only the bride. A couple of lessons about drinking, a few more about my behavior when dead drunk. It's great experience to find photos you don't remember taking on your phone. Twice or so a year is just a perfect timing for such occasions. And nobody was telling me I embarrassed myself. Except one, minor situation

I think the lesson overall is that if not more extroverted than before, I'm surely more sociable when need comes. Also my anxiety levels due to travel, new places, people and situations is much less. Good times all around to be me.

As for my plans? Well, I still plan on spending New Year's Eve on writing down plans. The other thing is that I don't think new LTU is anywhere near so... I guess I'll have to run some other sub in the time being, but it will most probably be something else than DMSI. LTU is out because quite frankly I feel tired thinking about running it again. AM6 is too much time commitment and I think it's too late to run the refresher. Absolute Self Confidence maybe, it's a nice and light sub.

Happy New Year Everybody!

As there is still 1.5 hours remaining in the old decade I thought I might just as well post an update. I wanted this New Year's Eve to be set aside for contemplation and procrastination and it worked.

I have set up for myself 4 goals for the 2020.

• Writing up any and all ideas I have or stumble upon both to analyze it further and to keep it somewhere and not forget about it,
  
• Losing additional 15kg to get to (what I'd consider) perfect weight,
  
• Cutting down on smoking to one pack per week (although it fight be easier to drop this crap altogether)
  
• Waking up early and consistently, so the first part is about waking up before or at the dawn and the second is about waking up early also during weekends and holidays.
  

This is an ambitious set of goals but certainly a set I can work with. What's great about it is that I have time to accomplish them - come midnight I don't have to say "no" to anything right away, just slowly start actions towards these goals. I want to meditate on them and (via goal 1) add new subgoals to aid the main ones, always however keeping the main ones as the focus.

Oh, and also my intuition tells me not to screw around and simply start new LTU run, I can always stop in in the middle when new version will be closer to the release. So here's that, back to counting loops and calculating which days to skip

See ya in 2020 everyone!

Day 3

Life does not seem to be going easy on me nowadays.

In theory I have vacation up until 6th. In reality I had to come to work today and I'll probably need to work through the weekend. Nothing major, all of this in theory could wait, I'm just impatient and, to be honest, kinda sick and tired of being useless. After Holidays at my mom's, the wedding and self-improvement meditations it's time to get going with the work. Lots to do, many project started and left half-way there. It makes me almost anxious of what will happen when I finish them in spring...

My health is failing. I have funny flu cycle where I get sick when I am to do something, at least it's always been like that. I thought I would be sick before the wedding and while I had sour throat nothing major happened. Then I started getting sich again on New Year's Eve just to get fine again and today I feel sick AGAIN. I've always used my sickness as an excuse and so it is kinda way of finding excuse, but at the same time my organism seems to know I can make so excuses and so I'm left in this half healthy half sick state.

Worst of all though... My good female friend (pretty, nice, clever but in chronic depression) I know for 4 years now recently started... insinuating things. I'm used to flirt with her, I often joke that I'm exercising dating on her, but that was uncalled for and almost serious. I'm to meet her on Sunday, we'll see how it goes. If it's just my imagination then that's fine, if not then I'm in trouble. You see, I'm not sure if I'd be strong enough to tell her no, but at the same time dating at our current mental states almost certainly will mean trouble. The difference between me and her is that I'm fine with being lonesome while she takes it really bad. That'd make it even harder to say no to her...

Damn Messiah syndrome. Let's hope I'm just overreacting.

I had that same thing with using falling ill as an out from things I don't really want to do on some level. It seems to have went away for the most part after I located the source of this behavior when running UMS.

Funnily enough, among people of my profession, it's a *very* common tactic. It gives an excuse to one's peers when one's worried about giving a crappy performance. The audience doesn't give a rat's ass, nor should it, though.

(01-04-2020, 04:02 AM)Have at ye Wrote: [ -> ]I had that same thing with using falling ill as an out from things I don't really want to do on some level. It seems to have went away for the most part after I located the source of this behavior when running UMS.

Funnily enough, among people of my profession, it's a *very* common tactic. It gives an excuse to one's peers when one's worried about giving a crappy performance. The audience doesn't give a rat's ass, nor should it, though.

Day 49

For me it comes down to way back in school days when I was very sickly child and often I'd use my overprotective parents to excuse me from writing tough exams for example. Nowadays it more probably comes down to both self-sabotage and also that when I'm stressed out I smoke more -> I get throat infection -> it spreads and I get sick. Anyways in the past 5 years or so I'd get sich about half the time before I needed to go somewhere. Funnily enough though if I feel like I MUST go there I will not get sick.

On the topic of smoking, my favorite brand got out of the circulation and so I had a choice on my hands - quit smoking cold turkey style, get used to another brand or try e-cigarettes. I tried option 2 with little success and so today I bought myself a set and, to be frank, it's not that great. I'll try this out, what my mistake was was that I chose liquid with too much nicotine and it's simply too strong for me. At any rate from what I've heard this is healthier, cheaper and does not smell badly to others so... we'll see. In the long run I'd like to throw all of this, e- or traditional, but for now it's a step in the right direction.

Good luck discovering what the truth is about vaping, lol. We were not designed to inhale chemicals for entertainment. I recommend you research what negatives there are instead of believing that it's healthier without effort in that direction.

(01-04-2020, 10:28 AM)Shannon Wrote: [ -> ]Good luck discovering what the truth is about vaping, lol.  We were not designed to inhale chemicals for entertainment.  I recommend you research what negatives there are instead of believing that it's healthier without effort in that direction.

As far as I am aware, switching from smoking actual cigarettes to vaping can pretty drastically accelerate the negative effects of smoking, health-wise. More so even than sticking to smoking cigarettes would have.

(01-04-2020, 09:12 PM)Have at ye Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-04-2020, 10:28 AM)Shannon Wrote: [ -> ]Good luck discovering what the truth is about vaping, lol.  We were not designed to inhale chemicals for entertainment.  I recommend you research what negatives there are instead of believing that it's healthier without effort in that direction.

As far as I am aware, switching from smoking actual cigarettes to vaping can pretty drastically accelerate the negative effects of smoking, health-wise. More so even than sticking to smoking cigarettes would have.

Ech, it seems like I'm screwed either way :/ As for the research it's hard to do one when tobacco lobby has it's own research and vaping lobby it's own and you can cherry pick whatever you want to believe in. As far as I understand vaping allowed many people to quit smoking for good and is considered overall, while not healthy, much less unhealthy then traditional cigarettes.

Also, if I shouldn't inhale, there are always nicotine patches xD

Nicotine resets the addiction with each dose which is why it's so hard to wean yourself off. Cold turkey, a sub or good NLP/hypnosis.

Of course you need to be ready and truly wanting it. But smoking boils down to self medicating fear.

Time is your most precious resource, and your health is a very close second.