Christmas and Traditions

So once again it's Christmas. How lovely.

I just finished packaging all the presents I'm gonna give this year.


Do you know one of the best definitions of adulthood? You know it's creeping up on you when you notice you're getting nearer and nearer to the point at which you spend more money than you gain during this joyful holiday.

Want to know a fun fact? Suicide rates are much higher than they normally are during Christmas. Yay.



It's kind of interesting how Christians tend to think they invented the holiday, when it was in fact "stolen" from the paegans. Also they keep speaking about the "true meaning of christmas". It's apparently to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. That's cool and all... But I don't like the concept nearly as much as if the true meaning was to spend time with your family and show your love and appreciation towards other people by giving them gifts. Oh wait....



It's interesting how humans want to stick to tradition. This is an event that keeps on repeting itself every year, still, people never lose interest. Also, the economy gains a lot from this.


I don't know if you can tell, but I certainly know that I am not in the mood for writing a long post. FINALLY!!! Muahahahahahaha, I knew this day (night) would come. (Edit: SUCCESS!!!!)


I have been ridiculously busy, I have a headache, and I'm still going to get less than six hours of sleep this night. Again. Yay.


Not only this, but I will keep on being busy until summer. And the sadistic teachers at our school decided that they should give us a lot of homework over this short vacation. Fuck. I spent several hours doing this today, and I will have to spend pretty much 2 hours on avarage every day if I want to keep up with my job as well. And then there's the matriculation exams coming up... Good times, good times.





Okay, time for the musical section of this post.

From now on I will be posting most songs on two websites. I will keep using Yourlisten.com, but I decided that I should finally sign up on a much cooler website that I've already been checking out for nearly ten years. Yup.

The site is called Newgrounds, and is mainly a website for animation and games, but art and auido finds it's way there too. I mainly decided to get an account there because of its far superior layout, and the fact that several cool musicians roam on the website. S, SP & J are 3 examples.


So, I kinda almost made a Christmas song. Check it out:


Christmas Memories


Nothing all too great, but meh.



And since I signed up on the website I needed a cool icon.

So I made one.

In mspaint...

You might notice three things about it.

1. It's tiny
2. It's a G clef
3. It also consists of two letters!



The one who first can guess what the two letter are, and what they stand for, and writes that down in the form of a comment, wins an onion.










I think I will leave things here.




Merry Christmas (or whatever)!

The Meaning of Life

I don't have much time at my hand, so I will make this post short (If it's even possible, me being me | Edit: FAILED AGAIN!). This past month, I've had very limited spare time, so I haven't really felt like spending the few free hours every now and then by writing in my, at the moment, unusually inactive blog. We have been working full time on our musical, and apart from that I've been doing part time jobs. However, today I actually feel like writing something quick.

Speaking of quick, a "quick" side note: a couple of days ago I got to know about a most heinous thing. We just received the results of our matriculation exams. It really irritates me that I got 269 points in my English exam, mainly because the amount of points needed for the highest grade, "L", was 270 points this autumn. Fuck. Even more frustrating is the fact that I lost a few very unnecessary points, the main one being, having read slightly wrong, which made me write "century", instead of "decade", which was an error worth precisely 1 point.
Not only that, but my test was sent in by the teachers at our school as worthy of 266 points, and it was ultimately raised by 3! I can almost picture the final score corrector's thoughts in a scenario similar to this. "Oh let's see. Here is one of the final exams I have to check, to make sure the pupil gets what he deserves. Hmm, it seems this student has been given an approximation of 266 points. It also seems like the final boarder between "E" and "L" is closing in on about 270 points this year. Let's see, let's see. Oh well, Christmas is beginning to creep closer upon us, why not be a little nice for once; let's raise the result with a few points! Now what would be a suitable final score, when he is clearly aiming for 270 points? Hmm.... I KNOW! Let's raise the score to 269 points! There; Perfect."
Well, I realize this is not how it works, and I'm not really that mad about it all; I'll just have to redo the test next year. However, it's always a good idea to make light of your adversities; you'll live longer that way. Speaking of living for lengthy periods of time...is that something you should strive for, in life?



So considering I have been working a lot on different projects, my simple brain's first impulse was, of course, to write about work; how some people are drawn to it, while others avoid it like the pest. Then I realized, not only is working usually boring, but writing about it isn't necessarily much better... So we ended up with the title: well... you can read it yourself.

(FINE! Be that way... I'll write it again: The Meaning of Life).


What is the purpose of life? This is a question that humans have asked themselves throughout a very large span of time. Still, no one will ever know who thought about it first. There are many different versions of this question (for instance, why are we here? etc.), and for every version there are a multitude of "answers".

While the question has been romanticized beyond sanity, to me, the question just seems... Wait for it... Meaningless.


This is, because asking the question is basically presuming that there has to be "a purpose". And in order for a purpose to exist, there must be intent behind it.

An example:

Let's take the word "meaning", and play around with it. You know that movie scenario, in which it has just been revealed to the hero that his best friend has betrayed him.

*The 'friend' pulls out a gun and aims it at the hero.*

Hero: "What's the meaning of this?"

'Friend': "I've always envied you, but now it is my turn to be acknowledged!"

Hero: "So it was you who blew up the building!"

'Friend' "Yes, now you know, it was ME all along! Muahahahahaha"


Well, something like that. When the hero asks "What is the meaning of this?" he is really asking "Why are you doing this?"


How is this relevant you ask? Well, there is a reason for why the friend did what he did, there always is, no matter how undetectably small it might be (in this case, apparently envy). And the hero is asking why this particular situation they are in, has emerged. The situation emerged, because his friend intended for it to emerge, there was an element of intent. He wanted something, and he wanted it for a reason. There was a meaning for what he did; an intention for why he did it.


If there is to be a meaning behind something, there also has to be someone, or something that wanted for it to happen. Thus, when we aare asking "Why do we exist?" we are presuming that there is a reason for our existence, hence also assuming that someone or something intended for our existence to be a fact.

Now, this makes perfect sense if you're religious, in any way. "Why do we exist?" -> "God was lonely". But for an atheist, asking what the meaning of life is, is just playing with concepts. Don't misunderstand me; I don't think there's anything wrong with thinking philosophically these ways, I just wanted to point out that, really, the universe doesn't care.

This is not the same as saying that life is meaningless!

As I said, in order for there to be a meaning, someone must wish for a scenario, achieving said scenario being the goal; the meaning. Who is to say that one can't create a purpose oneself? However, there can be no generalized definition for the meaning of life. Biologists tend to say that the meaning of life is simply to live, reproduce and die, in an almost endless cycle. But I don't necessarily agree with that either. When it comes to the truth, "life" would probably be better of if all humans, and why not all the animals too died, leaving the living microorganisms to reconquer the throne of being the highest life forms. They would keep life living for a much longer time, and they can often survive extreme circumstances.

Then some people have said that it's not just any life, but intellect, that should be emphasized. Who is to say that, really? And how would that help with finding an answer for the question? Listen kids, the meaning of life is to be as intelligent as possible, so take a good look at Stephen Hawkins! Sure, intellect can help achieve much, extra comfort being one thing. But it in no way solves the problem at hand. Back to work: Some have said that working is the meaning of life. My reply to that could most accurately be interpreted as: "Not for my life it isn't! (You fucktard!)".

Then there are the people who say: "Everyone is free to create their own meaning". At first, this may seem like avoiding the question, but if you follow the logic I exemplified earlier, it makes total sense!

For there to be meaning, there has to be someone that wants a purpose for something. Who wants a meaning for one's own life as much as oneself? Well, there are people; your parents' might just want to have you live your life as they have planned. But do they own your life? This question is actually a lot more relevant, in my opinion. You see, I think that you can have a meaning for every life that YOU own. If you own a life, you get to decide the meaning for it (it's not breaking any rules; existence simply doesn't care!).

So do you own your own life? Mostly, yes, because it is you who have the most control over you. If you have the most control over someone, you get to decide the meaning of life for that person. Not all people own their own lives though (by the "most control" definition). Two examples of this: I said you get to choose the meaning for your own life, what if you yourself choose for someone else to decide what your purpose in life is? If they accept the responsibility for your life, and you actually follow through with what that person tells you to do, than your meaning in life is to do as that person tells you to. Example 2: Some people (especially earlier in history) are born slaves, to some extent. Not all people are born with USA's (ironically) highly regarded "freedom". Same thing here; you have to obey what your master tells you.


So ultimately, I must mathematically come to the conclusion that your purpose in this life is largely divided between a lot of factors. Let's simplify things a bit. Let's take two years of your life. During the first year, you have 34% control of yourself, your parents have 23% control, and other people have 33% control over you, while random chance makes out 10%. During the second year, you have 75% control over yourself, other people have 15%, while what seems to be randomness has 10% control over you. During these years, other people will have had 56 + 15 = 71% (out of 200) control, you will have had 109%, and random chance will have had 20% control. Divided by two: Op: 35.5%, You: 54.5%, Rc: 10%. (All numbers are random, merely made up for the sake of this example)

So over simplified, during a time span of 2 years, you will have decided 54.5% of the meaning with your life, Other people will have decided 35.5% of your purpose, while random chance has power over the remaining 10%.

This, is on a very oddly defined level, but also on a very exact one. This is also definitely NOT what the original askers and romanticizers of the question were looking for. This is simply an odd thought that ocurred to me while sitting on the toilet today, to be blunt.


It's also interesting to think about the meaning of life, as such a thing as destiny. It's basically the same thing. "This is what you're destined for, this was meant to happen"!

Do you think that destiny, fate, exists? I don't, but I like the concept. Actually, I could almost claim the opposite, in fact; I'm certain that destiny exists, it's simply impossible to detect, or measure. This is assuming that time travel is never invented. NEVER! But it probably hasn't been, or we would know it already (unless we go into the sci-fi realm of the time police, or something like that).

You see, destiny, is just a concept, created by humans, just like most other things around us are. Concepts like "luck" and "random chance" don't really exist either, but still, they do! In our minds that is. Technically, if you knew all about every single particle in the entire world, and exactly how it behaved, you could accurately predict the future. It's just an almost infinite amount of information that you would need to have, but in theory, it's possible. That is the law of cause and effect, simplified. 'a' caused 'b' to behave in way 'x', which in turn... etc. (Please don't bring in factors like "what if something comes from nothing?" and so on. Just pretend that the person has access to the information about how that, and all the other things work, as well...).

And thus, there exists no real randomness, just things you couldn't possibly calculate and figure out on beforehand. And if you could accurately predict the future, the concept of destiny would have to be true, in some sense. There is only one outcome (unless time travel/different universes with different rules are brought in to the equation).

Your destiny, your meaning of life is to do whatever you want, everything that will happen will all happen anyway, using this logic. No moral is needed, no one can be blamed; it was predetermined to happen. Then again, no one can be blamed for blaming you and putting you in prison for committing your crimes (and so on).




This is again, just me playing with concepts. I don't really view things this way, and nothing is to say that this is the way to see it all. It's just an interesting perspective, in my opinion; an interpretation of the meaning of life. I could have explained my thought process much better though, but this is just an improvised blog, and it was destined to be this way, so don't blame me! Then again... You were destined to read this, and it was foretold that you would blame me...



Okay, now it has officially gone too far. Bear in mind: although the universe may not care, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't either. There might be no objective morality, and every action, good and bad, that you take may be predetermined. You still wouldn't know those actions on beforehand, or if the assumpiton that there is only one outcome is even true in the first place. And depending on how you define it, even if it were true, it doesn't mean that you cannot choose what to do. We humans, we need our concepts; that is why we created them, false as some may be. (Question: If you could be scrying the future using information about every single particles behavior, could you than change it? Or would even you, predicting the future, be a part of the equation, and thus be unchangable? Let's not think more about it, we will arive at no sensible conclusions anyway).

If you feel like you make a decision, it's practically the same as making it, as it will affect you like wise. As is a common argument in the debate about the existence of "free will" (should I make an entry about that as well?).

Simple solution: "We have no choice but to have free will" (paraphrasing Christopher Hitchens?).
There; no blog post about it needed.
























Okay, I think this is quite enough for this sleep ruining blog entry.


Challenge: Count the semicolons in this entry, and tell me how many there were in the comments! (No cheating with Ctrl + f !).










Let us now enjoy some depressing music instead.


I actually made yet another song that in my opinion, is too good to be posted here, so I made YET another song so I COULD post something here.

So basically, I wanted to compose a mood portraying song. And I pretty much knew what mood I wanted to musicize (yup, yet another new word, I think...).

I already know a song that had exactly what I was looking for, and I did something very similar, yet different (basically, I stole the idea, so to say). Named song is featured in the online platform game "The Company of Myself", and its name is simply and aptly, 'Jack'.


Since I was pretending to make game music, I naturally had to loop the entire thing... MORE THAN TWENTY TIMES! :D

That is the way of the musician.

In reality, the composition is approximately 3 minutes and 20 seconds in length. I urge you to listen to it with headphones, for a better experience.



I named the song:



Loneliness (yourlisten.com)




However, I once again was too lazy to use a metronome, and to arrange and edit the piece properly, but I am still quite fond of the end result. Can you notice where the loop restarts? If not, I'm happy.

If you actually listen to a few loops, you might notice a very slight difference in some of them. You see.. ehem... Being the very professional musician that I am (I make like 500 a year or so thanks to my musical "abilities", at the moment... [and lose so much more]), I naturally looped the two different instruments at a very slightly different rate, which results in the time difference between the instruments' played notes being slightly varying, from loop to loop (sometimes more, sometimes less noticeable).


Anyway, feel free to comment about it.

Actually, no, your meaning of life is to comment on this musical Mastepiece! (Says the 0.000001 x 10^(-9)% control that I have over you!). (Very properly calculated).









Also, A picture! (x2!)

I drew this drawing on an A2 paper a couple of months ago, using coal (and white chalk)... I've never really used coal before, so it proved quite difficult. It's kind of like your average pencil, except it's thicker, and if you so much as touch your painting before spraying it, you will ruin everything.




Here's a slightly earlier version (sadly, a bit better optimized; always lazy while taking bad photos with my phone...):

That cave, is where you in your loneliness, will find a purpose for your life.





















That should pretty much sum things up for this time. Don't expect me to be as active as I usually am until next year! A.k.a. in slightly more than 1 month...



Have a good one ;)

Homosexuality is WRONG

I've been meaning to write about the topic of sexual orientations for some time; I just never got to it, until now. In this particular post I will focus mainly on some aspects of homosexuality, although I am aware that there are several other sexual orientations. Still, with appropriate changes, what I am about to say could probably be applied to bisexuality, transsexuality and what not as well.

When I said I've been meaning to write about this topic for some time, I actually only meant that the idea had crossed my mind. What really triggered my willingness to write to write about how homosexuality is treated in today's society (societies), was nothing but plain ol' anger. You see, a couple of weeks ago I should have been sleeping. However, since tiredness seemed unable to find me, I browsed the interwebs instead. Eventually, I somehow managed to come across these gif images. They immediately caught my interest, since they depict an interview, where discussed is one of the more important topics of the present. That, and the fact that one of the arguing men is the quite famous and easily loveable Stephen Fry. To most people, I think that the gifs speak for themselves. The man from Uganda is basically batshit crazy. In his opinion, it's not as big an issue if young girls are raped in the "right way", as it is if two consenting adults of the same sex have sexual intercourse.

The real problem is that he is not alone with his views. Since the moving pictures had managed to catch my interest, and I didn't feel like sleeping anyway, I decided to look up the source of the interview. Turns out, Stephen Fry has made a two part documentary about homosexuality, so having nothing better to do, I watched them. Now, I am not usually that easily emotionally affected (maybe I'm just too cynical), but I can't recall the last time I felt as sad and frustrated as when I watched the documentary (you can find it here).

There are some things that make me lose faith in humanity, and the way homosexuality is still treated around the world is one of them. It's difficult to believe that after all the years humans have spent on earth, after all the progress in all the areas, we are still the only known species dumb enough to condemn a form of love that is as beautiful as any. And the reasons are even more disturbing.

Not only are there people blaming their hatred of gay people on an ancient book of "wisdom" that also forbids a lot of other stuff that no one seems to pay attention to, but there are those who don't even seem to know a reason for their despise at all. The real root of the problem seems to be idiotic stubbornness, lack of education, and scapegoating. To me it was sickening to watch all the odium that stemmed from the very culture of present Ugandans. Close to everyone in Uganda seems to be against homosexuality, and it is almost like the majority would like to see all homosexuals punished by death.

There are people who try to explain why homosexuality is wrong with ridiculous lies that any sensible child could refute. And those people are all about spreading an image of disgust. They earn a status in society by creating an image of homosexuals that is far worse than any devil you could imagine. And they are all about anuses and penises and sex, they don't even think about the mutual affection people of the same gender might share. Also, in many places in Africa people have been brainwashed to genuinely believe that condoms result in a higher risk for HIV and AIDS, instead of decreasing it. And as we all know, there would be no AIDS at all if only those damn gays would do the right thing and choose to be heterosexual... Because you would definitely want to choose to be homosexual in a country where you might get killed for it. Totally makes sense.

Another thing is, in Uganda there seems to be a constant fear of homosexuals recruiting people to their "lifestyle", especially young children. I mean, it's such an easy bribe! "Hey kid, want to be cool? All you've got to do is to suddenly become attracted to people of your own gender, in order to be hated by all people around you! Sounds awesome, right!!?"

I naturally need to provide some kind of example of what I'm talking about, so here you go:

The infamous "eat da poo poo" priest...

You might laugh at the video, but in reality it's much more severe; some actually listen to people like him, and continue the tradition, so to say. That guy is just one among many. Watch any interview about homosexuality that takes place in uganda, and you will hear similar stuff or even worse.



I know that I've focused pretty much solely on homosexuality in Uganda, but that is simply one of the places where the issue is most apparent. You've all heard about homosexuality in the Western society already, or so I assume at least. It might be difficult to realize the reality of the situation unless you really invest some time into seeing how bad things really are for some people that just happen to not have been born heterosexual. At the moment, I also refrain from further explaining any of my observations; I'm hoping that you readers will understand the key yourselves.


Another most discomforting fact is the current situation in Russia, where progress on human rights seems to have taken a few important steps backwards.







Now, I could talk about this topic forever and ever, for all eternity, but I doubt that'd do much good. If you haven't got the point at this point, I doubt you will at all.

If you want to listen to a lecture with comedic input, about the morality around homosexuality, I suggest you check out this video that I watched just yesterday.






Well, I don't really think there's that much to add to this entry at this point, but please comment if you think of something.



I shall leave you with this:

I think it was Daniel Radcliffe (perhaps more known as the actor in the role of Harry Potter) who said something along the lines of: "You don't need to be gay to be a supporter, you just need to be human."


If there are any of you out there whom really think homosexuality is wrong, I have a bet, or a challenge for you.



Give me any argument against homosexuality that you think deserves attention, and I assure you, I am capable of confuting that argument, while providing 10 counterarguments.


And that, as they are so keen to say, is that.

Stress

Long story short:

There once was a blogger that hadn't written anything in nearly three weeks, and that blogger is me; the end.

Why haven't I written in so long? Several reasons. To begin with, I almost exclusively write during nighttime, not much unlike now. I actually meant to write an entry more than a week ago, but things came in the way! There was a horrible curse laid upon me; that, of being enchanted by a good book. So I finally finished reading "A Game of Thrones", which is the first book in the series called "A Song of Ice and Fire". I was totally spellbound by the book, and its evil genius kept me from writing. Not only that! It also kept me from sleeping much at all. Hence, when I finally finished reading the book, thus getting the time to write, I naturally developed a headache, and trust me; your first wish is not to write if you have a headache. I hate headaches. I even feel a headache creeping up on me right now. FUCK. I'll still finish this entry before going to sleep though.

Other than that, I finally felt like writing in my book for the first time in far too long (as you might have firgured out by now, of course, during nights [even with school the day there after = I'm a schmuck]). And yesterday and the day before that I simply didn't feel like writing (I usually refrain from doing something if I'm not in a mood for it). That pretty much sums it up.

I really should write more in my book, it's not like I'm not motivated to do so or anything, the opposite is much truer actually. I'm not entirely sure why I just don't do it, but it probably has strong relations to the topic of this entry; stress.

If you had already wondered what I was going to complain about in this post, the answer is simple; about the usual stuff. I always say I feel a certain lack of time, and it is beginning to become more apparent than ever. There are simply too many things taking place at the same time for me right now. Even if I would be blessed with the longest vacation ever, I wouldn't have time to do all the things I want to do, so all the extra stuff going on doesn't help at all!

For instance, right now we're (the music class in our school, including me) working on our final project; a musical that has to be finished in about a month. We have to write the script, learn and arrange the music, and learn to act, which as you must understand requires a lot of our spare time as well. Aside from this there're unusually great amounts of homework that is supposed to be done (emphasis on "supposed"). If I know my own best, I ought to begin reading for my matriculation exam in within a week, which will require enormous amounts of effort for a guy like me.

As if that wasn't enough, I got a job offer that will take a lot of time, also from my otherwise free time. I am supposed to accompany a choir on the piano. I'm not good at sight reading, which means I will have to learn the songs by heart at home, in a format that suits for others to sing to it (keep in mind that I'm usually a solo pianist). It's not like I don't want the job, but it couldn't have been offered to me at a much worse time. Before the planned, christmassy concert, we will practice the songs once a week, starting next week. Also, this "workplace" isn't really that close to where I live.

Those are some of the things I HAVE to do. The list of what I want to do, is infinite amounts larger.

I am also not known for being good at dealing with stress. Or well, I kinda am, but with consequences. If I become stressed, I usually rid of it by doing nothing at all, which works for me. Stress is one of my very worst enemies, and I hate it with all my soul. And by not doing anything, I mean that I mostly lie around surfing the interwebs for meaningless things I could do without; no productivity, no accomplishments, no nothing. The same goes if I am handed too many tasks; if I can't decide between them (and doing all of them is not an option), I tend to ignore all of them. Not the best course of action...

I really am worried for how I will be able to read for my exams with my mentality (and trust me, my mentality won't change). I'll probably read far too little, and try to bullshit my way through stuff. But to my knowledge, I'm not stupid; I think I'll manage to force myself to pull through. But I won't like it (first world problems, right?)

I realize that I'm spoiled, but think of this; to a spoiled person, doing something unpleasant can feel just as bad, as doing something drastically more unpleasant might feel for a person that is not spoiled at all.

In case you hadn't realized yet, this entry isn't really drawing towards a conclusion, nor is it going to suddenly turn into a blog entry worthy of your time, but since it is soon to be finished, you might as well read the rest.

I usually try to live for the now, and be as happy (and productive) as possible, but with the much requiring future this close, this becomes more difficult. Some people can use stress to accomplish things more effectively, but I am rarely able to do so. I don't enjoy doing stuff under stress, and if I don't enjoy doing something, chances are I won't do the thing in question very well.

Can you relate?

Anyway, enough of that; I grew weary of the subject (as have probably you done).

I actually finally laid my hands on a decent music program, but I haven't gotten the chance to try it out yet, nor will I for a while, I believe (If you don't know the reason, I recommend you start from the beginning and read this entire entry again). This pisses me of a bit. Sure, I could prioritize the programme and begin messing around with it, but these things really take a lot of time and dedication, so I reckon I'll wait for Christmas or so, before diving into a new world of music production (I really need to learn mixing and putting awesome musical pieces together in music programs in general).

Anyway, there is at least one thing I'm happy about at the moment.

For the first time in a while, I think I really outdid myself with a composition of mine, alas, I find it far too good to be posted here. At the moment, I think it might be the best song I've ever made so far, but I completed the composition less than five days ago, so I might just still be in a hype about it. What I think is so great about the piece, is that it's extremely unlike my usual music style; I'm still exploring very new areas.

That is also the only composition I've created as of late, so in all hurry I did something unusual for today's entry. For the first time in years, I tried out a simple online music making program to see what I could do. So in a pretty short amount of time, I created a 12 second long song. Impressive, right?...

The thing is, for some weird reason, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't save the thing online (I only got an error message). It also said I could download an mp4 of my piece being played by the program, but guess three times if it worked...

So I had to settle for downloading the mp3, and taking some screen captures of it all.

You can listen to the song at the usual place:

Ten Second Symphony (yourlisten.com)

I mean come on, the entire thing will take 20 seconds.

It's not that impressive nor is it that original, but I think it still sounds kind of fun.

Here are some screen caps.

So yeah. As you already have noticed (if you were observant), the programme is called "Notessimo", but this is actually Notessimo 2.

If you wish to actually see a more ambitious project (not done by me, but you can get a picture of how it would have looked like, had I been able to save my file online), you could always check out:

The Depths (by QVX & Clearwater Sapphire a.k.a. Clearblood Scarfire)

Yup. That about sums it up for this time. I hope you get to enjoy a long, stress-free period of life.

I'm out.

The System

I must bid you welcome to this blog, dear readers.

Once again, I do not really know what I should write about. Still, write I shall do.


The Matriculation Exams of this fall are over for my part, and the preliminary results of my tests have arrived. Sadly, I feel unpleased by the score I achieved, and quite greatly so. I had hoped to reach higher points in the foreign language exam, which is English. At this point, I would have to be extremely lucky to reach an 'L' -'Laudatur' - and many others would have to be unlucky, and suffer worse results than mine.

To my dismay, same goes for the test in "the other national language", in this case Finnish. I had hoped to score points worthy of an 'E', and I am again, barely on the verge of my wishes becoming reality. Of course, these were as I said only approximations of the real results, which will be revealed first in November, or so I believe. This means I could still score slightly higher, or on the counterpart, slightly lower. (This is what happens to my English when I read books... In this case, A Game of Thrones, which I have finally picked up reading).

Why so obsessed with getting high grades? You might ask yourself.
This is at least what I've been pondering upon for a while. My best guess is simply that the system has gotten the best of me. The system?


It's funny, now that society to a large extent is focused on "equality", all while it ironically is so competitive. This is true for the matriculation exams as well!

You see, there is no specific amount of points you need to obtain in order to get the highest score, you simply need to be in the 5 % of students with the best results. And all while the 5 % of the lowest scoring examinees are automatically marked as having failed the test completely, and will have to make another attempt later. This is to say, even if everyone would have done remarkably well in the test, one in twenty would still fail, and 1 out of twenty would get the highest score.

Not that that has an all too realistic possibility of happening, since there are always people that don't get all that great results. I'd say I'm on the lucky end of the spectrum; I tend to do quite well even with minimal effort.

I don't really know if I have any conclusion or point to arrive to...
I have just never liked tests, that's all... (Yes, I used 'that' after a comma. Deal with it).

I can stand school; the early awakenings, the time that you could have used otherwise, but I have never liked homework or having to practice for tests... To me they pretty much sum up the essence of brutally murdered motivation. On the other hand I understand that some people (especially younger ones) might have difficulty to learn things without a materialized test of knowledge to motivate them. It has just never been the thing for me...


My previously occurring example of why I don't like reading for exams at all, took place today. Or well, this past week.

You see, I didn't have any school at all during Wednesday to Friday, and thereafter I had the usual two day weekend. I had planned to get some stuff done during those days; compose some songs; write on this blog or in my book; get something useful done... But I didn't really feel motivated at all, for a simple reason... I knew that I would eventually have to practice some for my test in mathematics that I knew I would write today, this Monday. For some reason, this killed most of my motivation for all those five days, and I got nothing much done...

Normally, one might say that I'm only blaming the test, and that there is another reason behind my lack of inspiration. Well, I could think so too, hadn't this same cycle happened times upon times before. The real reason is that I hate stress. If I know that I'll eventually have to do something that I wouldn't really fancy doing, the mere thought can be enough to make my life momentarily dull. You might say that I don't handle stress all that well. On the other hand, I am effective during the very last time I have left before a test, for instance.

Yesterday night (the very first hours of today), I hadn't even begun to practice for my test. It was not before half past 1 am that I finally forced myself to read the course material. And during the next one and a half hour, I read nonstop, fully focused. I could understand mathematics in general better than usually, and I quickly knew exactly what I needed to practise. I didn't sleep much more than 4 h, but I think my test went quite well. And this is far from the first time this has happened. Out of all the twelve math courses, I'd guess that in around eight of them, this very same pattern is what has repeated itself.


But this system of constant trial isn't really for me. For the most part, I see to it that I do well in my courses, in all subjects, but I seldom feel that motivated to do so. It's just systematic. It's the way things are done, imprinted into my mind since fairly early childhood. I would rather focus on my true passions, than end up with a mediocre job, doing my average role for society. But in spite of my ranting, I realize that the world seldom works that way, things aren't always fair, and there needs to be a system for everything to be held together. All I'm saying is, the system is not flawless. Yet, noteworthy is that I am lacking in the field of solutions as well. I'm simply speaking my mind, without supplying anything more to the matter.

It would be nice to get a job that one actually enjoys. "A job you would gladly do for free is the perfect job to do for money", quote by me (might or might not be original)... I don't look forward to the next summer, even if I usually would. I know I will have to get some kind of a job, but most jobs provided by the city (and in general), are either shitty, or just not for me. We'll see what happens...




One thing I think is mentally retarded though, is the education in Finnish for the Swedish speaking population in Finland. It's not wrong that it exists, but the way that it is executed. Countless hours are spent upon trying to learn the already complicated grammar, and little to none time actually speaking the language, in comparison at least. You are forced to read boring and unmotivating things from stupid books (often with weird pictures/drawings of figures created by the most terrible of artists), and they have you learn unneccessary words that nobody uses. This might be slightly exaggerated, but sadly, not that much.


Wouldn't it be much simpler if all they did during Finnish class, was to actually communicate in Finnish...? You see, at a young age (especially under 3 years old, but also around 7-10) children are much more prone to actually learning new languages, and simply by being in an environment where it is used. There are a few people that have Swedish speaking parents that I know, even if they still manage quite well in Finnish.
So far, with no exceptions, the mentioned people have either been exposed to Finnish through daycare, or by doing different activities (like sports), together with only Finnish speaking people.

The grammar is not THAT important, not if it doesn't help you anyway. I know people that have spent more than 10 years in school, and they still can't form a sentence in Finnish. At best, they understand the language but cannot speak it. And it's not good to have to mentally go through 10 grammatical formulas for every word you wish to express; you should learn to hear what's right automatically. But they don't really teach you that in school...


Another thing that is slightly off is that your results in general (not only in Finnish courses anymore) are so dependent of which teacher you have... I could go into more detail, but I'm sure you know where this is going. I'm glad that we have pretty good teachers in our school, many whom genuinely care for your learning, just as it should be.




Why am I speaking of all this? I don't know. In retrospect I think this was quite a dumb and boring subject, but oh well. I'm not one to delete my accomplishments even if I could be prouder of them. My level of English tends not to stay the same if I have merely slept for around 4 hours...
Please pardon me for that ;)








Before this entry reaches its finishing point, it's music time.


I have yet again recorded one of my improvisations, and it turned out to be okay.

I thought I might as well post it here, because why not?



Nameless Improv (yourlisten.com)





And thus, yet another one of my blog posts reaches its inevitable end.

The Realm of Dreams

Last time I promised to write about dreams, so write about dreams I shall.

However, I'll make several posts on this topic, a bit like I did with hypnosis. But fret not, those of you who are not the least interested in dreams, since I probably won't make all these posts in a row. Still, do not decide not to read these entries just because of sheer lack of interest. This is your chance to learn something new about a subject that not that much is really known of, thus I urge you to read at least this introduction to dreams, even if I think the following parts will be even more interesting.

It may be that I should have researched more before writing this, but I think the memory of past information hunts will suffice.
There is a lot that could be said about dreams, but I think I'll stick to what might be perceived as interesting, for the most part.


It's a bit funny that no matter how hard scientists are trying to find out about the truths of the universe, we humans actually don't know all too much about our innermost selves. There are several theories, but neither psychologists nor other seekers of wisdom and knowledge know for certain what the purpose of dreaming is. One reason might be that there is a certain lack of trying to find out about it, compared to other areas. That said, there are still quite an amount of studies dedicated to dream research.

Dreams in general have intrigued the human species for quite some time now, and several different beliefs have been held about them. In ancient Greece and in Rome as well as in other places, it was not uncommon that dreams were thought to be visions, of differing kinds. Sometimes of the future, other times symbolic messages. Well, I'm not superstitious, but I admit that there is a certain mystique surrounding dreams, so I can understand why many still believe that dreams are links to other worlds.


Everything supernatural set aside, dreams are still very interesting. By now, most people know that everyone dreams, it's just that not everyone remembers their dreams. In most cases, that can quite painlessly be fixed, if one wants to. I'll get to that later.


People of differing kinds also tend to have different kinds of dreams. Your own personal dream realm is more or less unique to you. As of yet (unless you believe certain myths), dreams cannot really be shared, well, maybe the contents, but not the experience. I don't think that most of you realize just how realistic dreams might feel, and what paths that opens.

The blind do dream as well. Their dreams are, however, mostly consistent of what other senses would detect in real life. Just like you can't imagine a color you've never seen (well at least no color outside of the human color spectrum. It would be awesome if you'd discover a new color, like pink for instance, first when you are a teenager), I doubt that a blind man could imagine what it would be like to see. The dreams of those born blind are still said to be at least as vivid as the dreams of the seeing.

I've actually heard of a cool experiment that would be fun to try out, but it comes with a lot of cons. I've heard of people who have, for varying reasons, kept a blind day, week, or in the most extreme a blind month. Other than this altering your other senses and your experience of your surroundings, this also affects your dreams, or so I've heard (---the more you know---).

People of different gender and of different ages also have dreams that differ from one another. I'm not going to go into that side note any more than this, but more is to be found on the never ending interwebs.
Another interesting fact that I don't truly believe in (for reasons), is that every single face that you come across in the dream realm actually has a real counterpart IRL. This is to say, the murderer that infested your dream a few nights ago might be one of the million faces you've seen at some point in your life, maybe that one chick at the beach when you were traveling and which you do not consciously remember, or maybe a face you've seen ten years ago on TV. While it would be cool, I do not see what grounds this claim stands on, but I assure you, the myth does exist (---the more you know---).


On a more physical level, momentarily drifting away for more psychological aspects, when do dreams occur? Well, while you lie unconscious in your bed, you go through this one thing, researchers call the sleep cycle. In this cycle, as the name suggests, you go through several different stages of sleep. Depending on what you want to include in the cycle, you could go through stages like drowsiness and deep sleep (some people view drowsiness more as a preparation for sleep, than like an actual stage of it). However, one of these so called stages stands out more than any other, REM-sleep.

All the other stages are classified as N-REM sleep stages (Non-REM). What does REM stand for then? I'm sure many of you already know, but REM stands for Rapid Eye Movements. In this stage of sleep, your brain activity is very much alike that what it would be when you are wide awake. Also, during this stage of sleep, your eyes are literally rapidly moving under your eyelids. It is in this sleep stage, that dreams have the most common occurrences, and the dreams during the REM-sleep are in general remarkably more vivid; clear; real.

These cycles usually reset in ninety minute loops. And for every cycle, the amount of REM-sleep included grows. In the first cycles, you experience significantly more deep sleep than in the later ones. This is to say, the longer you sleep, the longer you dream. In average, a person dreams 6 years of his life, so why not make use of that? Think about it, six years you can (and will, whether you remember it or not) spend in another world, without the rules of physics, yet, as real feeling! It's not that easy, or it's impossible, you might say. Well, this is not so, for most people. And there are several approaches to largely affect your dreams, and what you remember of them. There are also multiple other reasons as to why you should at least think about it all.





Before I continue where I'm going, I'll have a short (edit: fail, long!) side section here.

I'm no Sigmund Freud (in actuality, I believe he might have as well been almost as mentally ill as some of his patients were, but I should remember he lived long ago, in a not as well educated reality as I live in). Many still think there is credit to his research about dreams. Well, in some ways I might agree, but not for the most part.

Even without any Godly intervention, many believe that dreams contain symbolic messages, and that these encrypted signs are readable. The thing is, I don't believe in an accurate dream dictionary, any more than I believe in astrology (please do note the difference between astrology and astronomy). Like horoscopes, dream dictionaries are designed to fit everyone, which is to say, generalized as fuck!

Even if some dreams could be messages from one's subconscious (which I believe is a valid possibility for several reasons. Wanna know why? Ask. It's not like faith, I really have come across reason to believe this might very well be plausible), there is no chance that there could exist a universal dictionary for dream symbols. Symbolism is extremely personal. If you are from the same culture, there is a slightly higher possibility that you might associate things similarly to one another, but reading dream interpretations should be taken with a pinch of salt.


This said, there are some dreams that have been documented to be much more occurrent (my version of occurring, not a real word) than others. Often these dreams are different types of nightmares. Like the very classical chase dream (which I can't recall ever having had).

But the most usual dream ever would have to be "the falling teeth" dream. Some of you may actually have experienced this sometime. Especially since it is often a frightening scenario (the likelihood of remembering a dream is heightened by a ridiculous extent if you wake up from that dream, and often, you'll wake up if you have a nightmare). I don't remember what this type of a dream is said to symbolize, but I have had probably around ten to twenty of these that I recall (which is not my reason for believing this is the most common dream type), the previous one having taken place less than a week ago. Often, you'll just do normal things, and then suddenly, maybe you hit one of your teeth very lightly, but still, you notice that the tooth you've hit is really loose. Also, you might look in the mirror and realize that your teeth are rotting (has not happened to me). Pretty much everything that revolves around teeth in a dream classifies as a tooth dream (no shit, Sherlock).

Luckily, I haven't had a real nightmare in at least seven years now, which you might find odd considering I just mentioned having one of these teeth dreams. Well, I don't really see things as nightmares unless I get frightened, or feel a great sense of discomfort. Naturally, me remembering around 2 separate dreams a night in average, I've had my share of less pleasant dreams, but nothing too bad. I seldom wake up glad that what I just experienced was only a dream, and that I'm happy for. It does happen though. But even if I experience horrible things in my dreams sometimes, I tend not to get frightened at all, while others have said themselves having been frightened to death by most trivial things in their dreams. Thanks subconscious! Your unconscious must have the power to alter the way you perceive things in dreams; otherwise this would not make sense at all!



Another thing I find extremely interesting is the relation between the physical realm and the dream realm. While you are dreaming, you haven't fully escaped the actual world. You can still hear things, feel things, and even see things, like a bright light through your eyelids if you are dreaming. This can even affect your dream. You've probably experienced this yourself sometime. You hear your stupid alarm clock, and for a while, you don't have an explanation for this in your dream, so your subconscious makes one up for you, maybe the church bells suddenly were ringing or something (I know they seldom sound the same, but remember, in the dream world this could be a perfectly valid explanation for the sound. It's just the subconscious mind trying to explain something that doesn't belong in the dream, so that you won't realize that you are dreaming).

It's not unusual that physical pain takes out its lot on the dreams too. I read one guy's writings about him having broken his leg (or something like that; paraphrasing as usually), and that he, because of feeling that pain in the dream, was limping through his entire dream (which wouldn't be that funny, I think). In my own experience, I once had a dream where I drank liters upon liters of water in my dream, only to end up waking up thirsty. I guess it was my dreams way of saying I should drink something. Also, a few weeks ago, a friend told me he had a weird dream where he experienced emesis. Our best guess as to the reason behind his vomit-filled dream was that he had a very sore throat. It seems like someone is always sick...


Did you know, while you sleep your whole body is practically paralyzed (aptly called: sleep paralysis). This is to prevent you from living out your dreams. Sleepwalkers have a disturbance in their sleep paralysis. Funny thing is, you can actually be awake while being in this state (ironic, I know). However, this is seldom a pleasant occurrence. You see, during sleep paralysis you might experience hypnogogic or hypnapompic phenomena (sleep paralysis while awake is one of these) like hallucinations. And unpleasant ones! I'll go deeper into this subject sometime, but here is a blog post (not of my making) describing a specific experience of "pavor nocturnus", a.k.a. night terror.






Anyhow, finally back to dream recall, which will be the final topic for this first real entry about dreams.


I do realize that most of you won't engage so much in dreaming that you'll take up writing a dream journal just because of this post. Still, I'm going to give you a few easy tips (seriously, no effort needed) that if followed, will guarantee you'll be able to reminisce a few dreams (at least some details), and quickly for that matter!


Two basic things. First, you need to set an intention (not that important later, but especially if you almost never remember dreams this is essential). Before you go to sleep, simply make up your mind and decide that you will remember at least one dream when you wake up. Now, there are far more advanced ways of approaching this, but I'm sure that really making up your mind will suffice. It helps to be honest though. Dreams often consist of things that have happened to you during your latest days, especially if something has an emphasis on it. If you are serious about your intent to remember your dreams, you'll certainly remember them.

The other thing is when you wake up in the morning (or why not in the middle of the night). Do. Not. Move. At first this might be difficult to remember right upon waking up (and do this on a weekend to begin with. Seriously, being woken up by an alarm clock will fuck up your dream recall in one way or another more often than not. If you don't automatically remember your dreams despite of the clock, leave it be 'til you need not be woken up by it).

Same thing goes for moving. Moving instantly upon waking up will distract your mind away from the dreams that might already be difficult to remember. So while laying still, try not to think of anything in particular for a moment. Trying to remember your dream too hard will also disturb the process more than help it. After lying still thinking of nothing for a few seconds or so, a small fragment of your dream should already begin to pop into your mind (especially if you woke up from a dream, otherwise it is still possible, but might take a bit more time). I you really can't remember anything after this, try very slowly returning to the very position you were sleeping in. Also, instead of trying to remember what you dreamed about, focus on how you are feeling. If you feel happy for no apparent reason, chances are you felt happy in your last dream as well. Try to catch up any small bit of any dream if you can. If you find the smallest of a piece of your dream, this might be a mental image, a feeling, or something you just know, think about it. After this, it is very, very likely that you'll begin to remember other fragments of your dreams, and after a while a lot of the dream can be tracked not much unlike a puzzle is built. However, most of the time, there will be missing pieces. Dreams are often jumpy, and put their emphasis on things far from eachother. Sometimes there is no smooth transition.

If none of this worked. Don't fret. Simply try again. Within three nights it is almost certain that you'll remember something (often already on the first try). Sometimes it takes a while for the intent to set in. If you keep doing this, it will be easier and easier to recall your dreams. You have around 6 dreams a night in average, and it is possible to remember everything, but nothing you should feel a need to strive for.



I would not be even close to as interested by dreams if it weren't for one last key factor. The promise, of everything you could imagine; the real prize of the bargain.


Some of you might have experienced this (especially usual with children), but there is one type of dream, one that really makes all the difference. There is an awesome thing called "Lucid Dreaming".

This is, essentially, being aware in a dream that you are dreaming. It is possible to gain full control of your lucid dreams. If you're not a natural, it's still doable by practice, but at the moment it takes slightly more devotion than I am willing to pay. But I've come a long road (I've probably had hundreds of lucid dreams, even though I at the moment remember only thirty or so, last one having occurred yesterday night). Whenever I get more time and motivation I'll focus even more on my intention. I have not experienced a dream where I had full control since I was a child (as I said, children tend to have more lucid dreams [there are different stages of lucidity]), but I know a ridiculous amount about dreaming anyway; in psychology, my area of expertise is hypnosis and dreaming (not professionally...). But even if I know quite some about hypnosis, it is not comparable to what I know about dreaming.

If you have any dream related question, I'll gladly answer it. In the rare case that I don't know the answer, I know the very best places to look it up (unless it has to do with dream history, in which case you are probably on your own with Google).






The next part of this dream exploring series will be focused upon lucid dreaming, and there will probably be several different entries discussing this. But as I said, probably not in a row.






I know I've written a long post once again (my second longest, actually), so I beg your pardon for that. This introduction is probably messy as hell, but you'll get over it. You always do.

'Til next time!







Music time.

I actually composed a short song specifically for this entry (instead of writing it), the night between Wednesday and Thursday.

It should have been recorded in a more proper manner, but you know me...

I intentionally mimicked certain elements of some compositions featured in Final Fantasy 7, so that and this post to honor, I named it:


Dream Fantasy

Mortality

Everything dies.

At least this is true for all that has come to live, as far as we know. Exactly when each living thing dies is a different matter, but eventually, all that now flourishes with life, will wither into nonexistence. I've probably mentioned this in an earlier entry as well, if I recall correctly. But since the thought still seems to linger in my mind, I might as well write it off properly once and for all.

For some of us, thinking about the eventual death of living things can be quite depressing, for others it seems more casual; some people fear death, others accept it as a part of life, which sounds a bit ironic when you think about it.

In death, what is there to fear? Why are so many afraid of dying? The list of reasons can be endless...

For many, however, I believe that the dread is born from the unknown, as with many other things. Although you may have a general idea, do you really know what's going to happen when you die? It can be difficult to know for sure, and even if you think you do, there's always at least a small fragment of a possibility that you might be wrong.

And even worse, what if you stay alive but the ones you love die? Not a pleasant thought. But would you rather die with them?


All these things together, are some of the core reasons (I believe), as to why many choose to be religious. There is a multitude of other reasons as well of course, but I think the fear of death has had a huge impact on the prevalence of beliefs.

I understand that there is a certain comfort in believing that when the people you care about die, they are off to a better place, not to speak of what will happen to yourself after you've lived out on this life.

On the counterpart, there's the belief in hell as well... This one, I don't understand as much. I guess that mankind has simply generally thought that punishment equals great justice. I don't know... To me it seems like religions often are filled with loads upon loads of different stuff that is directed to different kinds of people, in order to motivate as many people as possible to believe what they say (which makes sense if you think about how few extreme fundamentalists there are, compared to the groups that nitpick only the parts that they like). It's almost as if they were huge self-marketing campaigns.


Back to topic, death, or more accurately, being susceptible to it.

Why do creatures live and die in the first place?

People tend to ask, what is the meaning of life? But maybe the question we should ask ourselves is "what is the meaning of death?"


I don't think there are all too many good answers out there. Might be that death is just one of those things that coincidentally happen to be there whether you like it or not. Maybe, the question doesn't need an answer, but pondering upon it shouldn't hurt you all that much.


As with everything, death comes with both good and bad sides, although many often focus more on the bad ones. Parents don't always know how to explain the death of for instance a pet or so to their small children. "They don't yet understand death," they might say. But I wonder if anyone really understands it. Alike several other phenomena, I think that what lies after life is beyond human comprehension.

The way we see the world is just an inaccurate reflection created by our senses. Logic is just a fallible tool, used for trying to explain things, which means that there must be multiple things that the human mind simply cannot wrap itself around. Many claim that humankind will never be able to fully comprehend such things as infinity, or a real "nothing". If this is really the case, I don't think humans could be said to fully comprehend death either.




I'm still young, so at least to me death still feels unrealistically distant, but I know that it's there waiting, lurking somewhere, with an astounding patience. Still, I don't even know if I fear death, myself. I think I would have to be put into a situation where getting a realistic answer was forced out of my core, in order to really know; "you never really know until you experience it," I've heard some people say.



But instead of thinking about how one should face death, how should you deal with life? Especially since you know that it'll end with death.

There are billions of approaches to this, as there are billions of lives. At this point, I don't think there is really a 'correct' way. I want to quote a character from a manga though. "You should live your life so that you don't regret it when it comes to a close". Well, I strongly doubt that that manga was the first place where a similar thing was said, but I don't think that makes the quote lose any ground.

It's probably not all that uncommon that people realize what a waste their life has been, only when it's too late. Or at least they might feel that way. It's rare that any single individual's life would make such a big impact on the universe anyway, if you don't count with the potential butterfly effect.

But what I was trying to say was, most people are bound by these untold rules, created by culture, social lives, and many other things. Now, there's not necessarily anything wrong with that. But as a man dependent on creativity, productivity and variation in general, if I'm not to go crazy, it's dangerous to bind myself to too many patterns. Still, I tend to forget this when it's important not to. It's not as dramatic as I may be making it sound though. What I mean is, as superficial as these untold rules might be, it can be difficult to break them, depending on the circumstances.

But you've probably heard stories of people that have been diagnosed with terminal diseases, and that they've only then realized how silly everything around them really is. The perspective has been changed. You could always watch Breaking Bad or something if you don't understand what I'm trying to say.


There are also the people that want to accomplish a certain list of stuff before they die, and they sometimes do.





The real reason as to why I'm writing a post like doesn't really have all that much to do with death, more with being in a standstill in my life, I'd guess. I need to make something happen, before I miss the chance.


I really wish that I had more time...

I'll get more time when I'm old (although the age of retirement will probably be around 135 years at the time I've grown elderly), but I don't want it then, I want it now! I want the extra spare time to really get enough out of life as long as I still can! Sadly, things seldom work that way.

I don't even think that my usual laziness would get the best of me if I just had enough time. I usually need a lot of time to get started, but when I have begun I usually really get things done.


But as I said, I've been doing nothing for too long now, in my opinion. The summer feel hasn't really left me yet, even if I've already been in school for more than a month (It's funny, but if you read a post I made just at the start of summer I was pretty much complaining about the same stuff).

And although I have played as much piano as usual, I haven't really gotten all that much done music wise, sadly. Same goes for writing on my book, which I haven't done in ages now! There's so much I want to do (a list would be longer than all my blog posts together), but I tend not to even get started!

I should really get a grip on myself.


How does this relate to the subject of mortality? It has more to do with time. The time that is left.

I really only have two main goals in life. One is to have as much fun as possible, since that's about the most you can get out of life. And the other is to be very productive, in various ways, since that's about the most you can make out of life.


I don't really know why, but I really feel like I should be productive, especially if this includes some kind of art form. I might have only played the piano for a bit more than four and a half years, but my quest for productivity didn't start there. It has always been a calling of mine. Most people don't know this, but for a very long time of my childhood, I wanted to become either a professional football player (soccer for you Americans out there), or an artist (at that time, a painter). I didn't really have any skills in any of those two areas, but you know, childhood dreams and all. If I really tried though, I think I might still make a mediocre artist, what I lack is practice, most of all.

But what I would really want to work with is of course music. That would be my dream job right now. Either that or I could become an author. Both career choices are much dependant on luck though, and they require both risk and determination. And time.



One last thing about dying.

It's not unusual to hear people say that you never really die, until you are completely forgotten. And in many ways, I think that hits just the spot. Your consciousness might not be part of this world any longer after the death of your body, but the difference it makes is only a difference to you, really. Other peoples perceptions of you is, and has always been a profile portrayed in their minds, and it will continue to be so even after your death, until eventually, you are completely forgotten. Not the least depressing, right? ...


But hey! The more productive you are, the more you affect your surroundings, the more you leave behind after you're gone, the longer you will live, according to that definition. And no matter how small it might seem to be, the impact each individual has on the universe is still significant, in many ways.





Speaking of leaving things behind, I don't have any music for this post. I don't have any remotely good art piece either, but I have a weird thing called an Ex Libris that I made during art class in school.

It's a kind of a thing that you usually print in a book that you own, to indicate just that; that it's indeed your book. An Ex Libris is supposed to have some personal symbolic relation to your life, to yourself. But being me, I didn't take that task all that seriously. Still, here it is.

As usually, perfectly optimized ;) (without a single trace of sarcasm...).


I don't really understand this one myself either. I have no idea what those numbers or those line illusions are, I just put them there to fill out space.


Well, I see that this turned out to be one of those really random and messy blog posts of mine. I hope that you were able to get something out of it still though.





Well, speaking about one's core, and about symbolics. In my next entry, I will write about dreaming. I seriously have to make an official announcement about that, or I would never get it done. I happen to know quite an amount about dreaming, and even if you find the subject boring and superficial, I plead you to reconsider. Dreaming might have a lot more to it than you think.

The Darkness

Well, I don't really know what I should write about this time, so I think I'll settle for improvising a random story, or some other kind of messy scripture (it probably won't make much sense), for fun. Let's see what horrible kind of fiction we'll end up with... (Music mode: on).













This tale begins alike many others, a long time ago, in a distant, dark place. As far as everyone knew, the mentioned place had always been surrounded by darkness. No one really knew why anymore, but there had to be a reason, right? At least that is what a young traveller named Lucis Quaesitor thought.

The now almost grown up boy had heard of this lightless part of the world already when he had been a small kid. Many upon many a tale had been told, and sometimes even sung about this place. Of course, the place had to have a name. And it naturally had to be a name as twisted as the area itself. No one really knew what the dark lands had initially been called, but at some time a name had emerged, the palce was called Extortus.

Legend goes that Exortus means something very dismal in an ancient, forever forgotten language. Lucis had travelled very far from home - too far, some might argue - and was now on the brim between daylight and dakness; he had reached Exortus. He had been warned by many, them saying that under no circumstances should he enter the darkness before him. Stubborn as Lucis was, he had ignored anyone that had tried to convince him from going in to the place that lacked light.

Apart from being a traveller, Lucis liked to perceive himself as an explorer. "The Explorer of Exortus"... The title clanged well inside the head of the boy. The brave explorer, willing to take to drastic measures in order to find out about the truth behid ancient secrets.

Lucis had travelled to Exortus on foot, since no animal would dare go near the place, but that didn't scare the unfearing explorer, why would it? The darkness could easily be seen from miles away. It looked like a gigantic, gloomy cloud that had for some reason decided to stick to a single area. The interesting thing was that the cloudy darkness woudn't move at all. It was located in the middle of a relatively small desert, and one could occasionally see sand flying around the air, with the wind, but the bleak mist remained immobile.

There were several myths about people that had entered the darkness before Lucis had, but the stories didn't turn out the way you'd expect them to. Usually in these kinds of legends, the people that had entered the fog would have never returned, at least not alive, or in the best case scenario, they would return mentally ill. No, the stories were of a different kind indeed. Not only would most of the people that had entered the darkness returned, but they had come back as something more than they used to be. They were said to have gained the power and the knowledge of the ancients.

Lucis had never really understood why people were so fearful of this place. It's not that much unlike being scared of the dark. And dreading the unknown is supposed to be a bad thing, right? Lucis had stood waiting at the edge between reality and the unexplainable long enough in his opinion. It's not like he had been doubting his intention. There question had never been between Lucis entering or not, so enter he did.

Lucis took his first step into the dark mist, and just as he had expected, he wasn't able to see anything. He had been prepared for this possibility, though only mentally, this is to say, Lucis hadn't brought a source of light. What was more unexpected, was that the fog didn't feel like anything at all. You'd think that the cloudy substance would feel cold or so towards the skin, but it's like it didn't even exist, except in his own mind. at least, this was the case at first...

As Lucis proceeded navigating blindly through the mist, he began feeling a certain weight on his shoulders. He soon came to realize that the further he went into the darkness, the more exhausting continuing became. This made him wonder if going back would give him more energy instead, but he didn't have time for trying. Actually, Lucis had all the time in the world, the real reason as to why he wanted to continue deeper into the darkness was that there was some kind of a drawing force, a force that wouldn't allow him to go back. Whether that was just an imagination, or reality was unclear to our hero.

So as it was, Lucis simply kept on walking, and walking, for what seemed like eternity, or if possible even longer. Lucis had entirely lost grip of the time. He could have been inside of the cloud for minutes, as well as he could have been in it for days. It was at this point that Lucis realized that something odd must be occurring. Not being able to see the difference between minutes and days is not normal even in times of severe confusion. This darkness was surely keeping a mysterious force within it.

Lucis couldn't recall having been this tired ever before in the time of his life. At some point, he began crawling insted for walking, and he felt dry as sand, both on the inside of his body, as on the outside. Still, this was no normal lack of humidity. As dry as he felt, Lucis didn't really feel a real craving for liquid. However, he felt like he was about to faint.

Just as the light was about do disappear form his eyes - well, it would, hadn't everything around him been pitch black already -, light began to appear around him. In an instant, Lucis had ragained part of his lost energy. Yet, he was even more confounded than earlier.

As his eyes slowly began to adapt to the light, Lucis was able to make out some shapes around him. His best guess was that he had managed to reach the eye of the mist; the center of the darkness. Still, he was surrounded by the dark, there was simply a small area, with a radius of maybe 5 meters that vas visible around Lucis. He couldn't see anything but darkness if he looked straight upwards, and although there was light, there seemed to be no source of it, thus there were no additinonal shadows, apart from the darkness surrounding Lucis. The setup was to say the least, unsettling.

There seemed to be a large object, in the very centre of the center. As he became able to see more and more, Lucis began to see a certain movement in the object. Brave as he was, this still managed to scare Lucius beyond comprehenshion. It took several seconds for him to realize that what had moved, had been himself. That's right, in the very middle of it all, was for no apparent reason, a gigantic mirror. The dark figure that had moved had been nothing but a reflection of himself. Or this is what Lucis at first thought...

Upon studing the mirror more closely, Lucis noticed something that made his heart bumb across his chest... The reflection didn't move similarly to Lucis, but it seemed to move however it itself wanted to. Another odd thing was that the reflection lacked color, it was simply a dark shadow, with the same proportions as lucis.

Lucis gathered all the courage he had left, and tried talking to the mirror.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"


At first, there was no answer. It was not before this point that Lucis began to think that entering the dark mist mightn't have been the brightest ide that he'd had. He didn't have time to think much else, since upon that followed the reflections answer.

"Why do you think that I, the one who led you here, could not have heard you. I have waited for someone new to appear here for more than a century".


Lucis heart was now pumping blood through his veins at speeds he hadn't before thought were possible.

"Who are you then?", asked Lucis.


"I, am the very last of a species that your people call the ancients", replied the shadow in the mirror.


This was something that Lucis Quaesitor had never been able to believe no matter who would had told him. He wasn't even afraid anymore, simply astonished.

"An ancient still alive? Why that is magnificent news! There's so much that I wish to know, and you if anyone should be able to give me the answers!"


There was a slight pause, almost like the ancient took a moment to think.

"So it is wisdom that you seek?"


"Yes! Yes, it is! I wish to gain knowledge of so many things. For instance, is it true that people have stepped into this place earlier, and that they've returned more glorious than ever?"


The shady reflection let out a weird sound, and it sounded almost as though it was laughing.

"In a way, I guess you could say so. Is this something that you wish for yourself?"


"Oh please! That would be an honor!", answered Lucis, too into the moment to realize what he was getting into.

"Thank you, permisson was all that I needed", said the ancient.



Suddenly, everything around Lucis began to twist and turn, his whole reality being turned upside down. It felt almost like travelig at an extremely high speed. Then, everything became black.











At first, when Lucis awoke, he thought he was back in the darkness. He figured that he was probably supposed to walk away the same way that he came from. the problem was that Lucis had no sense of direction at this point. But if he just kept walkin forward in a straight line, he should eventually be able to exit the darkness. The weird thing was that Lucis didn't really feel any different. The ancient had promised him new powers, but he couldn't feel any of them.

This time, the walk was easy, and it didn't take too long for Lucis to reach something, it was what he reached that was terrifying. He began to see some stripes of light in front of him, and he walked towards them. Suddenly, he came to a stop. Not because he wanted to, but because he hit something seemingly invisible.

As he recovered from the slight blow, he saw something very unpleasing. He was staring back into the centre of the black fog! It was only now that he realized, this time, Lucis was on the other side of the mirror.

Lucis tried running back, but after only a few steps, he hit another invisible wall, the same happened with the two other dirsctions. Lucis heart dropped when he realized that he was fully stuck; unable make an escape anywhere. And right as he began wondering why this was, he looked down.

Written there, with a large red text, there simply stood:

"Thank you for this new vessel".







What Lucis never realized, was that the people whom had returned from the darkness as something more than themselves, were not themselves anymore.

Never enter the darkness.

























Okay, so that was my very weird and messy story, fully improvised in less than two hours. It will probably be full of grammatical errors, and other faults, but I think I'll refrain from correcting them; that would be tampering with the improvisation!!! (you got me, I'm lazy)...

I'm utterly sorry if I managed to bore you to death with this über-weird story thingy.

still, I'd be happy if you made some kind of a comment about it!






Now, it's time for music!


I wrote a short (40 sec) fanfare a bit more than a week ago. I'm planning on making it longer and better at some point, but if that ever happens remains to be seen. However, you can listen to the current version here:


Fanfareium (yourlisten.com).



It contains several high notes, with instruments that are not supposed to play that high notes... So some of you mightn't like it for that. Otherwise I think it sounds quite funny :P





That will be all for tonight.

Remember: whatever happens, you should under no circumstances enter the darkness.

Imagination

Well, this post shouldn't turn out to be that long; if for nothing else, I don't have that much time for writing right now (edit: long enough...).


Imagination. Without it, humanity wouldn't be worth much. The ability of imagining is essential for several human features, such as planning, creativity, or thinking in general. To be able to process information in your mind, and even make up new possibilities that exist solely in our minds is just astounding to me. Imagining can be a way to prepare for the future, trying to think of what might happen and how to deal with that.


Aside for that, Imagining can at times fill in otherwise empty time. If you've got nothing better to do, you might every now and then find yourself thinking of pretty much random stuff, maybe even day dreaming. Fun fact, day dreaming is actually a real type of dream. This is to say, while you're day dreaming, the activity of your brain noticeably changes. It's also possible to suddenly snap out of a day dream. What I mean is, you might have gotten so into your thinking that you've almost forgot where you were and what you were doing for a while, until you realize that you were inside your own thoughts for a moment. I really should make more entries about dreaming. At least for some of you that might be quite interesting reads.


Anyway, to imagine, is important. Many people say that their imagination was so much better when they were children. In a way, I can see what they mean. On the other hand, I don't feel that way myself. I'd say that the way I imagined things was just different. It's a given that I could live into things more. Frankly, I believe this was simply because I was much less intelligent when I was a small child. You didn't understand the world the way that you do now. Most children under 10 (approximately) don't even possess the ability to philosophize properly; their brains have simply not developed enough for that to be a possibility before a certain maturity. But it's just because of that that I was able to focus so well and live into my fantasies like I can't do now; I wasn't automatically forced to see more of the overall picture, I needed but to see what I wanted to and thought was fun. I guess that's part of the reason as to why children are often called so innocent; you can't really have them take too much responsibility!


All the movies I watched, all the games I played, they seemed so much more important back then. You can't really play a game and experience it the same way you did when you were little, the big eyes watching full of wonder when you for the first time played an amazing game on a console of any kind. Of course, there's always nostalgia, or otherwise just remembering the experience, but at least for me, it never gets to be the same. They say children are easy to influence, and I guess that in many cases that is true.

Role playing was also much, much easier when I was a child. I did it long before I even knew what RPG's were, I think most children do. Often, it's simply what children do when they are playing. For a parent, it might seem like the children are just randomly running around the garden, but in reality, the kids are living in a fantasy world, running around slaying beasts, or whatever. Of course that is very generalized. For instance girls usually have other ways of playing, let's say with dolls, but that's pretty much role playing all the same. I hope that you can relate.

Be wary though. One often glorifies nostalgic memories and puts them on a pedestal, making them out to be more than what they were. But there's really not much harm to that. I guess it's one way of coping with getting older. As I said, there's nothing wrong with my imagination now, it's simply different. Sometimes though, I wish I could for once forget everything else, and in a childish way run across the streets outside playing like a maniac. If I get old enough, maybe I'll get demented enough to do that, but it's not really something I'm looking forward to.


As to having a wild imagination, I think I've still got it. Children often draw weird pictures and everyone's like "Would you look at that! A rainbow colored fish with legs, who would have thought of that if not our smart little Billy here! I'm sure he'll grow up to be a doctor!"

Well, in that case, I'm sorry to break it to you, but anyone could think of that... It's not really that difficult. I'll prove it to you! (The sad ironic reality is that the drawings I drew aren't that much better than a small child would draw them...).

Well, I guess it's a bit brutal, but I'd say it's still at least as imaginative as a child's drawing would be. This is what happens when I have religion class at school. However, the picture isn't smart in any way, it's simply random. Well, I guess you could claim it combines the symbolic of the sacrifice with that of the fish (Ichthys), but that is a bit farfetched.

Well, I drew this picture during the same course as well... I saw that some people had had to draw the way they saw God (thus funnily enough going against the second commandment, I think) during a different course, and I wanted to give it a shot, and this is how it turned out (It's naturally, only drawn as a joke). The other pictures had been hung up on the wall, so I secretly put mine there as well.





I've drawn one more picture lately (apart from art class, from which stuff might end up on this blog later), but it's not yet done.

It's a slightly more serious picture. It's basically perspective training, since my brain (or rather, I) absolutely sucks when it comes to perspectives, as many could see from just watching this picture. But it's okay; it can be quite cool when things defy the laws of physics in drawings sometimes, hence making things more abstract. That stem that can be seen through the closest plant-thingy is however, momentary. I tried to visualize the base behind it... This will be the first picture in my new dream journal. In my earlier entries I've posted some old ones.











Well, that was all for now. I hope that you'll have a good day, and I imagine you will ;)