Hate

I'm supposed to try to stop hating myself, but it's so hard. There is a lake of it inside me. I don't hate people very often, and usually when I do it's because I think they are pathetic. And I see that same type of pathicness in me.. Actually, I've heard we tend to hate in others what we hate in ourselves, so I suppose it's my patheticness in them. There's no double standard to abolish or anything like that, although I do have some of those, I just legitimately hate a lot about myself. Most of myself, now that I think about it.

It's so strong right now. The root of my problems is just something so STUPID. Something no one else seems to have problems with. I'm unable to get motivation to do anything that looks like work. Some of that is because of stress from self-hate and anticipation of failure, but I simply don't know how to make myself do something when I don't want to. If I take away everything but it, I will simply do nothing and worry over it. I neglect cleaning, washing, proper eating, friendships, and more and  get failure for my problems.

But if I don't put in my my hours of hate and pain then I don't even have a shadow to hide behind for my failure. At least I sort of tried even though I may not have written two words. Of course, I won't say that, it's just for myself. For other people, my first option is always to hide. I didn't even know I had walls until recently. I hate myself so much that I can't imagine anyone who truly knows me would like me. Normally I don't mind if someone doesn't like me, but that expression-twisting of the mouth in disgust- that hurts me.

Ok, I just sent an email to my brother. I'm probably going to regret this in the morning. No, I AM going to regret this in the morning. Whatever. Here it is :

This is stupid and I shouldn't be doing it. But I'm feeling shitty and
spiteful right now, and I'm trying to stop hiding my emotions. So
there's this.

I'm here to address what you said so often when we were growing up and
you hurt me. "You'll thank me later". Yeah, that's never going to happen.

I'm going to therapy now for my self-hate. It turns out that's the root
of all my problems, and I have quite a few. There is just so much of it
in me. Before I went to therapy it never really registered how MUCH of
it there was, or that it was unhealthy. It's been part of me almost my
entire life. I don't remember when I was a kid very well, but at least
by the beginning of middle school it was flourishing. Part of it came
from NLD, which made people think I was smart but lazy. I internalized
that and decided it was better to fail on purpose than to try and still
fail. A sort of loser perfectionism. You probably didn't have much to do
with that.

What you did do was eternally erode my confidence, teach me to lie, and
teach me to hide my true feelings behind ever-thicker walls to avoid the
ridicule and that damn "are you serious" face. You did that very well;
there is still no one who knows how to read me. Ariel is a freaking
empath and I'm one of only a few people she's ever met that she can't
read. You abused me and told me it was because I was a wimp, that it was
good for me and would toughen me up. I learned being in control made
things hurt less. To stay in control I put on a fool's face and showed
only fake emotion; I brought the mentality that it was better to fail on
purpose than not to my social life. I didn't have any meaningful
relationships between 6th grade and 11th grade. I got better at hiding
any "unacceptable" emotions as I went. I don't know when I started not
crying, but I'd place it at about the start of middle school as well. It
wasn't until this year that the cracks opened enough for me to do it again.

My life didn't really ever start until you were out of it. I stagnated
for years and years with only minor changes, but when you left I finally
started to grow into myself. Grade 12 felt like the best year of my life
because I finally began to rebuild my confidence and gain emotional
bonds. For the first time in many years I began to think more positively
about the future: I who had been passively suicidal for years decided to
try and go to University instead. When I went to STU and became
depressed I did not even consider sharing my situation until I had no
other choice and it would be revealed anyway. I did not feel safe. I
could see the disbelief in all of your eyes. I could feel the coming
conversations telling me to stop being lazy and to suck it up. So I
armed myself with a doctor's signature. It was more than you that made
me feel that way, but you had a big impact. Because of you, I always
feel alone. Because of you, the mere thought of someone truly knowing
me and my thoughts sends bubbles of panic through me.

You are probably the person who has had the greatest impact on my life.
I hated you, but I wanted your approval like nothing else. I needed it
to make me worth something again. It sickens me now. You've changed.
I've changed. But just seeing you makes me start building the walls up
again, makes me feel LESS. When you spoke about living together I felt
nothing less than fear.

So yeah, thanks a lot.

Guilt

There is so much that I should do that I don't. I feel like a terrible friend, roommate, family member, student, coworker, and basically everything else. I've let friendships die because I couldn't let myself go and have fun while I had stuff to do- but that stuff never got done. That happens a lot, I'll deny myself pleasure or have pleasure dulled to get myself to do something but it doesn't happen. I just sit in my room rotting instead. No matter what I take away from myself nothing happens. But the only other thing I know how to do is to ignore the problems. I have no tools in my toolbox for actually getting things done. I don't have a clue where to start.

So what's up with me?

I'm currently in therapy trying to deal with my self-hate. Until I was persuaded to go I did not realize how pervasive or poisonous it is. From the seeds of those sessions, the effect of my relationship with Ari, and the influence of some great stories, I've started to grow a greater understanding of myself and emotions in general. It's not exactly easy, and I'm currently trying to climb out of a self-hate laziness spiral my schoolwork has started to go down. But for the first time in a long time I have a reason to believe I won't just disappoint myself again, and it's nice.

One of my problems is that I need so much time to recharge. Time to myself with a computer or a book just doing something that doesn't matter. I need to "waste time" every day or I go crazy. I think it's just stress I don't know to handle. It's easier to ignore stress when I don't try to solve it's causes.

Something weird: I'd noticed it before, but I move my scalp muscles a lot. Like, in subtle ways as a sort of physical analogue to what I'm thinking/feeling. I think my headaches come from that to a large degree, because when I'm stressed and I pay attention to those muscles they're always pretty tense. I used to say I didn't get stressed, and it was mostly true. But failing and self-hating made me start.

I need to learn to smile and laugh more. Maybe because I feel my laziness so keenly, there's always an undertone of "I'm wasting time and being immature and hateful" when I'm having fun. Or doing anything that's not working productively.

Ok, I have to actually work on that schoolwork about now. I thought this would be more summary and less random shit. More at some point.

Important Things

Yeah, I really doubt anyone still reads this. I was kind of surprised anyone ever really did, and not posting/posting things that I doubt many other people care about certainly didn't bring people in. It doesn't matter much. Rants aren't really my thing anymore, I can't work up the energy. I'm thinking about starting to use this more again now for things that have more to do with me and my emotions/experiences, but I may let that fall through depending. It would be nice to get myself in the habit of being open here to help tear down my emotional walls, but it might just be tiring. TANGENT: I find it odd that I never seem to see anyone else making plans they don't care about the success of.

 I'm much more certain, however, in the future of this blog serving as a sort of archive for things that were important to me at a given time. So I've been collecting links. Honestly it's kind of dumb to talk about an archive and then use a whole bunch of links that will probably decay within a couple years as the base of it, but I'll put some thought into how to back stuff up later. Maybe I can just use links if the WayBack machine or something is capable of retrieving the information.

I meant to sort through all these and write summaries like last time, but there are a lot of them. I think next time I'll write the post incrementally as I accumulate links.

Important things-

 

We're watching: malls track shopper's cell phone signals to gather marketing data
 

Getting Ready For When The Industry Tries To Kill 3D Printers | Techdirt

http://i.imgur.com/8ubzj.jpg
 

Feminist Porn: Sex, Consent, and Getting Off
 

Letters of Note: To My Old Master
 

Jonathan Coulton
 

Indiana Senate passes bill putting religion in science class
 

The Shadow Banking System: A Web of Financial Fraud | Common Dreams
 

One Nation, Under Guard | Techdirt
 

Joshua Klein on the intelligence of crows | Video on TED.com
 

SkepticsvRealistsv3.gif (GIF Image, 813 × 555 pixels)

Prince Charles presents proof of profit in sustainable fisheries | Environment | guardian.co.uk

http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/AmilImani60417.htm

Islam is as Islam does
          ...I'm glad I caught this. I don't agree with all of these. This link is     here because I think it's horrible and people should know that this kind of thinking exists and is influencing people. There's probably others like this.

With its deadly drones, the US is fighting a coward's war | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

Benefit cuts are fuelling abuse of disabled people, say charities | Society | The Guardian

Canada’s C-11 Bill and the Hazards of Digital Locks Provisions | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Slavery Lives on in the United States | Truthout

2011 Green Party Platform - True Democracy | Green Party of Canada

BBC News - The man who hears colour
 

It's Official: Money Now Governs America | Common Dreams
 

When Does Violence Matter? | Common Dreams


A lot of these are about the states. There are two reasons for this: I haven't found many local news sources I like, and they're a big bully that doesn't mind pushing it's views on others so it's hard to ignore them.

Disclaimer: these are by no means all the things I found to be important recently. They're just things I felt like sharing as I read them. 

November's Monthly Picks.

I've started to gather links to truly important things on the Internet that I find. I'm going to post about them once a month. I got bored of the daily lists.



The first is about copyright and the Internet. I'm sure if you've been on the internet much at all you understand that this is a big deal to a lot of people. There are some good reasons for that. See The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Free, In case you're still not convinced, have a history of the Entertainment Industry overreacting.



Next is for fools like me who thought sexism was an old faded thing with only a few scraps left on its corpse. Sexual internet abuse, often without even the courtesy of being truly anonymous, is thriving. See On Blogging, Threats, and Silence.



The next one is a little weird. It's a post from the growing movement of people who don't use soap(except on their hands) or shampoo. It makes sense when you look into it. Soaps are detergents that wipe out all the oils in your skin. Your skin needs oils. Your body adapts, and produces more oils, so if you don't use it for a couple days you have too many. I've started doing this myself. See I’ve given up using soap & shampoo forever.



I've been learning a lot lately about how to manage personal finances. I thought this was a good example of important stuff people don't think about because it's so easy to follow. See cost-of-commuting.



The next is written by someone that seems a little sketchy, but the story he tells seems inspirational to me. I've always had an instinct to escape the grid. The world IS insane, most jobs are just make-work to include people in the economic process. Our current system needs inefficiency to work, and I dislike inefficiency. See How to Drop Out.

 The site for this article is down as I write this, but it's an insightful work about population, inspired by the world population reaching 7 Billion this month. Too many humans.



Biased news reports, economic revolution, Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not.

Another financial post. Ariel has been mad over my adoption of the cost-per-calorie unit. It's useful though. Learn to start Grocery Shopping With Your Middle Finger. 



This is sort of a financial post, but for me it's more of an “OMG I love learning about construction, why the hell don't I BUILD things more often!?” type of post. See  What is Thermal Mass and How can it Make you Money?



Apparently Noam Chomsky is kind of insane, but I found this to be a wonderful piece on the Occupy movement. See Noam Chomsky Speaks to Occupy.



Google Advanced Operators (Cheat Sheet) is useful to everyone that ever wants to find information on the internet. A minority, I'm sure



How To Repair a Headphone Cable is a good DIY article for a problem we all have, eventually.



My last post might just be the coolest. For me, anyway. As a technophile and anti-capitalist, I have some conflicting interests. I want to support great content on the web, but I can't stand ads(and usually have no interest in buying merch). There exists technology to tell if an ad has been loaded, and adblockers directly impact how much money a content-provider makes. I run an adblocker anyway. I wanted an alternative to ads to make a better, less commercial Internet. I found one. Flattr uses embedded buttons in sites, like Facebook likes, to automatically split money between sites whose content you liked. Just pay a bit, and every month your money goes out to support great content.

Lists!

Lists!

Reasons I Hate Windows:
1: asking permission a stupid number of times
2: asking permission a stupid number of times, then refusing to do what I want.
3: Poor security/viruses
4: It has too much of a monopoly on programs, although that's being fixed.
5: It forces terrible programs like windows media player in and makes them impossible to remove.
6: relatively slow
7: relatively less freedom to customize your system
8: overpriced.
9: owned by an evil corporation
10: has less support online than linux

Things I have in my room

1: window
2. desktop
3. desk
4. dresser
5. easel
6. toolbox
7. artbox
8. closet
9. filing case
10. books

Stuff I Want To Do More

1. Bike
2. Play Grounders
3. Visual art
4: Keep up with news/politics
5: Take part in social movements
6: Hang out with the friends I don't live with
7: Writing
8: Try new things
9: Buy used/freecycle
10: MAKE things

Skills I Want To Learn

1: Parkour
2: Sewing
3: carpentry
4: programming
5: some sort of instrument (keyboard?)
6: time management
7: hydroponics
8: personal paperwork management
9: from-scratch cooking
10: actual magic

Things I Intend To Change To Save Money:

1: ISPs.
2: Stop paying dnd subscription
3: Never pay monthly for a cell.
4: Don't keep cash/ meticulously keep track of cash.
5: Destroy vestiges of brand loyalty
6: Sleep on any non-essential purchases
7: Periodical transfers to a savings account
8: Bike and bus more, cab less
9: buy fresh ingredients only when needed
10: make my own bread

Webcomics I Read

1: Homestuck
2: Questionable Content
3: xkcd
4: Templar, Arizona
5: Ménage à 3
6: Bad Machinery
7: Underling
8: Pictures For Sad Children
9: Candi
10: White Noise

 Animals I'd like to have

1. Cat
2. Falcon
3: Goat
4: Chicken
5: Ferret
6: Some kind of fish in a pond
7: Raven
8: Horse?
9: Fox
10: Rat

Things I should be doing

1: Looking into occupy fredericton
2: Applying on jobs
3: Cleaning
4: Picking up my parcel/groceries
5: Making cookies
6: Working on my awesome halloween costume
7: Editing my previous blog entry to make sense
8: Finishing my weird art collage so I can get junk off of my floor
9: Working on the dnd game I've been meaning to do forever
10: Rebuilding social contact with my friends I don't live with

Qualities I possess

1: I associate gods with tyrants
2: I am inspired by music
3: I am made of meat
4: I love knowledge
5: I am socially awkward
6: I am often careless
7: I battle with self-deception
8: I find most physical exertion bothersome
9: I am a technophile
10: I generally like people

Regrets I would have if I died right now

1: I never learned to play an instrument- oh jegus that's a big one

2: Never pursuing any of my interests enough to become exceptional

3: The pain of those hurt by my death. No real avoiding it.

4: The friendships that died because I didn't put the effort in.

5: All of my procrastination.

6: That I kept my eyes so tightly shut for so long on my
obligations to the world

7: All the abandoned ideas and plans I had that could have been more if I had only given them the attention they were due

8: My imbalance of learnt theory and practical skills that can actually do things

9: That I never learnt to enjoy work

10: Hurting Erin. I think I've hurt myself with it more over the years than she ever was, but it's the only time I really hurt someone intentionally and for no good reason. And she was my best friend.

Investment is stealing

It annoys me so much when people talk about "making your money work for you!". I keep seeing it, encouraging you to invest. It's a full metaphor, not just something people say. They usually start talking about how your money is thousands of little employees who will tirelessly work for you so you don't need to. But money can't work, money is supposed to be an abstraction of labour value. It can't produce itself.


I've been trying to look up more about what investment actually IS, and the information is actually really hard to find. So I may have a few things backwards, but my point is fairly self explanatory I think. Money is an abstraction of labour. It's only supposed to exist when someone works for it. Thus,  getting money for nothing is a way of stealing someone's labour value. This could be by underpaying those at the bottom, or more indirectly like printing money and driving up inflation- undermining EVERYONE'S labour.



When you look for information about investing a lot of what you'll see is just this kind of stuff:


"It's actually pretty simple: investing means putting your money to work for you. Essentially, it's a different way to think about how to make money. Growing up, most of us were taught that you can earn an income only by getting a job and working. And that's exactly what most of us do. There's one big problem with this: if you want more money, you have to work more hours. However, there is a limit to how many hours a day we can work, not to mention the fact that having a bunch of money is no fun if we don't have the leisure time to enjoy it

You can't create a duplicate of yourself to increase your working time, so instead, you need to send an extension of yourself - your money - to work. That way, while you are putting in hours for your employer, or even mowing your lawn, sleeping, reading the paper or socializing with friends, you can also be earning money elsewhere. Quite simply, making your money work for you maximizes your earning potential whether or not you receive a raise, decide to work overtime or look for a higher-paying job." - Investopedia


Practically, that tells you nothing. It implies that the money is coming out of thin air and doesn't say a thing about the processes. I think most people just leave it at that and head off to learn how to use those magic stock numbers to get rich. But even if you don't see it, someone is getting hurt. I understand venture capital is sometimes needed to get things off the ground, but with new crowdsourcing capital generators like Kickstarter, that's not such a problem. And most people just buy off the TSX or something. Besides, fucked up corporate law requires companies to make every attempt to maximize profit for shareholders, which is horrible and stupid. Yay mindless pursuit of growth! Supporting that kind of system would suck even without the rest.


In the end however, it's a powerful income source that everyone has access to. I'm not sure how I feel about lower class people taking advantage of it. In the end, it's their (pshh, talking like I'm not a minimum wage worker) money that's being siphoned off by this system. They have a right to it, but it seems they shouldn't support it. And yet, maybe it would force corporations to behave if more lower class people were shareholders? Banks go and invest your money anyway, and give you a pitiful cut of the proceeds. I guess you should invest if you're lower class? But mostly everyone feels like they're poor, and push themselves into debt with stupidly extravagant purchases. The middle and upper middle class will only cement this system by jumping in,and I'm not sure where the cut off should be. Damn that's annoying. I'm tempted to just keep everything in cash on principle, but I have a feeling that would end badly and accomplish little.



I didn't realize this at first, but this entire post is reminiscent of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon quote I first encountered in high school and struggled for so long to understand- "property is theft". I should really go read his book.


I'll probably edit this at some point to make it more readable.

bluh?

What, is this a new post? What the fuck? Guess it is.

I guess I kind of extremely lag behind the general populace when it comes to mastering organization. There has been a breakthrough however. I have mastered the great and powerful art understood by toddlers everywhere: lists.

They help. A lot. My previous attempts to use them had a problem; I would either forget to put things on the list, or I'd forget to check the list. The difference this time relies on a simple little Firefox add-on called reminderfox, a calendar application that runs straight out of my browser. The application has support for user created lists: groceries, to-dos, anything like that. I created a to-do list, and soon everything I could think of soon found itself in a list. I don't even use the reminder portion of the add-on that much, but whenever it sends me an awesome little alert I am forced to remember to check my lists.

Right now I have 8 different lists on reminderfox: reminders, to-dos, groceries, music, linux prep, house upgrades, contacts, and free services to support. On my desktop is a list of passwords for different sites I used to put an end to my horrible password reuse habits, a list of stuff that I want but probably won't get, and a list of various life decisions I've made or am making. Sometimes the lists are practical, sometimes indulgent, and sometimes the only reason I can think of for them existing is to provide a map of who it is I am. I didn't think lists had such poetic potential, although that's silly because everything can be poetic or beautiful perceived from the right angle.

In homage to my new tool, one of my few weapons in this big bad world of confusion, I'm going to make a ten item or so list every day from now until I lose interest, and post them here every week or so. I'm not even going to try and make these lists very logical, it's hard to think of everything and I'd sort of prefer not to stress too much over something this random. Here's the first:

Things that make me happy:

1. Music
2. Learning things
3. Biking
4: Hanging out with friends
5: Technology
6: Making something worthwhile/ doing work I can readily see the results of.
7: Opening my mind to new ideas.
8: Daydreaming
9: Being busy with things I want to do
10: Being in love


And for no real reason: Song!

The need for work

Once I get going, there's plenty of things to work for. It's just hard getting past the initial stupor. Comic is Pictures For Sad Children.

Fucked dream.

Sorry it's been so long since I posted here: it's a mix of having nothing I want to say at a given time and totally forgetting this blog existed. I guess I should give an update on my life right now, but I don't feel like it. Some other time.

Anyway, I had an interesting dream last night and I thought I'd copy Ari and make a blog post of it.

I stumbled across this ancient city place with relics of technology and magic everywhere. Allen was there with me, but he mostly just walked with me. We came upon a black gate eventually, twisted black iron with one of the hinges broken. Outside is a vast manse- green gardens and flowers stretched out into the great estate. For a moment I thought it had to be some magic of the old city, for I could not fathom that something this ancient could be so easily accessible, or that people could have found it and not told the world.

In a moment I heard a noise, and saw two groups of people approaching either side of the gate. They had the appearance of being some sort of religious procession; their clothes were similar to those of Christian leaders. I instinctively knew I didn't want these people to find me- that they would not want news of this place to reach the outside. But if I moved now it would be obvious. I gestured to Allen to follow my lead and became a breathing and blinking doll, hiding in the city's magic.

The groups stopped almost next to me, and briefly discussed the novelty of such a thing, but were too sure of themselves to notice it was an act. They spoke of things not for my ears, obviously secret things that didn't fully make sense to me. The groups then joined and went deeper into the city. One person stayed behind, however, a tortured looking girl who was either curious about the doll or suspicious I wasn't one. She gave me a few kicks and such as if to reassure I wasn't alive, and I acted it perfectly. Convinced, she hits, bites, hugs, talks to me for what seems like hours in ways I know she'd never do if she wasn't alone, but needed to get out. Eventually she speaks of something that's still fuzzy in my head, but makes me stop acting.

I talk to her, erase all her old loyalties and MAKE her my ally. I offer her the change in herself she so badly wants, and symbolizing this I change her very body. Without ever thinking it's strange, I slide my fingers into her body and reshape it: her flesh and bones no more than putty in my hands. I make the contours of her face and body more pronounced, giving her elfin and primal seeming features. In the end she only resembles a human. Then I wake up.

Kinda fucked up, no?