Journal Sentry21's Journal: Journal Fever (I didn't mean to make it that long) 2
Journal? Well, I got wordy. Skip to the third-last paragraph if you don't intend to read the whole thing. I don't mind if you don't read it, though I think the post puts it all in context, but please skip down at the very least just to read the point of this post.
Everyone seems to be getting on the journal bandwagon. Bethanie, a new friend/fan, is quite the journaller (and quite the successful slashdot poster too); sql*kitten is as chatty as usual, though he (yes, he's a he, but it's still a cute nick; and yes Gerhard, I knew before you ever suggested it) isn't saying anything particularly interesting lately, and I haven't felt up to replying to his latest rant about Israel (I don't intend to put much effort into explaining about the 'poor palestinians' and their plight, but no one tell me the Israelis don't have blood on their hands. Neither side is any less guilty, as far as I'm concerned). Gerhard started ranting a while ago but stopped; Dalassa started and stopped again too. Aridhol threw out a puzzle a while back, which led me to believe I'm not a sociopath. It's true. I just don't understand how human social interaction is supposed to work, and so I retreat from it. Oh well.
MikeFM started posting in his journal a while back. He wrote once in January, once in February, and once in March, but no one responded. I have to wonder how many people even read it. Now, i'm not trying to bring the guy down, but he said himself in several posts that he's a sociopath, and that he does his best to deliberately avoid people. Then, he said that people are toys if you learn how to push their buttons, and that he looks at them as pets. Interesting. Sounds like a bitter security complex. But back in February, he admitted in his Journal that he's lonely, and has no friends within 100 miles. Not that he has time for friends, of course. No no.
It seems to me that he's in the same position I was a while ago. Hate the world, hate the people in it. Decide that you're better than them. Not just better: superior. You are a god to these pathetic mortals. Superiority complex. They distance themselves from you, so you rationalize it by claiming it's by your choice. But no one chooses to be alone. Humans are social creatures. We make ourselves want to be alone because we can't face reality, we can't face that it might be us who is imperfect, not just the rest of the world.
Existentialism tells us that it is the choices we make that determine who we are. We don't have a big alibi to fall back on. God doesn't make our choices for us, as pre-reformation Christianity would have us believe. Neither does evolution, or the id and superego, as Darwin and Freud argued. The choices we make are what affect who we become, and it is only by understanding what we lack and choosing to pursue it to our fullest abilities that we are ever truly able to achieve the happiness we seek. I'm not denying Christianity, but if you want to look at it from a Christian perspective, think of it as 'God helps those who help themselves.'
These people, people who see the world as a horrible, negative, dark, unhappy place, people who complain a lot, people who hate the world and everyone in it, and believe that life is out to get them, seem to be almost an archetype. Ever notice that there's no one who's generally a happy person, but thinks that the world is a horrible place anyway? Or who thinks that the world is a perfect, pristine utopia, full of promise and helpful people, but is still constantly depressed, bitter, and whining? They all go together, because when we choose to be depressed, we choose to see the world in a depressing manner. When we choose to see the worst, the worst is all we see. It may sound like a crock, but I went from the most depressing person I know to the most optimistic. I've even run into trouble on several occasions because I've completely forgotten all sense of worry or concern for my personal wellbeing, because I just plain forgot that people aren't all, deep down inside, generally good. If I can do it, anyone can, and I think MikeFM could if he wanted to. He doesn't sound happy, and I wish he were, even though I don't know him, but he has to realize that it's a choice he has to make. I wonder if he'd listen if I posted in his journal. I wonder if he'd notice.
See, no one posted in his journal. Is it because no one had anything to say? Or because no one happened to read his journal? Or did no one care? It seems sad to think the latter, but it's possible, and there's always some lingering doubt in me that shouts that answer at every possible question: 'no one's replying because no one's listening, because no one cares.' And it got me thinking. Why don't I blog? Because I don't have anything to say? Not really. To a point, yes, but I always have some thought going through my head that I could put down. Or every day I could write a new chapter of 'Installing DebianSSL' or something similar, which is something I've been playing at doing lately. Or I could just rant about whatever.
Is it because I'm a very private person? To a point, but not really. If anything, it's the people I do know that I wouldn't want reading it, because they're the ones that can take things in context. Sometimes, I just want to get on the web and just let loose, but I can't, because someone might take offense to my bad news. If it were just people that only knew me through my writing, then it'd be different, but it's not, so I can't get too personal.
So what is it then? It's because I'm afraid that no one will read what I write. Not that I expect anyone to, or think it's worth reading necessarily (though I try not to write stuff I wouldn't like to read, I tend to get wordy, ramble, and nest my interrupting clauses rather deeply), but it would really bother me if I poured my heart and soul into some writing, spoke about the world and the people in it, and let everyone know how I felt about something, sharing some grand revelation that I've come to, and I realized one day that no one ever read it. It would get lost in the shuffle soon enough, stored in a MySQL database for perpetuity, or at least until the next major hardware crash, when it will be obliterated forever, gone to the great bit bucket in the sky.
I said all that to basically find out this: if I post a journal on Slashdot, and no one's around, does it make a sound? No. That's not the question. The question is... is anyone around to hear?
So if you got a notice when I posted this (a feature you can enable for friends in your preferences), or if you read the above and would come back for more, or if you're an obsessive-compulsive blogfan and want more fodder for your disorder, by all means, post below with encouragement. If you think the world is too full of blogging, well, post below too if you want, but I don't honestly care. And if you want to comment on the rest of the post but not on to blog or not, then you can do that too. Or anything, really. The point is that an artist knows if he has an audience.
--Dan
I'm listening (Score:2)
First of all, I want to address this whole MikeFM thing. He seems to me like a lot of geek guys I've known. I think that the self-proclaimed "sociopath" does so as a defense mechanism. It's easy to understand how, after years of social ostracism based on his intelligence and (perhaps) less-than-refined social skills, combined with a variety of other factors, he has finally opted out of the mainstream. And I'm not just talking about MikeFM (I've only read that one Trepia thread [slashdot.org] -- that was ridicu
Re:I'm listening (Score:2)
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."
Or to put it in modern terms: "ignorance is bliss."
I also did the sociopath thing for a bit and all I got myself was very depressed and very antisocial but that was before you ever met me.
Granted Chilliwack was slowly killing me and not just me but was it the environment or was it us? All I can say is I'm glad I left.
I do think intellegent people are more prone to depression. I mean we can look into things and know t