Journey to Nothing

[LastThursday]

@MuadDib it reminds me of a time when I nearly knocked myself out messing about making chlorine gas. Never smell the chemicals. I didn't even know friction drilling was a thing, tungsten carbide is the biz.

[LastThursday]

A bit of wordplay for the day.

I fancied I might travel through my mind to an ocean of sand and blinding light. Night fell and I was coolly touched, the breeze whispered and all was peace and calm. Fatigue overcame me and darkness enveloped my being, my mind drifted here and there sweetly untethered. What unease then when in that night blackened desert an even darker form manifested. I reached within for a mote of recognition but there was none, my only defence was to call out to the form. "Ho! What goes there?". All was silence for a while. And then it spoke without mouth or voice: "I've come to take you away." Terror overwhelmed my mind and I scrambled to escape. But it was no good, the form morphed and seeped into my every pore until I became it.

I woke and the sand and light was blinding.

[LastThursday]

A little thought experiment on death.

Say you had a close family member who had been diagnosed with an incurable disease. He has been given anywhere up to a few weeks to live. You visit them and they seem as well as they can be given the circumstances. You leave and a week passes and you've received no update on them, no information at all. Are they dead or alive?

Like Schrödinger's cat, since the family member is not a quantum object, then they are not in a physical superposition of states: they must be either dead or alive. Note that the same ambiguity exists as for the famous thought experiment. The ambiguity is existential. The resolution to it is easy enough nowadays, you can contact them, or at least contact someone who can physically check in on them. In other words, information resolves the ambiguity. Could there be a different resolution?

What is death but a permanent cessation of information about a person? The only way you can ever know that a person "lives" is to receive some information from that person, either remotely or face to face or from a third party. Whatever information you do receive triggers the "is living" signal. Note that to truly know if someone lives, we must keep receiving information to that effect. Whenever the information flow stops, then we are immediately back in the ambiguous position and have to guess if they still live. We must "fill in" information and using heuristics like "they're young", "they're healthy" and so on to do so. I'd say in general we heavily bias in the direction of "living", we treat each other as if we're nearly immortal.

But we could bias hard the other way, and assume that as soon as we lose sight of someone's presence (information) they are dead - this is just as logical. Although, the most logical position to hold is that there is a 50% chance that the person is dead, at all times. This would hold for everyone you knew. This is just a probabilistic view and would seem somewhat natural.

Information is king however. We can have a more dynamic view of aliveness and death. We can solely base things on what our senses are telling us directly. When we are not currently experiencing a person, instead of pretending, we can just accept that they are dead. When we re-experience a person (in the right way) we can say that they are alive.

Expanding this idea more broadly to inanimate things, things are constantly popping into and popping out of our experience. We can instead take a stance that all that exists is only that we have direct experience of. When it goes out of our direct experience it stops existing. Only then is there no ambiguity to be had.

In a strong sense we are (mostly unconsciously) playing the game of probability using prior knowledge to bolster our assumptions. We pretend that things don't suddenly stop existing, that fit and healthy people don't suddenly die when they leave our front door. That if we chose to we can call that friend at any time. Occasionally, we're wrong and the person or place or thing doesn't ever come back into our experience, and we should grieve. But we should acknowledge that there is this constant and dynamic interplay between existing and not existing, alive and dead - and maybe that makes grief easier.

[LastThursday]

Some morning thoughts on giving up work.

I periodically get into a state where my tolerance for corporate work becomes low, and I get all sorts of negative thoughts and feelings arise. Despite having worked nearly all my adult life I've never really been well suited to working for someone else, it's always felt like putting a hand into the wrong glove.

The list of things that bug me about work is long, but includes the long and rigid hours, having to kow tow to someone else's arbitrary whims, being in a collective of people you don't necessarily gel with, not being recognised for the effort you put in and the general drama of office politics. The general sensation I have is that if I were to drop working tomorrow, I wouldn't miss any of it whatsoever.

I have not worked before for extended periods either when I have been laid off or when I've had the money to keep me going without work. On two ocassions I've had enough money to stop for six months or more. On another I couldn't find another job. I know full well that stopping my regular income is like jumping off a cliff: at some point you know you'll hit the bottom. But it is ultimately liberating, my time becomes mine again, and I don't have to tolerate that laundry list of dislikes I have about work.

However, only once did I use those "free" periods to do anything productive with and that was when I went travelling. I'd had some money I'd saved up after a lucrative contracting job in London. At that time I really was in a mental state where I needed to just be somewhere else and be someone else. I was quite driven to shake my life up. Long term it didn't really change much of the make up of my life, but it did give me what I wanted at the time.

And that word "productive" comes up often whenever I talk to anyone else about stopping work. The sentiment goes something like: "What productive thing are you going to do when you're not working?". To which my general reaction is "productive?". You see the framing is all wrong. The whole problem I have about working in general is the expectation that I should be producing something. That is at the centre of all that is wrong with the whole idea of employment. Essentially, I'm not a machine and I've never really wanted to express myself that way. The huge irony is that I spend all my days interacting with and thinking like a machine, since I work in information technology. But, there's a big difference in trying to (creatively) bend a machine to your will, and being treated like a machine yourself.

I know myself well enough and unless I have something to focus my attention on, I will effectively languish. I've kept up wage slavery because it's the path of least resistance. To a degree is forces me not to languish, because it requires my attention and I get recompensed well for it, but I don't like it.

Recently, I have effectively switched jobs despite still working for the same people. Whereas before I was working mostly by myself and catering to an external client, and was fairly autonomous; now I'm part of a team and learning the ropes again and answerable to others. In some ways taking a new job would be easier as the expectation on me would be less and I could be cut some slack to not know what I was doing. But I don't get that pleasure, I'm expected to "hit the ground running" but also be answerable to others who are effectively more senior by virtue of their knowledge: they wrote most of the software I'm working on.

I think I need to quit, and to do it soon. But I also never want to work in the corporate world again. And I have no plan to keep me from languishing if I do so. But I do have a large cushion this time, so I can fall further off the cliff before I hit the bottom. It might be time.

[LastThursday]

My Default Mode.

Do you have a default mode of interaction? You might call call this personality, but I'm referring to the more specific way in which you communicate. For example you might be amiable or sullen, combative or laid-back. One trait I see among many men is being jocular; outside of the purpose of being jocular (to de-escalate tension) it is a way of interacting. One trait I see among women is laughing or giggling very regularly or another is apologising.

I suspect that most of us are not aware that we even have preferred ways of interacting with others. Seemingly, we just "talk". But like a fish not knowing it's in water it's quite hard to step out of ourselves and examine how we are when we communicate with others. We might want to do this for several reasons, the most important of which is to improve our communication and ultimately improve our relationships.

Let's give it a shot myself, warts and all:

First the stuff I actively want to portray when communicating:

For a long time I've wanted to appear laid-back to others. I think my natural temperament is calm and unassuming, so it is an extension of that. But also I've worked out that people liked me for being laid-back. In general that means I want to also appear to be in control and not easily flustered. I'm not a natural leader (in that I don't take to it willingly), but if the situation requires it then I can be; so I at least want to set up this expectation. I also abhor confrontation and conflict (I've had too much of it in my life), and having a laid-back style communicates this fact, it helps kept conflict to a minimum.

Secondly, I want to appear intelligent. This is an odd one. On the face of it people don't generally like know-it-alls or are suspicious of people more intelligent than them. I think it's a natural reaction to the unknown: how can you comprehend someone motives when they comprehend more than you do? For me it's ended up being a balance, appear intelligent enough for my needs, but not so much it puts people off. I don't always discern the right balance. IRL I'm dumb myself down greatly and how I write on here is not who I am when talking to others, at all. Question is, why do I want to portray this? I think it largely comes from my parents, especially for my mother who often used the "I'm not stupid" line as a defence and my father who is a know-it-all at times - it's my reaction to both those. But also it is a way to bolster myself up against others, and project "I am worthy" vibes or even more accurately "Don't mess with me or I'll embarrass you by making you look stupid" vibes. But I also want to be taken seriously when I have something to contribute and I think it helps if it's coming from a place of intelligence. Most people find it ok, some disklike me instantly on sight for it.

Stuff I end up projecting even though I don't want to:

With people I don't know well, there's always a level of fear or awkwardness I feel. I think it ultimately stems from my mother, she was also quite apprehensive about others and would get easily flustered if she was out of her comfort zone. I seem to have ingrained that sensation of recoil when I don't feel in control around others or I fear not being able to handle a social situation. This has hugely improved since I was a kid however, and calling it masking or just sheer exposure and experience I'm a lot less awkward and anxious than I used to be. But it does fly in the face of me wanting to appear laid-back. Occasionally, if I'm tired or not on-the-ball, my mask drops and I become awkward: I forget people's names, my mind goes blank, or I say weird things - but I've realised on the whole people don't care, so I've stopped caring. Whether it's autism or not, it doesn't matter much. 

I'm more of a listener than a talker. I'm a lot more aware of this nowadays and but this tends to me my default mode in groups, especially if I'm not much interested in the current topic. I have always preferred one-to-one conversation because of this, but this is rarer in my life. But even one-to-one it's work for me to keep talking about nothing in particular, but I somehow manage it. I'm fundamentally an introvert, with some occasional  learned extroversion when it suits me. I do try and pipe up a lot more in groups nowadays if I become conscious of it, but I don't crack jokes lol.

Snarkiness and bitchiness. I always feel that there is this little devil in me who just wants to be bitchy. In this respect my mother and father were polar opposites, by mother always poking holes about other people, by dad always super respectful (sometimes too much). Maybe some of it has rubbed off on to me. My default reaction when I see bad behaviour in others or when they upset me in some way is to be snarky to put them in their place. It is not in general that I want to put others down, I don't, in fact the opposite. But luckily I seem to be very aware of this inner bitchiness and I mostly keep it on a leash - but one area I need to be very conscious of it is when writing emails (or on this forum!).

Sarcasm. I learned sarcasm not off my parents (they wouldn't know if they fell over it (lol)), but off my first girlfriend's father who had a flair for it, a big bald man with ginger hair and a beer gut. His forte was sexual innuendo, which I do enjoy, but within my circle of friends goes down like a lead balloon - they're so straight laced. My mother was a bit of a piss-taker, but that was more in a slapstick sense than actual sarcasm. I don't enjoy toilet humour however, far too unsophisticated. I would say that it is also very much a cultural trait for us Brits, and it doesn't come off that well when talking to other cultures.  I used to be a lot more unconsciously sarcastic when I was younger. Again, I may employ sarcasm in a snarky way to keep people in their place, but I enjoy it occasionally just to be cheeky and make others laugh.

Seriousness. Another odd one for me. I have a strong streak of seriousness in my character which I get from my father (he takes himself seriously), but unlike him I don't take myself seriously (in order to seem important). I'm mostly a lot more serious in one-to-one conversations and a lot more jovial and light-hearted in groups. I don't know which is the real me, probably a bit of both.

Aloofness, arrogance, disinterest. I think I've been accused of all those over time. Despite not being that kind of person at all or even wanting to be, some people get those vibes from me. I think it's the blend of unconscious seriousness, pushing my intelligence and not talking in groups that does it or at least that's my interpretation as to why. 

Not being taken seriously. This is something that's grates on me and has done for a long time. This can take the form of my views not being considered or just rejected out of hand, or, people not even feigning some sort of interest in what I have to say, or worse just being ignored completely. Perhaps it's the combination on not talking up in groups, or my not having strong opinions on things or my dislike of forcing my ideas on others. I feel like I have a lot of experience of "life in general", but I'm not worth listening to - or at least that's my impression, there could well be other reasons why this happens which I'm totally unconscious of currently - more awareness is needed there on my part to get to the bottom of it.

Overall, I'm not someone who is or wants to be "in your face", and I'm especially not "self important". I'm not a huge chit-chatter (except on alcohol for some reason). I'm not particularly serious or at least it's not my intention. I especially abhor moralising in both myself and others.

Edited September 6 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

I'm a closet perfectionist - I confess. If asked most of my acquaintences would say I was not, and may even say that I'm the opposite: anything goes. I suspect we all have an inner rocky core surrounded by a soft atmosphere of maturity and sensible experience. I've worked hard to be an anti-perfectionist. But I still feel that twinge of pain when I lose, when things don't go my way, and when reality doesn't match idealistic expectation.

There are many things I want to be perfect at, I want to play the piano like an angel, I want to use perfect words to gain admiration, to be the best in my field of technology, to be unified, whole, unbroken and a perfect example to others. I'm none of those things.

A few years ago I watched a program about the concept of Wabi-Sabi and it clicked that my self-enforced anti-perfectionism was just this. Wikipedia says it's: "a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection". It started of as a way to ameliorate the pain of imperfection and being less than, somehow I would just pretend that the pain didn't matter. In the end it became the counterweight to my perfectionism, and it's given me a kind of freedom of expression and abandonment that I wouldn't have otherwise experienced. But the soft blanket of Wabi-Sabi still hasn't seeped deeply into my rocky core, that would be the ultimate perfection.

Still. There are moments of unforced perfection. Those moments when someone allowed me to kiss them sweetly, when I played Bach without a hitch, when I didn't worry about myself, when the rain fell but the sun shone. I savour those moments. I'll continue to balance myself on the tightrope between perfection and imperfection and hope I don't fall.

Edited December 8 by LastThursday