2010

New Year resolutions, two weeks late, better late then never ;-)

I had a list of all things I wanted to accomplish this year. I had topics, schedules, milestones, control actions, corrective and emergency plans, resources allocations, scope, dependencies and priorities. A sterling job. Then I realised that it as mostly contingent on circumstances, other people decisions, or, worst of all, decisions that I was not committed to. All the hallmarks of civilian management at its best. I do not want to plan my life like a corporate project: we all know how badly they usually go.
So let's get back to basics.

1. Maintain a comfortable and clean living place for daily use. It means no more living in an office, no more escape to sanity by the sea, and use ashtrays instead of empty Coke cans.
2. No more Coke.
   
3. No more smoking at the office.

These should do ;-)

Obsessing

Still another Pickle post.

I have been busy obsessing about the Pickle these last few days. While she isn't usually far out of my mind, it is getting a tad worrying recently. Eventually, it got me thinking. And, as it is natural for an obsession, I went back to old trains of thought and found out that I hadn't followed some of them to the end. I do not assume that I have broken the circle, but I have found some answers.

There was the why questions. Why her, and why am I am not following up. Well, it seems that the answers are linked.
The Pickle is quite different from the persons I am usually attracted to and who are attracted by me. It is quite difficult to say which is which in this case.
When I look at the three women I have been able to live with, they are as far as the Pickle as it can be.
- Mrs A and I had a great competition going on. She rides and shoots better than me, has a nonsensical and rational approach to everything. The friendly emulation was a turn on.
- Miss S is nerdier than me. She even used to keep cue cards about what she wanted to do in bed and documented them afterwards. Even I do not do that.
- Miss Q is a mechanical engineer working as an IT expert in a legal firm. Enough said...
They all have a background in engineering. They are all public tomboys and closet girls, so to speak.
The Pickle is the woman who gets the closest to my ideal notion of what a woman should be that I have found. Of course, I used the word "ideal", which means that it is a very subjective notion and not immune to some self deception. But, anyway, not only does she looks, feel, smells and taste right, she also behaves, moves and talks as she should without it being an act.

So, I am stuck with my own self reinforcing idealisation. I guess that, being my very own construct, I am somehow reluctant to put it to the test and risk breaking it.
Which is exactly what I should be doing.

Pickly feelings

Sorry for letting you loose one precious year of your life when you needed it most.
Really.

I don't like sex

Shocking, but true.
Well, not exactly true, but true enough for what I want to say ;-)

Once upon a time, a long ago, I had this undergrad philosophy lecture by some paedocommiescumtard, the kind to give you a D when you dared to bring Marcus Aurelius and Berkeley, with an ounce of Clausewitz and Bradley just for the humoristic touch to his Tom Wolfe dissertation. Yes, I do have the humour gene too. I mean, Tom f*cking Wolfe, what can you say to that? The guy must have thought something along the lines of "Weeeell, given this audience I will start it slow and looow.".
The guy was a moron, probably still is. He should be giving lectures on José Bové or Nicolas Hulot now.
But, anyway, he got one thing right. He had this metaphor he called "the window shopping effect". It went like this: "You are a child a few days before Christmas. You are in town with your parents and you walk along a toy store. In the window, displayed for all to see, you see the most wonderful toy ever, but you cannot touch it, you can only look and gape in wonder. So the next few days you go on pestering your parents for that toy. You really want it, but you believe you will never have it: it is too great a toy to be ever given, it belongs to the window. Then comes Christmas, and you finally get it. You play with it for a few moments, and it looses most of its appeal.".

I must be a child at heart: for me lust is still the better part of sex ;-)

Skydiving

Almost three years since I have jumped out of a plane, and suddenly it hit me.
Why do I like it?
I mean, there are better ways to prove yourself. I guess that, for many years, I was kind of blinded by what brought me to it: a bet between friends. So it must have been a question of dare, of showing, of practically demonstrating your worth to your peers.
Right. It may have been so for the first jump, but what kept me coming?
And I finally found out. What I liked most are those two or three seconds where you have absolutely no control, when you are being played by the wind, when you are in something bigger and stronger than yourself. Of course, the whole point is to get control back, I wouldn't be here to talk about it if it weren't for that. There is a huge sense on accomplishment there.
But still, the best part is losing control, allowing yourself to be at risk. Being alone, responsible for you alone, and letting yourself be blown away.
Survival is just a technical matter, the important part is to be willing to risk it ;-)

Respect

- "Don't you have any respect?"
- "Respect is such a strong word. Let's say that I grant you the benefit of the doubt, and credit you with some consideration, as I would do to anyone. Be careful though: you are burning it at an alarming rate."

Killing in the Name of

As Mr. G. put it: "We are what we are because we can afford it."

It doesn't make it any nicer, but brings some satisfaction.

Getting vectorized by The Pickle

I have just spent another very pleasant afternoon and evening with The Pickle.

Despite our seemingly irreconcilable outlooks on life, love, politics and almost everything else actually, it seems that we are according the same value to being humane, but probably not for the same reasons. What is nice with someone like her is that you always end up with some insight, not always that easy to see because it is most often lost in contrast. It is getting to the point where I sometimes feel that we have a semantically understandable conversation that we are understanding in very different ways: it is like we are sharing the same language but not its meaning. Weird. Well, "I like weird!", as Mrs R. would say. Anyway, we are both too kind for our own good.

The hardest thing to do is not giving up on your dreams, it is just to understand that you are dreaming. Waking up is easy then. I guess that this goes for both of us.

So, when someone tells you "So, are you giving up?", never, ever, answer "No, I am just giving you the opportunity to give in. Because I truly do not know what else I can do.", just stay silent. Because you haven't given up on your dreams, you are just conceding that while someone might have been wrong, you just do not really know who. Maybe you, maybe not you, maybe both of you, maybe none of you. Of course, this attitude implies that you have no regret whatsoever. And I do not have the slightest one.

I do not feel any different toward her. I do not feel that I am giving up. I just feel empty. Not like I have failed, because failing implies that we where both playing the same game. It is more like one is playing cricket with a mallet and the other polo with a bat, both on the same field, trying to figure out the rules and each one always scoring according to its own standard. Meeting not like trains in the night, but like a horse ad a greyhound pulling up the same cart, so to speak. I'll let you figure out who is who ;-) I just feel that it has all been meaningless and vain, while still being instructive without having exactly grasped what it was all about. Which is a shame really, as I have been the one who initiated the whole thing and kept it going ;-) So I guess that The Pickle and I will stay friends and that time will tell. Most probably not much, as Chronos, by virtue of having three mouths, knows better than anyone that silence is golden ;-)

In a way, were The Pickle to be a sorting algorithm, she would never break the nlogn barrier. Always comparing, never evaluating to an external scale (TM someone, fuzzy reminiscence). But, then again, efficiency is not always the name of the game, and is heavily dependant on context anyway.

All in all, when all is said and done, what is left? Am I hurt? No. Do I bear shame or regret? No. Would I do the same again? Yes. Should I do the same again? Probably not. Do I want to do the same again? Yes. Why shouldn't I be doing the same thing again? Because I could find more efficient ways to achieve a similar end.
But we all know that it is not always all about efficiency, don't we? We all know that it is about being, willing and feeling, none of them being particularly efficient in its own right.

So, to a good night and a good friend: may we grow in understanding while still being different enough to be able to amaze and befuddle each other. Cheers to that ;-)

Coco

Critical: never have both a cocker and a daughter named Constance.

expectations

Having to reluctantly meet someone else's expectations is usually accomplished minimally. Pursuing this course only leads to greater frustration. Go beyond these expectations and find the freedom to have yours.

frustration

Never try convincing yourself that you are not feeling and needing

something again if you do not want to wake up at 0400 feeling like you have been betraying yourself for months.
After all, you can only learn from what you did, not from what may have been, even if by trying you are risking to find why what you will cannot be (and even if your previous attempt has been far less than successful;-).
As you already said, it is time to move on, but not in a way that denies and deceives yourself and others.

Imposter Syndrome

"While you're saving your face, you're losing your ass."

The great modern thinker who said that once described himself as such:

"You might say that Lyndon Johnson is a cross between a Baptist preacher and a cowboy."

He also said, in no particular order:

• "You aren't learning anything when you're talking."
• "The noblest search is the search for excellence."
• "Doing what's right isn't the problem. It is knowing what's right."
• "Every man has a right to a Saturday night bath."
• "I want to make a policy statement. I am unabashedly in favor of women."
• "I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she's having her own way. And second, let her have it."

As well as

• "There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility."
• "We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood."

So, who will you cast your vote to in the upcoming European elections?

emotionally undone

And I do not know why.
Still, I have a guess ;-)
Time to move on boy.

Let's face it: this situation is of your own doing, its conclusion is what you hoped for, and everyone is agreeing with you on that one. Still, you cannot escape the feeling that things could have been better, and you wish for a second chance. And, at the same time, you know that it would be a bad idea, because this is not what you want to do, just what you believe is expected of you, and that even though it looks good on paper, you do not want to be stuck with the end result. You would like to go through the moves because you like it, but you will not want what you will be building.
Solution: otherness.

Perfectionnite

The trouble with being a perfectionist is that you tend to forget about how to make messes. Of course, you may very well create the perfect mess to suit your purposes, but you have forgotten how to make a mess of your life, and how to deal with it. You were so busy plotting, so successful in your schemes, so complacent in your victories that you have forgotten how not to be the prime mover in your life. And now it is payback time: you can no longer deny that you have missed a few steps.
So, what will you be doing about that? Well, do as usual: at first stop being overwhelmed, define the process that is bothering you, then back to your plotting routines, with a shorter cycle, like when you are learning, because this is exactly what is happening. And make messes, even if you are not supposed to, or if it hurts your pride, and learn from them.
You are so used to being right or, more appropriately, not to be wrong, that you have forgotten that yours game is not the only one in town.
Go learn it, play and have fun.

Supper's friend 2

Maybe, just maybe, perhaps should I avoid posting while sailing three sails to the wind.

Supper's friend

Funny how you may be favourably surprised when you are not busy screening and deflecting.

Bis repetita...

Maybe, just maybe, there is something more to this attitude. Maybe, just maybe, perhaps am I more at ease when I am confident that I have nothing to loose and nothing to win. Maybe, just maybe, perhaps am I afraid of what I may want. Maybe ;-)

todo

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,

butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance

accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders,

give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new

problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight

efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

- Robert A.Heinlein

One to go. Not the easiest though.

Nice mistake

Matching all acceptance criteria does not necessarily equate with desirability.