06.30.07
Room 101
When I walk in the door of my room 101…
Well, here we come across the first stumbling-block – literally – as I actually couldn’t walk in the door. The room would be cram packed full. Climbing in might be more accurate. Climbing over fragile, delicate, sentimental value items in such a manner that I just can’t avoid irreparably crushing a few to smithereens.
And then the door would be locked behind me… not that I wouldn’t have been expecting that, but it would be locked just 10 seconds too soon. Before I’d had that last lingering longing breath of the outside world, before I’d turned to wave goodbye to my last remaining human contact, before I’d taken off my coat and hung it neatly on the hook outside, before I’d brushed my hair, before I’d blown my nose, before I’d finished swallowing my cup of half-cold tea.
Just too soon… And knowing I wasn’t getting out again…
Now, it may sound like cheating for me to say I have sentimental-value items in my room 101, but, in fact, this is the very basis of just how horribly awful my room would become. I envisage the majority of stuff in the room to actually be stuff that I like. But too much of it, and too great an intensity of it, and too mundanely samey-samey versions of it.
There’s a packet of something chocolate-y all spilled out over my favourite furry blanket: all meltingly fluffy. My comfortingly cuddly favourite jumper is unwashed and crumpled beneath a pile of dust. The jug of deliciously tempting cream has a not-quite-dead spider licking the surface of the cream.
Everything is completely and utterly untidy and disorganised. And there is hardly room for me to reach out and pick something up, never mind actually *do* anything with any of the stuff that is around me. Like being in a straight-jacket, just without the jacket bit.
Completely claustrophobic.
Really, the worst thing about walking into this room is just how much I think I ‘love’ everything in it… but knowing before I’ve even spent 10 seconds in there, that the whole lot is just ‘things’ – inanimate objects of no true emotional value.
Ok, some may be gifts from friends… But what are memories of friends and loved ones when you are imprisoned in a room not knowing when – if ever – you will get to see them again in your life. It would torture me.
And no matter how fun something may appear for a while, it still becomes tedious over time. My favourite griddlers become sickeningly dizzying after spending a few hours of a holiday-day on them. It is all so pointless, so meaningless…
Even ‘work’ would not have any merit if I was not given the means to get any information outside my little box. Any kind of useful task that self-sacrificingly I could consider may be for the good of humanity so that my time imprisoned is not wasted would be worthless. I could cure HIV, figure out a solution to third world debt, find a peaceful solution to terrorism, eliminate the curse of mental illness… And it would all count for nothing if it went to the grave with me.
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
Ps: of course, the one thing that couldn’t appear in my Room 101 would be a Bible. If it did, I hope it would preserve my sanity, and all the rest would just fade into insignificance. But then, that’s a whole other world! 
My motivation: the first, and the continuing story.
06.28.07
Charity shops
The breadbin:
… the place-mats:
… the sugar holder:
… and the random breakable:
Totalling under a tenner, all told. With the added benefit of multiple stops along Corstorphine road to Shelter from the rain!
Not a bad day’s holiday really. And thanks to Julie for putting up with me!
Keeping in touch
Ok, I freely admit I am one of the world’s worst people for keeping in touch.
I know, I know, it doesn’t really tie with the image I like to portray, of being someone who really cares for my friends.
But allow me to give some justification of the pragmatics of it all…
Well, firstly, I usually think I don’t have many friends. This is basically based on the premise that I don’t expect to have many friends. I just don’t think I’m good enough at being a friend to justify having tons and tons and tons of people who get strung along expecting some evidence of friendship from me.
Ok, so based on this, you’d think I ought to manage quite well at keeping in touch. If I really did only have 10 close friends, I should manage just about fine! Thats them all contacted once-a-fortnight, with weekends off!! Sounds simple enough, really!
But, actually reality is faaar different. I guess I probably have more friends than I give myself credit for…
For example, I don’t neccessarily call everyone friends to their face always… as a kid, calling your teachers your friends was a Big Deal… so I kinda learned early on to “blur over that one a bit” 
Like, saying I feel indebted to people.
Indebted in a pleasant way, I mean. Where I like to acknowledge all the help and guidance and patience I have benefited from, and *want* to say thankyou. There are many people I respect and admire, who I want to remember. And whether or not they would count me as a friend, or even if they remember who I am… I like to think that I am their friend, no matter whether or not there is any return of the sentiment.
So actually, when I start counting properly, it really is no wonder that I’m continually having difficulties with the msn max_number_of_contacts==150 issue. So, at one friend a day, that immediately cuts it down to being in touch once every six months, approx.
Which is probably about where I’m at, actually. But for me that really doesn’t feel like enough somehow. Maybe I’m just too intensive, or something, but twice-a-year contact you seem to never-actually-reach the “just being friends” bit when you spend all your time talking about bits of life that have been and gone.
Which probably kindof illustrates my main problem: there is a massive time-commitment in keeping in touch.
Now, thats not to say I grudge my friends the time. In fact, spending time with friends is one of my favouritest things.
But what I do regret is using my time what I consider inefficiently… Let me explain:
Sending an email is lovely, and can bring a smile to someones face. But it is one thousand times less enjoyable than actually seeing someone for real.
So, if I’m going to take time out to write an email- and it does take a good hour or two for me to write a decent email – then why not spam everyone at once. That way, everyone gets to stay up-to-date in bite-sized chunks (or in three-volume copies, in my case!). And also, it means if I spend one evening a fortnight spamming, it means I have another nine evenings left to meet up with people for real, or phone those not geographically close enough for meeting.
It isn’t anywhere near as personal that way, for sure. And it does cut down my ‘inner circle’ to a very un-modernly clique priveledged enough to exist non-virtually. But I may as well be willing to recognise the reality and say “Yeah, its not personal – deal with it!” And then, to make it personal, do the real things that matter, like talking for hours about something that interests us both, instead of the mundanities of life.
Hehe, maybe I should start a blog…!!
As far as blogging is concerned, probably more personal-ness comes via comments that are left – like when in an email you respond to “my Mums not been well” with “so how is your Mum these days”… well that reciprocal part seems to be well-served by the commenting functionality.
So, now that I’ve havered a bit, what’s the real deal? Well, I think all my wonderful friends out there could leave me a comment…
06.27.07
Nothing in the world more potent than love.
While visiting some friends, one came out with this astonishing and thought-provoking statement:
“There is nothing in the world more potent than love.”
Astonishing because it is a simple, easy-to-understand statement and yet it is so mind-staggeringly insightful.
I like it. In fact, I could say it again, but if you haven’t yet appreciated it, you’d proly just skim over it anyways.
*encourages pondering moment*
To me this makes me think of God. God is love.
I wish I was able to be like God, and love everyone properly and rightly. Ok, I do try to love my friends, even though I mess up sometimes.
But then who doesn’t love their friends!? I’d like to be able not just to love my friends, but love my enemies too. Forgiving people when they hurt me; being kind and generous even when I am not thanked.
*wishes she could be good at these people-things*
06.26.07
What *is* normality?
Well, I have a few strong contenders coming right up:
It could be chatting to the India-girl on the train. She’s over for a few weeks, and it is always joyous to see a friendly face for the first time in a while. Telling her, that yes, interviewing went well, and surprisedly counting the months since doing the interviews.
But surely, true normality must be mentally writing a blog post on the walk home from the train. There’s nothing to quite beat thinking of a lovely little turn of expression. Then spending a good 32 minutes trying to remember what it was once you get home.
Or is it the obligatory panic-attack at having my field of vision rudely interrupted by a dashing young spider? Maybe the thrill of excitement at having been able to control my shakes long enough to get the marble-jar over his head. (And, of course, simultaneously taking good care not to lose any of her marbles.) And then feeling powerfully jelly-like every time I go over to have a sneaky peek. Maybe if I was really ‘normal’ I might pluck up the courage to somehow remove the wee one from my sight instead of just imprisoning him.
But maybe, after all, normality is experienced through the joys of sticking an elbow in my ants latest meal. Somehow, I suspect they enjoy it more than I do!
Ach, its about time I returned from normality… It’s always a pleasant wee visit every once in a while, but I never like to overdo it too much!
06.25.07
Coming out of hibernation…
*blinks in the sunlight*
It must be spring.
I can hear the network traffic bubbling merrily along the cables by my feet.
Over the way a phone sings happily away to itself.
And the ants are enjoying my pringles almost as much as I am.
Sounds to me like everyone is contented!
06.21.07
An understanding Mum
I just love my Mum.
There’s no-one else with whom I can have such an efficient method of communicating directions. [ESP excluded, of course!]
Well, firstly there’s the non-confusion way of indicating the next turn by obstructing her vision with a frantic hand-waving. “It’s *this* left”, while positioned in the right-hand lane.
She also has quite an intuative driving habit: as soon as I take a breath before giving the next direction coming up, she notices and responds by slamming down her foot just to make absolutely sure my directions will arrive too late for appropriate action.
And then, the moment of crowning glory, when I turn to her and say with absolute trust in her abilities of recognition:
Me: “This is the round-the-corner bit.”
Mum: “Oh, yeah!”
Come on, how could you not-love a Mum like that!
06.20.07
sleeping soundly
There’s something quite calmingly cute about getting to go to sleep on my own futon.
It’s just so…
well, so sleep-inducing.
Yummy! *dreams*
06.15.07
So, what’s my big problem with social networking sites?
Despite being criticised for this post before I’d even written it
Well, back in another life – maybe all of 16months ago – when the concept first crossed my inbox I was actually pretty naively and geekily excited by it. The thought of connecting all of the real people in my life through an virtual network where we were all “in” on the playground chatter appealed to my online persona.
And, for a while, the rose-tinted spectacles fitted quite nicely… I have a rather successful set of old school-friends who I’d previously lost contact with; the American girl who set me up with my first ever email address; my cousin-collection; and many others I could list.
Well, they’re all on there… but I rarely ‘network’ with them any more. Or whatever it is you are meant to call the random collection of functions that constitutes such a social network. Some of my contacts, I’ve never got further than adding them to my site, and them doing me the courtesy of adding me back.
Having now experienced the reality of social networking sites, I have a rather embarrassing confession to make… the part I hate the most about them is the people. Now this might sound completely and utterly daft, before we even get anywhere near the anti-social ramifications of it!
[Incidentally, it is this "people-problem" that is the basis of my justification for generalising across social networking sites, as it is not so much the functionality (which is all pretty cool to a geek like me!) or the implementation of said functionality (which sometimes leaves something to be desired, and probably does distinguish one site from another.) The only 'hole' in this logic is that some may argue you get a different 'calibre' of user on different sites... but to me that doesn't really matter - my friends are my friends and will remain IRL friends whichever site they use. Yet the issues I have with them on one site are just as much of a problem on any other site I could persuade them to use. But this could be a whole post in itself...]
To get back to my problem with connecting with my friends online…
Really, my friends are all lovely people – well, of course they are or else they wouldn’t be my friends! They’re all nice enough to put up with acknowledging an acquaintance with me, so that says something!
But, when it comes to the etiquette of an online social network, they seem remarkably ‘open’ to all the peer-pressure of conforming to the expectations – so much so that they also expect me to ‘conform’. And conformance to peer-group pressure really is one of my pet hates before we get into the details!
(Ah, maybe that’s why I don’t have many friends… light begins to dawn in my befoggled mind!)
So, what does a social network ‘feel like’? Well, its like some kind of an exclusive club. Before you join a network, you are completely cut off from the ‘world’. I fully understand all the privacy/confidentiality/protection reasons for the various permission-settings functionalities, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re hideously barrier-like to use.
But some people can – and do – chose to let their stuff be public. The sites are more cunning than that though – if you’re going to benefit from other peoples sites, then you have to be a ‘member’ too… and as soon as you are a member, they “have you”, to be exploited for all sorts of chocolate-eating purposes.
So yeah, before I even get started, I have a problem with being ‘forced’ into signing up to something before I get the chance to decide if it is “really me” or not. This is not something I am happy to accept – I object on principle to the coercion involved. Fair enough, I do ‘persuade’ people to e.g. start a blog, but I nevertheless concede it is a very personal thing and think people ought to be able to choose for themselves what their preferred ‘involvement’ is. Also, no-one at all is prevented from reading my blog just because they do not have a blog themselves. With social network sites, its more all or nothing than that.
There is a bit of a loyalty thing going on too… You could end wasting your whole life on one of these sites… yet which site you chose as your ‘primary base’ is crucial to how your ‘network’ pans out. Without neccessarily intending it this way, it seems to happen that you end up spending more time contacting and becoming closer friends with those who are on the same main site as you. You have a faster asychronous exchange of messages, and share more of the common functionality of the site together.
To compare blogging again (a topic dear to my heart ), although I am personally opinionated about which technology to use, that would not in any way stop me from reading the blogs of others using a different technology. But social networks currently seem to revel in their very exclusiveness…
Ooooooh… 
… doesn’t like it!
I joke about my ‘cliques’, but for me being in a clique is all about the close-ness that exists between clique-members/friends. The “leaving people out” side of it isn’t really what appeals to me. I like to think that “my cliques” have got an open-door policy, where people who are willing to show themselves friendly are welcome to be friends.
So, when friends persuade me to join their network-of-choice, I am sorely tempted. Despite my now-admitted hatred of them, I want to be able to give others their choice in the matter. But the very exclusive nature of them doesn’t really allow me the freedom to retain my choice in the matter. Well, I can retain my choice, but then everyone ignores it… because it doesn’t “fit” their “inside the box” view of the social network. Doesn’t seem fair somehow…
But I feel like I am somehow not-showing my friendship by my refusal to get involved. And – the caring person that I try to be! – it hurts me to give that impression to people who really truly *are* my friends. Yes, I do want to show my friends I ‘associate’ with them – but why can’t I do that a way that I like doing too, instead of being forced through hoops.
Hey, this post is far far too long already! And I’ve not even got past “signing up for a social network”…
Ah well, hopefully the next section should be shorter, because as far as the content of a social network goes, theres not very much to say about it. Just maybe that’s because there is actually not very much to it!
Ok, so onto my next sweeping generalisation, a very large percentage of what goes on on social network site is just bland. I suppose in my blunter moments, I’d call it spam.
I’m getting fed-up of skimming through 3rd-cousin twice-removed’s birthday message to her best buddy in school. Or about finding out another youTube clip that someone somewhere thought was cool. I could waste my whole life on youTube too… but without being too egotistical about it, I would like to think I have better things to do with my life.
It may sound rather harsh to call friend-generated content spam… but when there’s enough of it, and when no-one actually really wants to admit they don’t care about half of it, it does take someone to put their head above the parapet and name-and-shame it.
So, be on the social network, but just ignore the “traffic”? I suppose that’s an option, but a rather pointless one. And it doesn’t quite suit my argumentative disposition!
And, then in the midst of it, you do occasionally get some meaningful communication. Because I know this, and because I am “in” I am far too conscientious to ‘let it go’… It has happened, though, and I have been disappointed in myself and apologised profusely when it happens.
But really… what *is* wrong with a simple email, or a text? Call me old-fashioned if you will, but really, where is the additional functionality here!? The only addition is informing the whole world in the process, instead of just your buddy – and really, that’s an anti-function as far as I’m concerned.
Incidentally, it was one of the things that bought me into bebo in the first place, when they sold themselves as somewhere where you could “connect” abstracted away from your email address. So even when you changed email, you wouldn’t lose your connections as you just updated it once and that was it. However, even back then, I thought cohesion would be much better satisfied by a lean-and-mean site that was simply a database of connected contacts.
But, it was at the point when bebo removed this functionality that I first began to become disillusioned by the whole idea, I guess. That and the peer-group expectations that just drive me mad: You are expected to have checked your messages. You are expected to have seen the new photos on your friends pages. You are expected to have realised that their status has changed from “happy” to “depressed” and be ready to pick up the pieces, and give them an emoticon to cheer them up. Personally, I think they’d be better with one real hug than 100 virtual hugs!
And all this when I am so busy checking my mobile for messages, my phone for voicemails, all my email accounts for the latest distribution list items, replying to texts with the now-considered-acceptable-but-still-hideous 12-14 button interfaces available. Oh yes, and all the message boards/forums I’m signed up to.
Life is just too busy already to add social networks into the mix as well. I’d rather go back to a simple life, where I can get a non-virtual hug from one friend at a time, and see their smile as they tell me their news from last week. The news I haven’t heard yet because I haven’t spent every waking moment refreshing that page on the web where it would have been displayed.
I think for my own sanity, I just have to resist the latest pressure to join in. I shall continue to solitarily blog away to myself long after everyone else has moved on. As I’ve mentioned previously, blogging has many benefits above and beyond merely attempting to spam loyal feed-subscribers, and so the “ah, but it’s just like blogging” argument is not just about to catch me off guard 
.
This blog is for me. That’s the way it started, and I can continue if need be. I love sharing it with you all, but only so long as you want to share 
go do more exciting things if you like!
See you all back in the blog-o-sphere sometime after you’ve been through the pain and frustration
06.06.07
Is happiness an ultimate aim in life?
Well, I guess for many people it is!
And yet, it’s simultaneously one of the most elusive things…
Btw, a thought I’ve not been able to shake for the past couple of days: isn’t just ‘life’ one of *the* most weirdest things ever! I mean, of all the things I’ve experienced, life is right up there as just being completely confusingly crazily ridiculous… but maybe that’s just me! [I must be 'going through a phase' as my Mum would say. - how much did I hate it when she said that... just so very patronising, and yet I always knew it was just so very very true!]
Anyway, to get back to my thrilling topic of the day… happiness.
To say “I’m happy” with an honest-glint in your eye is one of the hardest things to do, even when its true. Yet paradoxically, everyone knows that everyone likes to say they’re happy in an optimistic “If I say it, maybe I can believe it” kind of way. Despite me feeling almost ‘dishonest’ sometimes when I try to say I’m happy, I do have a few ‘theories’ as to how it all works, and think I get on pretty good, all things considered!
I am convinced you can never just ‘get’ happiness. Well, maybe that much is obvious, but let me explain further. I mean, you can’t just do things you like doing, and that makes you happy. The human mind is far more complicated than that!! We can allow ourselves to be depressed, when we should be on top of the world. Or we can try and fool ourselves into being happy, but then know we’re not *really* happy ‘cos we’ve only conned ourself into it…
Anyways, to get back to the positive side of things, I think happiness happens in a side-effect kind of way (to use geek-talk, the language I know!) It’s like, you go do something, then in the middle of it you go “hey, I’m actually happy right now!” and it is a revelation and it makes you smile and no matter what slums are surrounding you, all of a sudden they take on a little more colour than they had before.
And so, in a logical, rationistic kind of way – which may actually seem to be taking all the fun out of it! – I actually believe I am happy.
Oh, that’s not to say I don’t have as many bipolar moments as the best of them. It’s not to say I don’t simultaneously feel hurt at the loss of friends at work, while being fully and utterly positive about the wonderful company I work for . I see no contradiction there, really.
It’s also not to say I don’t cry myself to sleep sometimes when I don’t understand how this complex world all fits together. I still believe it does fit together, but sometimes I get myself bogged down in the details and lose sight of those things that I believe have the highest concentration of side-effect-happiness.
But I do feel I’m beginning to understand what kinds of things *are* ‘happy things’. I’ve tried and tested many ‘techniques’ even in my shorter-than-my-wise-counsellor-friends lives, and have come to an age-old conclusion: “there is no new thing under the sun”.
The next opinion of mine gets rather too technical for such a colourfully creative topic – I think different actions can produce different kinds of happiness. For example, the notion of “It is better to give than to receive.” Both can – and do – make people happy, but one is more of a material happiness, whereas the other is emotional.
Then, some happiness is more long-term than others. I don’t really know how to describe this, other than a ‘physical’ analogy: we’re sometimes willing to go through a painful operation, if it fixes up something that would give us more long-lasting pain.
That works with happiness, too, I’m convinced. Some of my very best friends, I love them because they’re able to tell me the “bad” things. I know it is one of the hardest things to do, to give ‘constructive criticism’ – and to take it! – but I’m not even talking about that, but something deeper. The way sometimes they give you the outside perspective that actually you don’t want to hear ‘cos you feel “shown up” but nevertheless you agree with when you do hear.
Like when your best friend says to you “Rachel, you ought to remember that X in your life takes priority over Y.” when she realises that right now you’ve been putting Y first, but when at other times you’ve assured her that X is more important to you.
(I think that’s what I miss most about my Glasgow friends – we were all close enough to speak to each other like that, and love each other for it… )
On that whole “being long term” note, I think it is perfectly honest to be crying, and yet believe you are happy at the same time.
And I am happy right now .
