Return of the Blogger: Blogging vs Microblogging

This blog has been a shameful posting desolace for the past few months (all the way from March) and although I could instantly come up with a plethora of explanations for my lack of posting, only two of them have the validity to deserve being mentioned here.

The first one is my decision to successfully complete the academic year at the faculty in order to be able to go study abroad - for which purpose a considerable amount of free time had to be sacrificed and blogging was one for many activities that were thrown into the basket of temporary irrelevance.

The second one is partially related to the first reason, at least as far as the perceived lack of time for blogging is concerned, though in all other aspects it really tends to question the purpose of blogging and forces one to reexamine this once well respected activity that has turned into yet another Internet fad via a process of "mainstreaming".

To call out the culprit by name, I am naturally talking about Twitter - or better yet - twittering. Though this will inevitably turn into an Internet fad as well (according to El Mano it already has), I strongly doubt that Twitter or any similar service such as FriendFeed and Jaiku would lose their appeal to me due to a more convenient way of expressing myself like it happened with blogging for a while.

Round one

My main issue between tweeting and blogging was that the former became not complementary to the latter but a supplement for it instead.
The newly formed relation between the two certainly seemed quite convenient for a certain period of time, especially when I was focused on passing all eleven exams I had left, though as time passed I gradually began realizing how limiting this short form of communication can be and decided to do an above-mentioned evaluation in the form of a long anticipated blog post...

I admit that I'm predominantly twittering these days, and there are several other-than-time-based reasons why I take it to my liking: it shifts my focus from a coherent, delayed type of writing to an instantaneous one where the mood bursts have an opportunity to stand out (which undoubtedly leaves a lot of room for sociological analysis and experiments).

Beside the possibility to express your mood, a network of users sending short instant text messages offers an excellent information flow without any obstacles or regulation, which is an absolute blessing for cell-based group communication with great potential to use the (mobile or any other device) distributed information to your own liking, for example creating ad hoc meetings.

Communication Trends

If I had to find a suitable parallel, the most accurate one would probably be comparing YouTube vlogging and Stickam with a pinch of Seesmic. The interesting thing to point out here is the nonlinear development that both text and video communication of his type had - on the Internet, video messaging didn't evolve from text-based services but instead had a side by side evolution and only recently merged with it. On the other hand, they both had a similar pattern of development: from focusing on larger chunks of information towards satisfying more and more instantaneous communication needs, finally leading to the smallest acceptable information amounts.
Another related trend that I've noticed is the constant need for services that encompass all other existing services and aggregate their information. What becomes of this development is a horizontal order in which the sources of information are seemingly dictated by the new emerging aggregators who in fact act predominantly upon demand.

Round two

Since the discussed minimization trend has all but gone unnoticed, various fancy terms and definitions that reflect understanding of this development have been coined for such services during the last two years. Probably the most suitable (though a tad pretentious) is microblogging - as Anand Rajaraman defines it, "microblogging is semi-synchronous publish-subscribe messaging", according to which services like the Indian SMS GupShup dwarf Twitter with their enormous user base.
The inevitable debate about blogging and microblogging that sprang up as a result of dilemmas similar to my own is a pretty ancient (measured in Internet time) one and I doubt there is much that hasn't been said about it yet, which leaves me to elaborate my own standpoint in order to avoid any repetitions.

To continue with comparison of the two, a brief reflection on my past blogging posts is required.
Things that I would be blogging about a year ago, for example running, are now included in my twitter updates. This means that microblogging can successfully supplement the diary function of a blog - be it the pure facts-stating part or more private observations as well.

Twittering is perhaps less thoughtful and reflective though the limited 140-character message size that causes it at the same time pushes one towards increasingly compressed messaging which in return successfully counters the lack of above mentioned thoughtfulness and reflectiveness. The micro version of blogging therefore remains far less time-consuming and straight to the point while staying just as personal as real blogging.

Ding Ding Ding!

Even though this seemed to be a strong rational argument in favor of microblogging at first, I later began realizing that the worshiped micro platform of communication is only able to realize one array of needs someone like me might have. Forcing thoughts to be expressed in only one way brings development in terms of creativeness of expression in that particular format but neglects all the others. It is as if only one branch of a tree would be given a chance to grow and blossom while all others would eventually dry up - the problem of this is that the single branch only has a limited direction, reach and capacity of growth, no matter how big and beautifully complex it gets, thus wasting tree's resources that would be more beneficial elsewhere.

Though that may seem self-evident, I never gave it much thought before I started writing this blog post - another reason in favor of blogging. In general, I've come to a conclusion that services should adapt to forms of expression and not vice versa. Their users are then given the possibility to do the opposite and bing these service to their creative limits.

An interesting idea for the latter that I had when looking at the silly amount of fictional Star Wars characters as users on Twitter was to start a highly entertaining series in its microblogging narrative form, a step above the fake Richard Dawkins (who unfortunately got deleted after several complaints) or Fake Steve Jobs in the blogging sphere, though the most suitable thing to compare it to comes from videoblogging: the LonelyGirl15 series. While we have yet to see any such use of microblogging in practice, it surely gives some much needed backing to arguments for sustainable micropublishing.


The Loser and the Winner

After all conclusions that I have already drawn, the real winner of this clash is anyone who realizes that there actually is no feud between blogs and microblogs since they represent two different approaches to communication with the possibility of blending through old-fashioned service mutations or the horizontal order approach.

I was a loser in this respect for quite some time, turning into a twitter evangelist, completely substituting blogging for it and attempting to convert everyone to join my ranks along the way. Though I did think of my blog, I only wanted to use it as a service that binds together together and periodically posts them in a blog every now and then, essentially trying to reverse the way horizontal all-encompassing services are created. Blogging services unfortunately weren't created with that in mind, nor should they be.

What I'll try to do from now on, however, is use both of them, each for their own purpose and undoubtedly far beyond that - after all, the services are there for us to test their limits.

Insolitology - One of Web's Hidden Jewels

There are few sites on the web that fascinate me more than Insolitology with its retro 90s look, a marvelous collection of deviations and oddities that the Internet has to offer.

Basically, if you are fond and appreciative of, even looking with admiration at all kinds of unusual, strange, completely ridiculous, brilliantly insane and sometimes madly chaotic things like me - or just want to have a good laugh for hours and hours, Insolitology.com is a priceless resource for that purpose.

A wide collection of all sorts of websites that human mind can fathom (some of them unfortunately already deceased) from crazy people and organizations, including the classics like Ted Jesus Christ God (my personal favorite). The authors of the site are creating an even more amusing atmosphere with their quirky writing style, spicing up the already insanely funny creations - these two guys really know how to have fun!

The best thing about these insane geniuses is that they are mostly quite tech-savvy and use the latest technologies to spread their messages (Ted has been using YouTube for quite a while now), letting us know that they're not a remnant of the past, lost somewhere in the early nineties, and also making it possible for us to communicate with them in real time.

And who's your favorite crazy person?

On European Appeasement and Tolerance

It is often heard from all corners that bitter lessons of European past should never be forgotten, especially those of 20th century, with fingers pointed at various totalitarian regimes. Certainly, some fingers are directed specifically at their rise, citing everything from hatred and past wars to inherent destructive potential of those ideologies. All kinds of antifascist movements and efforts, educating people about the holocaust, frequent reminders of Nazi and Soviet terror... in the end it all culminates into a zero-tolerance policy towards supporting these atrocities - predominantly on the left side of political spectrum, which is far less sensitive to such restrictions of freedom.

Trying not to repeat one's own history this way is in itself a worthwhile cause... but are those accusing fingers really pointed in the right direction?

Personally, I have to distance myself from this approach, stating once and for all that I strongly disagree with it. Since the purpose of this post is not to discuss curbing of liberty and its implications - which could also serve as an indicator of flawed logic and consequentially failure of current approach - I will instead address something I deem to be crucial in understanding the real problem, using but a simple metaphor.

You see, what is being done at present time about preventing the grim past events from ever reoccurring is analogous to pointing at the upper side of the coin, a coin that quite obviously has two sides. It is only this side of the coin that receives wide attention, carrying the burden of responsibility and guilt in the eyes of those who keep a close eye on it while the equally important lower side remains hidden, unrecognized, even forgotten.

If the coin were to disappear altogether, being successfully pushed out of sight, and then reappear at a later point in time, the dangers brought along with it would only be recognized and acted upon if its previously visible upper side has remained in top position - but since it is as likely that previously unseen side will now be the one on top (due to an innocent flip somewhere along the way), the tainted coin will just as likely sneak past without raising suspicion or being recognized for what it really is, putting into motion the same atrocious sequence of events that more than once before plagued our planet after being so naively inserted into the societal slot machine.
However, unlike in the past, the chance of saving ourselves this time might be far more bleak...

The sides of the coin that I am mentioning are of course dangers of "-isms" (particularly the famous 20th century totalitarian ideologies) on one hand and the danger of appeasement on the other. The former is widely recognized and fought against, the latter neglected and buried in a quiet remote corner of Cemetery of Reality, right next to other disturbing parts of ourselves we would rather not talk about.

For example, the aggressive advancement of Nazi regime in Europe was just one side of the story... European appeasement and caving in to its threats was the other - it's important to point out that what is now perceived as threats were once entirely acceptable and legitimate demands. Looking straight in the eyes of this sad history of European appeasement is avoided at all costs, most likely due to the conviction that doing just that would either serve no purpose or is seen as a hog on resources that are already being funneled into a variety of (for example) antifascist efforts.


Even though the saying about good men and triumph of evil sums up these efforts quite nicely, giving them a solid moral backing, it is still very saddening to know of their certain failure in the long term.

While this one-sided prevention is getting more and more extreme in its measures, the one thing we should never ever let occur again is actually appeasement itself.


It is most discomforting to observe how inflexible and outdated the watchers of the upper coin side really are: only tracking the historic "-isms" and from this perspective failing to properly address any destructive system that isn't a product of European origin, even lacking interest in doing so or being undecided. But the worst of all is the inevitable unnoticeable slide towards appeasement of whoever managed not to qualify for the totalitarian/fascist label.

This applies to everything from modern genocides to harsh authoritarian rule. There is, however, one important additional application - it is actually the main reason why I started writing this post... the above examples are almost all of external nature, from beyond the sea, meaning a greater ease of distancing oneself from them (due to a seemingly far less direct influence), so what is required now in order to complete the picture are internal examples. As Pat Condell would undoubtedly agree, the best example of that would be European appeasement of numerous Islamic groups with political agendas, forcing them into mainstream society, all at the expense of constantly eroding freedom of our own. What is even more disturbing is the similar meaning between appeasement and submission...

Giving such an ideology more and more room to accommodate itself in the midst of unsuspecting future victims is not at all an innocent doing, the most suitable adjective would be suicidal. It's particularly alarming that not only we seem to be on the verge of appeasement's reign but also that the old fascism detector is malfunctioning because of it, which is most clearly visible in the rise of unsanctioned, tolerated anti-semitism.

And since I've already mentioned such an interesting, paradoxical expression, let me add a much-needed word or two on tolerance as well. Tolerance in my opinion paves the road to appeasement and serves only as an excuse to justify it.
In itself, tolerance does not mean acceptance and understanding, it does not represent symbiosis or even compromise, tolerance is nothing but the process of enduring someone's pressure, even infliction of pain while trying to compensate for it with appeasement towards that same person.

Tolerance does not contain the rational component that would cover a sympathetic attitude toward someone you seem to be in disagreement or conflict with - it is at best a temporary solution for avoiding conflict without having any intention to at least attempt to gain sufficient knowledge for understanding the tolerated individual. Even the notion of tolerance presupposing patience as its core element is false since patience is actually a calculative approach, based on rational filtering of specific relevant information.

On the whole, tolerance is a completely inappropriate word to use for elaborating conflictual interpersonal relations - but it does go along well with appeasement.


In conclusion, I would once more like to state my concern over the gap between the ones who fail to see appeasement for what it is, perhaps even giving lectures of tolerance along the way, and those few who recognize its innate destructive potential, waiting to catch us off guard once again.
Learning from own mistakes in this case does not mean only preventing the past ideologies from ever regaining power by restricting them, it is equally (if not more) important that emerging ones (yet unknown to us) are being anticipated, recognized and dealt with accordingly while the resources for that are still at our disposal... in other words, before it's too late.


I suspect that this very issue will heavily influence a related debate of negative vs. positive freedom, but that's a topic for another blog post...

Save the Last Snow For Me

Today we finally received the first and probably the last real package of snow for the season. I have to say it - I'm downright disappointed with such a snow-deprived winter, it makes shorter days and the cold much harder to bear and justify. In recent years the snowfall has been in steady decline and has pretty much hit a new low in this winter.




That is why I've decided to document the snow a bit before it vanishes for good... who knows, next year might be even worse. The pictures posted here therefore have a predominantly archival role.
The photos went through some minor adjustments in Photoshop but are otherwise fresh from the morning photo session around the house.



A Koyaanisqatsi inspired photo... If you haven't watched or even heard about this film, I highly recommend it - it has a cult status and really is worth watching. *Koyaanisqatsi music playing in the background*




It's not that there wouldn't be enough snow available at higher altitudes (there was plenty of it in the mountains), the thing is that there is something incredibly calming and satisfying about the white coating covering our civilization's greatest achievements, softening the edges of natural and unnatural surroundings alike and causing everything to come to a standstill, incapacitating and silencing it at least for a short while.




Of course, I better just come out and say it: I love snow... the more snow the better. I sometimes wonder why and usually come to a conclusion that it has roots in either genetics, my childhood experience or both. Whatever the case may be, watching snowflakes fall from an overcast sky always was one of my favorite hobbies... secretly wishing that a sudden blizzard would conjure up insane amounts of snow, burying the ground under meters and meters of it.
Aaaaahhhhhh....

Expergefaciphobia - The Fear of Waking Up

Let's start off with the most obvious - etymology of this clumsy tongue-twisting word that dwells in the title above: When I was sifting through various dictionaries and Internet resources in search of a term that would best describe the supposed mental condition of mine, the most convenient word I was able to find seemed to be expergefacio (itself put together from ex-pergo-facio), a Latin verb meaning to awaken. Since there was no phobia related to waking up, no description even remotely close to my conscious understanding of this condition, I found my last resort in making an elegant descriptive neologism, hence the word that you see in this blog's title. Now, it would definitely be an overstatement to claim that it is the ideal word to represent the ideas this phobia is built on, the truth of the matter is that it neither looks nor sounds pleasantly - thus its prospects of becoming the next hip buzzword in pop culture are very dim.

The key to fully understanding the expression requires a thorough explanation of its English translation, the fear of waking up. The phrase itself is almost always used in a metaphorical way, predominantly in a political context, but to be able to comprehend its meaning in a true phobic sense, a slight deterrance from the prosaic usage is required - for in this case, its meaning is quite literary.

The next arising question is naturally why is the act of waking up, the moment in which one starts fully regaining conscience after a period of hibernation so crucial, so important to cause an irrational fear in an individual, namely myself.

It is precisely at this point that a distinction from other related words can be made, thus narrowing the definiton further or at least giving it a desired direction. In addition, gaining understanding of expergefaciphobia through questioning its right to exist seems like a suitable approach.

If waking up is what one is afraid of, the logical conclusion is that the fear of sleep (hypnophobia, somniphobia) would be more entitled to receiving all the attention. However, this way of thinking is false - it's true that sleeping itself or even falling asleep eventually leads to the point of waking up, but an essential part of somniphobia among various feelings of insecurity and vulnerability is a fear of not waking up. In this case, it does not matter what had been occuring during the hibernation, it is not a matter of expergefaciphobia to deal with a nightmare or the negative events of the previous day. Even though it could be argued that the process of sleeping after all causes the awakening, it isn't the causes that we're after when it comes to defining the phobia - effects are the dreaded reason for showering this point zero, the moment of waking up with so much attention.

If it is the the effects that we're after, the wrong assumption to make would be that we're having a certain fear of the future, trembling before the mischiefs that start preying upon us the very moment we open our eyes after spending several hours in a blissful state of careless slumber. This would only lead to dismissing the issue as teen angst, which is clearly not the case, and even though I kinda like to feel young, angsty behavior isn't exactly a positive trait that would fall into this phobic context. If you see someone screaming in despair over the uncertain future of their 15 year-old life, the chances that you've stumbled upon a case of expergefaciphobia are very slim (still, such a possibility does exist).

At this point I would like to assure my readers that we still haven't run out of options for a credible exposition, even though we've eliminated both the past and the future from the pool of possible explanations by introducing several different phobias. What was still not addressed so far due to my hidden posting agenda is the present, these loathed undesired events and processes occuring as one is waking up - or rather, it is becoming aware of their occurence and inevitable effects that truly is the root of expergefaciphobia.

If I rephrase this revelation: the cause of my fear of awakening is the effect of waking up, plain and simple. However, there are some prerequisites for getting to this point in the first place...

You see, it takes a very particular and informed view of the world combined with a great deal of self-observation (as a result of having too much time on your hands) to even start thinking in such a way, to start seeing things (especially sleep) a bit differently. Let me try to describe for you what a bit differently actually means.


As I explained it to B to some extent, waking up horrifies me in two different ways: the first one is the feeling of dying every day and resurrecting as a different person. It is a "somewhat" exaggerated version of reality - which is precisely what makes it a phobia - but nonetheless true.

The reasoning behind it is that our minds are a subject to constant change. Despite the fact that the mainstream is treating personality (of a healthy full-grown human specimen) as a stable, permanent, fixed phenomenon (or a set of phenomena as I like to claim), it is in fact all but that: constant incremental changes are occuring within each fluctuating mind on a daily basis, too small pieces of a giant puzzle for anyone to take notice, slowly but surely reshaping your mental landscape. Naturally, sticking to the same cognitive operations undoubtedly can restrict your speed, course and extent of changes, but I'm guessing that in principle it still remains chaotic and unpredictable, its long-term effects impossible for our minds to grasp. As several researches have been discovering in recent time, the most substantial portion of changes is coming about during our sleep, meaning that it is not just (for example) the level of hormones that changes (which can by itself heavily influence our behavior and performance) but potentially also our individual selves.

The phobic component here is obvious: going to sleep will inevitably mean critical changes in thinking, moods and attitudes, which will lead to conflict with previous night's mental state and its plans for the future, almost certainly meaning a triumph over poor defenseless yesterday self. It is not necessarily always so but according to my own experience, waking up remains quite an unfavorable lottery.

That is why I more and more fear of waking up, prolonging my departure to bed until I've done all I could possibly think of for that day - simply because there is a good chance for your near future self to write it off for good. So once again, it is not the sleep that I fear (except perhaps a lack of it) but the predominantly (un)controllable consequences that it brings when waking up.

Speaking from my own experience, it is extremely hard for a chaotic mind to control such a situation - the main problem is of course the lack of focus or direction, a set of personal rules or principles that would need to be created to compensate for constant mental variability. Until you are capable of constructing something like that to hold on to as you journey from one day to another, there really isn't much you can do except shiver at the thought of waking up next day...


The second way in which waking up horrifies me is the physical zombie mode I start most of the mornings in. It significantly contributes to my early set of decisions (the first one usually being the binary to get up or not to get up), but can be manipulated relatively easily - getting enough sleep, changing the environment or waking up at just the right moment. The latter is of course easier said than done (and also another lottery) but things like aXbo alarm clock or the upcoming SleepSmart certainly do look promising... too bad that it costs 200€ just to try it out.


I truly hope that you have by now realized that waking up is not the easiest thing to do, in fact, for some of us it actually is the hardest thing imaginable - the endless flock of people complaining about being drowsy in the morning certainly doesn't fall into this category.
Of course, I am not trying to be apologetic, it's merely the fact that expergefaciphobia is a serious enough condition to deserve wider attention, at least for the underlying ideas if not anything else. The least this post could do (beside offering excellent therapy for myself) is to help make some sense of related issues to any desperate passers-by.

I travel light.

I do, I really do! Ever since I remember, I've been having a zeal, an obsession with traveling around in a minimalistic fashion, as little encumbered by luggage of any sort or redundant apparel as possible, regardless of where or for how long I went. Even back in the early days of primary school, I remember feeling overjoyed whenever I could come to school without a square-shaped bag on my back, using extremely flexible and light materials like small plastic bags or simply stuffing things into my pockets. The same goes for any trips that we've made... at first I just kept shortening the list of things I needed to carry in my backpack but soon ended up eliminating the backpack altogether. It was a clumsy self-limiting burden, and going around without its over-encumbering weight always gave me the feeling of being infinitely more free than having this bloated abomination in any shape of form somewhere nearby.

As the years went on, I started taking great pride in reducing the essential things I had to carry around to the lowest possible amount - it became almost as painting an abstraction of an abstraction, a journey along the path of realization that most things indeed serve no other purpose than providing some inner comfort, a mental patch for their bearer.
This minimalistic, almost ascetic attitude didn't just apply to my travels, it extended far beyond that and in many ways became an integral part of my life, in my own opinion heavily contributing to who I am today as a person.

In addition to being more free (or at least having such a feeling), roaming around in a light fashion does have at least two more advantages that I've come to notice - firstly, it makes you blend into the local atmosphere much faster, which is something I certainly love to do when I travel around, and secondly, it undoubtedly makes the trip a whole lot more exciting and adventurous (which could be further enhanced by taking along much less than you require for survival in a cold night).

So when I seriously started considering purchasing a decent laptop, most likely an ornery MacBook, I was faced with a serious dilemma. Since I would indubitably carry it with me everywhere I went (due to my high level of geekines), the laptop would then require a bag of its own. But what kind of a bag exactly? I just couldn't settle for one of those horrid big square conventional backpacks or a pretentious impractical briefcase, what I needed was something tiny, flat and with an imaginative well thought-out use of space, a bag that you can put over your shoulder without anyone noticing it's even there and also without anyone even suspecting that a laptop is hiding inside it (some of us would rather keep it a surprise). On the other hand, it has to provide sufficient protection for the things it holds - I want to be able to jump around and run for miles when I feel like it without its contents suffering any scratches or signs of wearing, not to mention the durability of the bag itself or the shoulder and back of its wearer.

I sailed across the interwebs for days, googling furiously and trying to find anything remotely close to my wishes. The closest thing I could come up with was the Incase Sling Pack. I do admit, it has quite a few features I wanted... but it's also too big, square and has a "Laptop Inside" sign written all over it.

So, I kept cruising around, finally stumbling upon an interesting link in one of the many blogs I came across. It contained two short words: "The Buzz", leading me to a site unheard of before. Tom Bihn bags, the old-fashioned red airplane-accompanied sign at the top read. The plainness immediately caught my attention, so I kept reading onward and it became clear that the bag presented on this was made to be worn on my back.
As its heart-warming about and FAQ sections of the page say, the company making it bears the name of its bag designing mastermind Tom Bihn. It's a company type that is particularly hard to find nowadays - a small factory in Seattle in which all bags are sewn together from high quality materials by a team of just 18 employees in what I imagine is a very friendly working environment.

Of course, making the bags at home (and not in China for example), using only the best materials and taking care of the workers means a lot higher final bag cost. But if you take into account what you actually get for your money, the price suddenly seems awfully low - a perfect high-quality bag with a lifetime guarantee, incredible customer support and a firm philosophy behind the process of its making.

But there was even more to The Buzz than that. Its compactness and curves immediately made me fall in love with it. Of course, as someone who has a secret desire to design and sew his own clothes and wallet I couldn't resist imagining a few improvements of my own, but even in its present form, the bag is pretty impressive, especially when taking into account its cheaper alternatives.

I feel like this is the sling bag I simply need to carry my (currently inexistent) laptop in - in part because it's made of awesomeness and in part because of what it represents. My next course of action after getting a laptop will therefore be ordering the Buzz and writing a review of it, hopefully finding out that it fits not only my body but more importantly my light travel spirit.

There is no doubt that a cult status of Tom Bihn bags is already established among their users and spreading around the world (through word of mouth), and being a part of it would indeed add an interesting dimension to owning a bag, turning me into a missionary with the holy task of saving the souls of all cheap bag wearing heretics... in a way, that is what I am already doing.

I believe that the company has immense potential if it remains on its current path: of course, I have doubts about how long can this growth be sustained without sacrificing some accessibility and attention that it coats its customers with - but in either case, the aura surrounding its brand name is simply too valuable to be thrown away. Or, if I rephrase what El Mano said when I enthusiastically babbled about whole Tom Bihn concept to him: it's too valuable not to invest in. Though I doubt that will happen any time soon (if ever), we'll certainly have to be on the lookout for such opportunities.

Now that I've brought this bag issue up, I also need a new minimalistic wallet - and I haven't been able to find one that suits me for over six months now, I've thought of designing my own over and over again. I wonder if Tom Bihn is up for designing another product, something along the lines of his organizer pouches...

A Ton of Blogging Drafts

Since the late summer of 2007, I have created, deleted and in other ways played around with an increasing number of blogging drafts, ranging from a few paragraphs to whole incoherent unpublished posts, slowly accumulating to over twenty in number.

My efforts in systematizing them for later orderly posting, perhaps by assigning some new labels or making series of themed posts like I did with WoW, would kinda lose that chaotic black box charm that blogs like this one generally have (I can't really say if my blog actually fits into this category).

But still, I feel obliged to tell that something is in the works beside (ir)regular posting, and make the "hidden agenda" of this blog - in other words, writing about things I'm interested in - more transparent. So here's a short list of (some of) the drafts that are bound to become real posts some day.

I have various personal drafts on Repetitions and loops and why I dislike them with a passion, speculating How my mind functions, that it is Nothing but a prison, my take on Search for normality, some ramblings about what kind of Food I like and of course expergefaciophobia.
I take a swim in the sea of thoughts about Chaos-rationality, Insolitology, The two extremes of acceptance, on Anonymous and on Anonymity, a scary maze of thoughts on Pure wish, something about a Global-to-planetary shift, my viewpoint on Tradition, the importance of Identity, on Bipolar political divisions, on Counter-religions, some criticism concerning self-proclaimed Pickup artists...

This should be enough for now, I already feel like I have given all three regular visitors of this blog false hope of getting some long-anticipated interesting reading.

Will Things Never Change?

So, I went to take a peek at what's going on in our town last Thursday...

...and got reminded why I rarely go out randomly in this place, especially without company that would usually serve as a counterweight. It awakened the grimmest and most negative views I held of population of this place, the nearly forgotten discontent. It may sound whiny but I was shocked to see how the general state of mind around here made no noticeable progress whatsoever in the last years - not that it was any better before that.
In any case, next to nearly pushing me into a momentary depression, meeting all these people after a long time, including the new ones who had successful internalized the patterns copied onto them by their contemporaries, reminded me that I really gotta get out of this place. Fast.

These Walks of Mine...

On Tuesday night, after about yet another twelve hours of sleep (in two six-hour parts), I decided to do what I haven't done for a very long time - but should have ages ago, considering my current state of mind. Walking in the dark, as I like to call it, is one of my favorite things to do, and it's been high up on the "best in life" list for as long as I can remember. There aren't many things it can be compared with, mostly because it's a unique experience in itself, and also since its impact can be incredibly far-reaching.
In contrast with more common daytime walks, these nocturnal expeditions aim to be a wholly anonymous event, eliminating every possible human interference from outside, erasing the barrier between the surroundings and yourself, and that way temporarily forming something close to the hypothetical "state of nature", a concept that would in all its ridiculousness be much more suitable for describing the likely state of mind of this night-time stroller.
The unparalleled combination of factors was nearly perfect for its purpose - I intended to go out to think through a number of things currently on my mind... and hopefully condense them somewhere along the way, perhaps even find a fil rouge beneath that shroud of disorder.

Not mistaking it for a solitary activity of a sociopath, the act of night walking predominantly serves as a refreshment, a welcome and exciting change in whatever one is doing - let's face it, there's few things like it.
In accordance with the latter and to reveal my visible disappointment that has surmounted over all these years, being able to find occasional peace like that is and has always been the single positive thing this place I live in has to offer, so I can be thankful for at least this one thing (though it can in the best case only provide a pale shadow of its equally desired vibrant opposite, such deviation from the original topic would prove to be more confusing than anything else).

While the topic of night walking isn't something I would until recently share with anyone in such a manner, I do have to say that I sometimes wonder how many people actually practice a similar thing - I have a hunch there are only a handful. Not just because I haven't met any on my own outings, the main reason is that it must seem pretty out of the ordinary to the average person.
That is one of the reasons why I haven't tried "sharing" the walks yet... on one hand, there are no such people around to like it, and it would undoubtedly alter the experience in yet unknown ways on the other. Although, I have to admit, this is exactly what would probably make it that all the more interesting.


The Walk in The Dark

The timing I set out in that cold windy night was ideal for a walk: crystal clear skies and shiny moon without a single living soul anywhere in sight. A gust of chilly northern wind blew directly into my face as I stepped out of the safe shelter of village and headed up towards the pastures, contemplating my next course of action.

The first thing on my mind was doubt. As with everything else, it was a necessity for me to doubt the purpose of walking itself. Everyone battles their own demons, and this obsession with questioning "all there is" certainly represents one of mine.
I tried to figure out if and why is this inner dialogue (not monologue) that I was about to get into more effective than the usual, outer one - conversing with another human being. I always found dialogues to be more productive and inspiring than a continuous, linear flow of information. That is why I came to imagine ad hoc entities, existing only as long as they are required and then silently disintegrating back into dark corners of my mind. They can be shaped to perfectly suit your requirements - it is their greatest advantage and also their biggest flaw. In contrast with converser from flesh and blood, the internal dialogue is exclusively dependent and therefore limited to information stored in various ways in one's own mind, which has limited ways of relaying and interpreting it, thus greatly influencing one's conclusions.
Exposing yourself to external influences is therefore the key to finding better solutions and generally a better investment for draining your brain's resources. Unfortunately, live conversations are uncontrollable situations, prone to impending doom of quickly rising entropy, ultimately leading to chaos.
This is where an inner dialogue comes in handy - it's the ability to have peace and quiet - and still get to meaningful conclusions at the same time. Furthermore, the nocturnal natural ambient contributes to just the right mood as well, it is actually an essential piece of the puzzle to make this special state of mind flourish, particularly with its emotional component.
Needless to say, this last heavily influential element, an interplay of memories and notions, stretching all the way to my early childhood, is quite likely the determining factor behind my decisions to go out in the first place. What exactly is so appealing from that point of view?

In a way, walking in the quiet darkness feeds my imagination's appetite for post-apocalyptic scenarios, the so-called Armageddon effect in which you are allowed to think to be (one of) the last surviving member(s) of humanity after a disaster of cataclysmic proportions. Cataclysmophilia itself, as I would call my obsession with this idea, is a worthwhile reason for going out.

It also gives you a feeling of playing a role-playing game, it particularly reminds me of the enchanting Diablo night scenes with its serene music, and of course the original Gothic. You, an anonymous individual, all alone in the desolate wild, are left to pit your wits and will against nature's fury (if I rephrase 300), thus getting a clear existential purpose.

As I crossed a meadow, stepping over mice hole-ridden terrain among patches of frozen grass, occasional looks at the sky reminded me how I used to undergo "you are nothing" moments, especially in early high school, a palette of universal magnitude-related realizations that brought me on edge of despair with tears in my eyes when I grasped in all its extent (or so I thought) how endlessly small fraction of this cosmos I represent, which actually pushed me a bit closer to insanity and robbed me of any serious attempts to make my life meaningful, luckily only for a while.
This time a somewhat different kind of thoughts swept through my mind: even if you are virtually nothing when compared to the great beyond, you in here and now (if only for a moment) are everything, what your eyes perceive only exists because of You, the sole purpose and legitimizer of its existence, the beholder of encircling still nature, the snowy mountains in the distance, the moon and stars up above... oh what a blissful, naive thing to think! An egocentric trance and nothing more - yet in that moment, it seemed perfectly fitting.

I moved to a wooden outpost, formerly a hunting observation point, weighing various thoughts and arranging them, having occasional flashes of my recent readings. When I rambled onward after about ten minutes, streaking into the forest, my conscious embrace of night walking reached its peak and neither a suspicious car in the forest nor the mesmerizing echoing of owl's screech could throw me off balance, out of my nightly groove. Truly, it was an exhilarating feeling, one that in the short term gives you a climactic feeling and in the long term helps you anchor back in the real world.

Now I dared to answer the question from the beginning: where exactly do you want to go?
My responsive was lucid, if somewhat Pythian. No matter what happens, I want to venture along the path that will lead me precisely where I will be able to return right here, right now at any time... this moonlit land of serenity, wherever it may truly lie.
I have always envisioned such a place... high wavy grass, silent warm silent night with only crickets playing their tune, a single dusty winding road cutting through the plains...


Such was my nighttime walk, with some details and thoughts left omitted. But its essence is here, more or less successfully captured in the form of this blog post. Looking back makes me realize how I failed to address the overall value and impact of strolling around in the dark... nonetheless, you should get a pretty good picture with a little help of imagination.

Early spring kicks in?

Last Tuesday was the day I felt it for the first time this year... a strange and isolated feeling since I had been slowly sliding down what I think is called "winter depression" slope for quite a while by that time. I was walking back to the railway station from a pretty much failed exam when suddenly something not easily describable happened - as I walked through a tree-lined avenue a frothing wave of warmth started flowing through my body, waking up my senses. It was as temporarily having a heightened sense of things - my sight, sense of smell... it felt as if I were able to grasp even the slightest details of my surroundings and marvel at their crystal-clear reality, their awakening from winter sleep... it was in that moment of freshness and warmth that I realized - spring is in the air!

Suddenly, old memories started to surface from the depths of Long forgotten gulf. It was like that proverbial movie that rolls in front of your eyes just before you give out your last breath, except that this was a random avalanche of positive, feel-good memories. In either case, it was an incredible feeling, making me feel lighter as I merrily walked on. I wasn't paying much attention to it back then but the whole thing only lasted about a quarter of an hour - that is, until I got on the train.

And then on cold, rainy Thursday evening, as I was waiting for a bus to take me to my chorus practice, everything seemed completely reversed - the world rotting in front of my eyes, all matter around me decomposing, its stench invading through my nostrils like an unwelcome guest. My observations were a clear sign that if there was an early spring looming in, it had evidently come too early.

In reality, I had no idea what could really be behind my recent "going low" mood. It would be too cheap to try to attribute it to a single factor, for example blame it on the moon, which was growing full and offered a pretty spectacular sight when I looked through the window on Friday night: a glaring silver circle was right before setting behind the hills in the west, its argent beams reaching down to earth like a silent whisper, a celestial carpet cutting its way through the tattered fog, ochre from light pollution on the ground.

However, the potential of this stellar object certainly shouldn't be dismissed so lightly... is it an executed set of events (read: coincidence) that I started feeling (slightly) better when I woke up on Tuesday afternoon, after previous night's full moon shone in all its glory and then started receding again?

Whatever the case may be, I didn't feel the presence of "spring" any longer.. in fact, my mind was once again set to good old winter - which was, ironically, a refreshing change.