I believe it is much more crippling to be an extrovert. If one is an extrovert, the shield from the absurdity of an accidental (a cosmic accident, but an accident all the same) existence, must be organized and/or monolithic groups or, as the epitome of extroverts, Christián, says, families.

When the hypothetical apocalypse arrives, those who derive strength internally will be those who forge the path forward. Extroversion requires, as I wrote, shields, that consist of myriad, small folk communities from whom they draw energy.

This being written, extroverts are the real energy vampires.

I asked Christián how he was feeling. A portion of the conversation:

christián neumann: i feel spectacular

You see? He feels spectacular. And we’re about to see why.

inhortte@gmail.com/66B66FBA: And, in your opinion, why do you feel so spectacular? christián neumann: well, there are several reasons malaga helps me to shed my horrible social awekwardness that seems to plague me often

Minu meelest, his awkwardness comes from the fact that, in Berlin, he doesn’t have folk communities he can lean on and sup energy from. He had that in Zwickau. He had that to an extent in Praha. In Berlin, things are more discreet. His relationships are built more one-on-one, and though he does have parties, they are usually not with people who worship or look up to him. IE, they cannot be preyed on for energy.

there, i have access to a constant stream of girls, which helps me to figure out some of the things that have vexed me about the opposite sex. malaga in general is a very nurturing environment for me. and then, the constant sex seems to help with feelings connected to hormones

Feeding.

i am becoming more normal, as i would say, learning to deal with myself without alcohol, which i have used for many years to medicate my awekwardness

Deriving any energy from a depressant is useless for an extrovert. There is a reason one hears about the extreme use of stimulants by humans who are in the media and generally in the spotlight.

inhortte@gmail.com/66B66FBA: Ah. Too bad about the normality. I don’t like normal.

Christián is often drug down by words. The meanings are too concrete for him. I may be going out on a limb here, but let me propose that extroverts have a harder time understanding abstractions than introverts do. Even though Christián aches to find the specific meaning of what he claims by the word normal above, he cannot grasp it with linguistic acumen and settles for a word which has no real meaning in the conversation. The gulf between the connotations both parties in the conversation hold is vast.

christián neumann: me neither, but this is a different kind of normal, like, the non awekward and less obsessive/anxious kind of normal.

Exactly.

and the intellectual work of the studio is very satisfying so that’s it adventure/creativity/lighthearted but positive relationships with the opposite sex. so i feel good. not to mention fun in the sun and a great time with my zwickau “family”

The point of the inclusion of our banter is to illustrate the need for external stimulation. There are varying degrees of introversion and extroversion and better measured on an axis (Axis Thinking - Yeh!), but the closer to the endpoint which is marked extroversion, the harder to create stimulation solely from within.

inhortte@gmail.com/66B66FBA: Families are overrated. christián neumann: well, for you inhortte@gmail.com/66B66FBA: I’m glad you finally see it that way. christián neumann: for me it is important to be around positive people who care for me, but everyone is different

I must admit that Christián has changed his perspective over time. He used to hold that his view was absolute. IE, introversion was to be seen as a sort of illness and his manner of living (extroversion) was the correct way. Let’s line all of the introverts up and lobotomize ’um! You bet.

inhortte@gmail.com/66B66FBA: I enjoy being around people who care about me, for sure, but I certainly don’t call them ‘families’ and I certainly don’t like being around more than 2 or 3 at a time. christián neumann: sure

I am reminded of one of the final lyrics of Everybody’s Slimmin’ by Slapp Happy

How did Franz Kafka stay so thin? He ate himself from within.

Ashley posted this via Twitter this morning:

Growing up means learning not always to take one’s own side; daring to think against oneself.

I believe many people I know would have a problem with this concept. Ego manifests itself and denies oneself the ability to be one’s own opponent. Christián is a good example. I’d say, most likely, Acy, as well. Let’s throw in James for good measure.

Ashley’s post aligns perfectly with humility and the denial of pride and self-worship. One’s ideas can be crucial to one’s development mentally, but they are not the end all. Tempering and expanding them with outside concepts is tantamount! Jah.

Observations in my line of work over the years has seen egocentric behaviour often. There is an idea entitled egoless programming which promotes severing yourself from emotional ties with your creations and therefore letting others hack and rearrange their contents. In such an environment, programmers holding on to absurd pride in their creations are expunged, as they should be.

I recall when Christián asked me to look over his writing. The grammar and spelling were atrocious. I took to editing it. He was offended. How could someone dare to even touch much less manipulate his creation? Damn ego.

Writing of monolithic groups…

As you know, I’ve worked for a good number of IT companies. I italicize it because the larger they have become, in my experience, the more faceless they seem. Every monolithic group has two groups of cells.

• The brain, CPU or upper management
• The employees, serfs, or replaceable ones

I’ve always been a part of the latter group. I admit that is mostly true because of choice. Being the brains of a monolithic group has never been my goal. The replaceable serfs oscillate quite a bit, but mostly stay in place. When they try to move to other positions without the help of upper management, they inevitably fall foul of the CPU and are expunged.

Unfortunately, the analogy of a great body shedding cells and replacing them falls short here. When the serfs finally realize they have tiny brains of their own, they may choose to leave voluntarily. This choice is one of the most fulfilling in their tiny lives.

Acy created a note on Facebook today. It concerns religion. I shall quote part of it here, as you will soon see if you keep reading.

(Facebook)

Religion teaches one to accept dogma uncritically and discourages asking questions. This makes it much easier for religious leaders, politicians, and illegitimate authorities to manipulate people into doing their will. It is unscientific, and misguides people into using their intellect to support a preconceived viewpoint instead of desiring and seeking out the truth. Unquestioning belief and close-mindedness leads to a stultifying conformity and inability to change as the world changes, and even worse, a resistance and opposition to change in the world.

I agree with what Acy writes here. However, I think religion is only one of a larger set of things which oppresses free thought and curiosity. I propose that, actually, monolithic groups are the cause. They create an inertia which individuals acting on their own have a harder and harder time moving. In fact, individuals within the groups, the larger the groups become, tend to stay in a single place and not move about even within the group.

When I say move about, I mean change roles, not actually physically move. Small, discrete entities, consisting of few people, are more mobile, and easily adapt to change, and even openly pursue it. Change may create improvement, raise standards. Comfort and inertia tend to deter such things.

Acy talks of truth being set in stone. In the case of religion, it is set in print, as it were, in a holy book. A book of rules? Of course it is easier to fall back on an instruction manual than to improvise and concoct from a situation what may be right or wrong. The book sits on the pastor’s pulpit. The book sits in the pews. They are all full of inertia.

The larger the herd of people, the more apt the mass is to reject any sort of change. There is no room for it. There are too many cells which must bide with mutation. Evolution cannot happen. In this regard, change can be seen as illness spreading within an organism. Bad cells are excised.

Acy may not know it, but he is out. I admire that. I, too, am out.

It is done and it was quite simple. Yes, MongoDB is superior to MySql. Yes, I know they are different beasts, but since switching for martenblog, my pituitary gland has stopped secreting alien resin into my hypothalamus.

So the script to update Heroku is happily done. Now, to the novel I’ve been reading. I bet you cannot guess what it is.

The move to the office has, indeed, helped curb my lethargy. I find that every day I must make an addition to martenblog as a flint spark to my neurological state. So far today, it has been a modification to the CSS which makes the scrollbar on the topics sidebar tolerable, as well as resizing the widths of the sidebars. Yeah, it is not perfect and the header is still strangely offcenter, but I am not worried at this moment about this anomaly.

Next, I should definitely create a script which will compare the MongoDB on both localhost (that’s mustela-ermina to you, buddy) and on heroku, then transfer new additions to the entry, topic and entry_topic collections from the former to the latter. Isn’t that exciting?

I was mistaken about the Mennonite chick from two days back. She was not the same as I saw and mentioned during my first tentative discourse about the cultish group. I saw her last night, however, wearing the traditional skirt and blouse, marching along the sidewalk (always anti-clockwise) with a determined face. She glanced at me as I passed in a clockwise direction. I saw vacuity. Perhaps it was imagination. Perhaps it was reality. I should not fool myself that anyone ensconced in the cultish phenomenon would be open-minded enough to accept me as a friend. There is the age difference, as well, which may be an issue for such younglings.

Ah! Lack of experience would also be a factor. No, Christián, not sexual experience, you single-minded fool! I peer back into my past at who I was at üheksateist years of age, sheltered till then in the bubble of Fort Stockton. Perhaps I was on the cutting edge of bright young minds coming from such a figuratively walled citadel, but had absolutely nothing on the remainder of the state, especially those from cities such as Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, or even El Paso. Not to fucking mention the rest of the good ol’ USA and the mythological (for me at the time) world beyond. I was a naive youngling. I thought I was not. But I certainly was. The contrast with what I have seen since and that of, say, a seitseteist to üheksateist aged Mennonite would be extreme. Perhaps she’d be fascinated with my stories of travels and bizarre situations her dreams may have only hinted at. Perhaps she’d just try to convert me to her faith, as she’s taught to from a young age.

Evangelism. Proselytizing. I don’t like it.

Suffering is the norm around these parts. My parents and their peers (and relatives) seem to thrive on it. This fecundity of psychological torture most likely wears them down and will be the main cause of death (especially for my mother), but it is practiced like the well oiled catholic girl’s ritual.

News isn’t news unless there is tragedy involved. Why is this? My parents never come up to me and tell a story about anything positive and uplifting concerning recent times. Oh yes, they reminisce about their (much) younger days with a tangible gleam in the eye.

Their faith is the only positive force, supernatural and superstitious as it is. Returning from any journey by car of any substantial length (read - more than 5 miles), as the doors are opened and we disembark, ready to enter the air-conditioned solace of this house, words are always spoken (though not by me) giving thanks to the Lord for a safe journey.

Matters of faith bludgeon me. They cannot be reckoned with discursively. We all know that.

As most of you know, every evening whilst in Seminole, I walk in the only practical place: the park. I believe there are other parks in Seminole (if one can call them that), but the others may easily be mistaken for vacant lots. This one is sculpted. Mostly devoid of trees, strolling at any time besides early morning or late evening is out of the question. I returned approximately kolmkümmend neli minutes ago from my daily stroll.

Tonight it was at its most populated that I can remember. The main contributors to the population were discrete clumps of Mennonites. One group numbered maybe kaksteist, others were kolm or neli. The solitary girl I saw the other night was also present. I did not break silence with her. This time, she didn’t glance at me that I noticed. See on elu.

One of these clumps - one numbering viis, I think - a family - seemed to observe me with a keen interest. That was my initial impression, anyway. I was justified in this suspicion when a girl of maybe üksteist detached herself and approached me whilst I was studying Eesti on a bench. (Yes, I didn’t walk contastly, but did sit and study my vocabulary at times, which contrasts last night during which I only walked and absorbed a variety of musics.) She handed me a small book, longer horizontally than vertically, stapled as binding. It was a cry for one to accept Jesus in the form of a comic. I only read through the first neli or viis pages. Perhaps I’ll read through the whole thing and let my readers know how fantastic it truly is.

I wanted to, on my next cycle round the park, hand it back to the child and tell her sorry but I am not interested. The clump of Mennonites had vanished, however, by the time I reached the spot again…

Lethargy sweeps over me.

AGAIN!

I am a sponge for stifling burdens which weigh. I cannot even stumble under them since I am perpetually sitting in bed. A move to the office may be in order. I shall try that tactic tomorrow. Oh, and when I write sponge, I do not mean sponge in the sense of, like my friend Christián Newman, having the intellect of a sponge, but instead having the capability to absorb the lackadaisical atmosphere of West Texas.

I once wrote a short story. It may still exist on the hard drive which has sat wanting to be recovered for üksteist aastat. In it, I write about the Texas summer and how it fills one with despair and squeezes all creative energy from the brain - that sponge. When the brain is released from its grip, it inflates, but this time is filled with a dread laziness. An inability to move, to create, or even pace the floor. One thanks the good lord Jesus for air conditioning at this point. Winter is the creative season in Texas. But may I be far far away (in Estonia!) by the time that it comes around.

I need to

• Study Estonian
• Finish this Lovecraft story
• Muddle up something which seems important at the time
• Start puttering around with dotcloud

But first I must take a broken down lamp to its final resting place: the dumpster.

I wonder how I managed to be so productive in Seminole during December 2010 and January 2011. It is a mystery since now I spend my time lolling about reading useless forums. I was musically active then. I wrote 30 000 words of a novel which is yet to be completed. I need to get off my ass mentally and produce something.

I must admit that I have finished (I say the word a bit laughingly) the martenblog in Clojure and it is running on Heroku. Next! Assign a real domain name to it, Bobbus. Jah. Bluehost will become dead in the water. I’ll probably not pay for it in December. By some sort of miracle, money will begin rolling in from grey holes all around, financing sites in the clouds. For üheksakümmend üheksa bucks a month, I can have unlimited dotcloud uptime. First, I must get something like this blog running as an example there. Eventually lutreola has to go somewhere that supports the Java (and therefore Clojure) platform. That means a cloud service like Heroku or dotcloud. There are many other choices, of course. These are just the two (actually mostly the former) I’ve been tooling with. Jah.

(dotcloud)
(Heroku)
(dotcloud)

It seems when a new topic is required, an exception is thrown. The exception looks like this:

java.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.ClassCastException: java.lang.String cannot be cast to java.util.Map$Entry

This makes no sense to me at the moment, so I’m doing a few tests. This post is the beginning of them. I hope you enjoy thoroughly.