I append these to the list:

• November novel - kolmkümmend minutit
• Daily arithmetic

And on the subject of the second point … rewrite the daily arithmetic program in… clojure? Using MongoDB! Jaa!

I shall now make a list of daily tasks. I shan’t break them, even if my forebrain is floating in a stagnant pool of alcohol.

• Estonian - üks tund
• Foundation Lutreola page - üks - kaks tunnid
• Overtone - finish the pine marten rhythms, then one pattern a day for the visit to Tone Tone
• Exercises - (arms || shoulders) && stomach
• 4clojure - üks pusle iga päev

Get with it, you dummy.

The part of me which years to leave this hellish place is hidden now. However, the more my time is protracted, that is, the more I convalesce, the more this part of me grows and threatens to overspill onto my environment. I held it in with sheer effort yesterday on the ride from Seminole to Hobbs.

The map of any explanation from either of my parents is always they same. The template is like this:

• Introduction

An overly long explanation is given as to why the topic has been breached instead of launching straight into it. It is as if they have to rationalize every free thought they have.

• Storyboard

Every point in the story is elucidated with redundancy. Every situation is explained in several ways. This most likely comes from their teaching background. My mother and father must get the point across to everyone in the classroom - to make sure it is understood. In these cases, however, it is a classroom of one: me.

Part XVII

My walks in the evening end with my body oozing perspiration from every pore. The temperature shift between the shunned outdoors and the airconditioned interior is abrupt and possibly shocking to my system.

A sudden gush from every ore leaves a sticky film on my body.

The Mennonite families still occupy the park in clumps. Each Mennonite individual is like a tentacle extending from an unseen protoplasm - a nucleus. It seems they are discreet, as the families do not seem to interact.

Some days ago - perhaps weeks - one family sat on the rise slightly overlooking the sidewalk on which I stroll in the evenings. The young girls in the group made it a point to wave at each passerby. The naivety was stunning. Typically, I smirked back at them, but did not raise my paw.

The oldest daughter in the family always stared openly at me when she was on the track and we passed. This is because I am a võõras and she knows it.

They sit on the hill and the high ground gives them courage to wave at the võõras striding by like a diety who is lost in a godless land.

I suppose I am a subtly elitist bastard still. My countenance exudes confidence which is unlike the meekness in the Mennonites. I believe the people here (not just the Mennonites) are bothered by someone they sense who doesn’t give a damn about others’ thoughts. Close knit communities need constant feedback between individuals and the need for acceptance is great.

It occurs to me that the same is true in employment groups. And in social circles. The constant need to be thought of positively is repellent to me. It is a crutch. One, in this regard, must constantly be on the alert for any possibility of negative associations and quash them immediately. It must be exhausting.

The deity who rises above these petty matters is one who is truly satisfied.

Welcome to Sunday morning in Seminole Texas. I am sitting upright in bed in a hunchbacked manner. I have now corrected this manner, to my spine’s delight.

I have neglected my writings for a few days now and feel a bit out of touch with my own psyche. This also reminds me that I have neglected my book for about eight months. I shall get back to it soon. The scene which broils constantly in my mind is of Shambal and our hero at a table in the café at the corner of Broadway and some street in the lower 100s in New York City. Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps is playing throughout the café. The sound system is not seen. The music emanates from everywhere.

Ah! Ambient noise! (Beautiful in this case, however)

As if our two protagansts were on stage and watched by a silent but attentive audience, their table is lighted. The remainder of the café is dark and no serving staff is seen. Regardless, a steaming cup of coffee each sits before them. Shambal, of course, pines for a beer. This is not Praha, our hero reminds him.

Though not the only portion of the scene which is in my mind (though others have actually escaped my mind at the moment, but will likely resurface), the first three parts of the Messiaen piece will cycle again and again as our hero explains to Shambal the futility the wandering piano line inspires (especially in Part Two). Shambal will consider this in his dullard manner, but come up with an analogy for their plight in the seemingly deserted New York City.

What I haven’t exactly plotted out in my head is Shambal’s demise. Earlier in the book, he was absorbed by a rock. I haven’t decided if this portion is a hallucination by our hero or an actual happening. Well, most of the book could be seen either way, actually.

So, as the Sunday morning in Seminole gropes for me, I relent and walk from creativity to fruitless activity once again.

Tere hommikust!

Para-phrase:

… when the city had stretched its metal web from pole to pole, leaving green things only in the wells of immortal minds.

The Fall of Earth City by Hawkwind from The Church of Hawkwind, an album that I’ll listen to at this very moment.

The conservatives rule in Texas even among the proclaimed Democrats (liberals? eh…). I have just been involved in a mass killing of organic creatures for no other reason than to maintain both useless aesthetics and anthropomorphic superiority/isolation. All possibilities of pests entering a certain perimeter has been rendered nil. Any infestation of green, herbivoric material, by means of slaughter, is no longer a concern.

This abstracts out to putting convenience above biodiversity. The monobiopsychosis of the state of Texas (or the State of Texanship) sees all life beneath it if that life intrudes on the whimsical habits of modern life.

The head of the table is behind me pulling my strings and I grapple equally for control and obedience as the seated ghosts fling themselves at a meal.

Ghosts are the fleshy remains of dessicated bodies ground into meal for processing into breadstuffs. These fleshy remains drift through the world, passing in and and of the minds of the undessicated as all beings with souls do.

As all food does, the breadstuffs created from dessicated beings is processed slowly in the minds of the undessicated. We use it to expand our mental faculties and once the nourishment is finished, the taste slowly wanes into forgetfulness. The neural passages grow, sure. Other breadstuffs from the dessicated further nourish. Tastes are archetypes which remind of old meals. Therefore, each living creature, once processed, is filed away under a hierarchy of tastes.

Categorization is the only way to cope with limitless stimuli used as food.

The sad tree shelters the hammer’s progress.

The parasite which sucks oil from the earth in the middle of what my mother calls the “Walking Park” here in Seminole stands oblivious and mechanical over a small tree (dubbed The Sad Tree by the Smaller One). The actual name of the park is the SS Forrest park. It was constructed, I believe, in the 80s during tortured times at Fort Stockton High School (for me).

I should have written the opposite, really. The hammer is actually sheltering, if one could call it that, the tree. Regardless, they are both out of place.

They are both artificial.

By artificial, I mean out of their environment. Both placed by humans. The hammer is more blantant in its artificiality, but the tree, having to be constantly irrigated lest it wither, is in a sadder state. This is akin to your frail grandmother having been born frail and during every second of her decrepit life being hooked to life support.

If some system of isomorphic neurological structure exists inside this tree which gives it a sort of consciousness (though alien to our own), it is screaming for euthanasia.

The evil hammer pounds away as the Sad Tree possibly observes. It will break down into constituent elements one day much further in the future. Or if the explosives are effective.

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.