in fiction

Talking to Gergana, a close friend of mine, has reminded me of something incredibly awesome.

We can manifest fiction in our heads - entire worlds and universes, filled to the brim with fantastic creatures and possibilities. We can build these worlds up from a creative nothingness, write their histories down in books, define the laws that govern these new realities.

howl

It's 6:30 AM as of writing and I am destroying my sleep schedule, but with good reason. My friend, who I am wasting the night away with - Kasia - the same friend who had recently visited me, has just now told me a story that I simply found interesting enough to share.

EU Battle.net Invitational 2011

I know it's been about a month since the European Battle.net Invitational happened, but I've actually never made a decent attempt at telling the full tale and recounting most of my experiences there. Why shouldn't I? After all, I had one of the best times in a long while - it was my first live eSports experience - definitely worth talking about.

ghost key II

There is an ancient post of mine containing a link and a brief reflection on that link, in which I note I have never had what could be considered a "supernatural" encounter, something that would cause a skeptic to grin mockingly as I recounted the tale, something that could not easily be explained without reaching some peculiar conclusions.

I've been exposed from early on to various recounts of encounters with the paranormal, the unexplained, signs from a realm unknown and hidden from our sight. Raised in a spiritually open household (which, while not complying with conventional Christianity, never eschewed any form of spiritual expression completely), I was ready and hoping for something to happen.

Nope.
Nothing.

Recently, I've been paid a rather long visit by my best friend and her boyfriend. Said boyfriend - who once used to be a die-hard skeptic - changed his mind after having experienced a few unnatural encounters himself. My best friend herself is not skeptic, but occasionally has to deal with a form of anxiety where she fears oblivion after death.
During our second night, when we finally got around to breaking out the drinks, there was a moment during the night when my friend reportedly saw something - rather nondescript, but with a height attributed to it - outside the window. I did not have the same experience - I saw no unfamiliar or unwelcome movement anywhere beyond the windows.
This segued from us warily guarding the living room, prepared to fend for ourselves, into us sitting down on the couch or the cold floor and sharing various odd tales. Both my friend and her boyfriend had plenty to share.
I had nothing.

It's not the case that I am guarding myself actively with a shield of cynical skepticism. I always listen intently - I have a love for the mysterious and unexplained (as opposed to cheap scares and any kind of horror) and I always find myself somewhat envious of these people and their experiences.
Is it perhaps my brain subconsciously defending itself? The closest I've come to an actual thing happening is an acutely strange feeling, a tense atmosphere created by deeper darkness and starkly contrasting nightlight - a feeling, in fact, which just inspired me to write this post. And yet I end up catching myself thinking these typical, "adult" comforting thoughts - it's just the contrasting lighting, that was just wind or whatever. I find something firmly real to blame. I find an explanation - where perhaps the story would've been a little better if there wasn't an explanation to what just happened.

I'm still holding out, in any case. I just hope it's nothing needlessly scary or horrifying. I hope to one day gather an experience that I cannot explain by rational, physical means.

To close out this post, there is a story I might have never shared. I can't recall it all too well, but it's short and it happened sometime not too long after Father's death.
We received a random call, which was attributed to an internal number, on our stationary phones. I believe the number was, in fact, 261 or 262 - one of the internal lines my father once used. My mom answered it and heard nothing on the other line. We double-checked with the entire house and confirmed that there was absolutely no one who could've been calling from that number, from that location in the house. No one was on that spot in that time - everyone had an alibi.
It happened twice.
My mom was not hasty to conclude anything. She simply chose to say she cannot explain the calls.

p.s. Talking to my friend today, I have been reminded that she actually can't be described as "not a skeptic" truthfully. Her own explanation is that, while she is intellectually convinced by the stories and accounts she hears, the conviction is not absolute and, in her words, does not reach the heart.

no middle ground

Thinking about rating systems on the Internet (YouTube, Reddit come to mind), a lot of "rating" comes down to a simple "Like/Dislike" system (up/downvotes on Reddit, likes on FB). Is this perhaps a consequence - or a small part of the reason - of a tendency for strong opinions?

Opinions and reactions on the Internet often get incredibly polar - it's hard to see the middle ground between love and hate for someone or something. Though in that case, it's also the fact that people with more balanced or neutral opinions don't tend to voice them as much as those with extreme opinions of either kind.

This is something I've seen a lot of examples of on Reddit and some especially in the SC2 community. Sometimes those are gathered around subjects that are polarizing in themselves (IdrA, iNcontroL and EG in general come to mind). The common trend is that very few people just dislike someone or feel negative about a topic in a vocal, but calm way. It's a lot more common to see people flip the fuck out - wishing death upon others, insulting them for everything and actively trying to make them feel like shit. It works on the other end of the spectrum, too - if you don't hate someone, you probably love them instead in a rabid, fanboyish manner, unwilling to hear out or accept criticism towards their favourite person.

It's probably the rule of the vocal minority, honestly - but this only means that people of the middle ground shouldn't be afraid to speak up more often, offer criticism for those they like and not overlook the good things about those they don't like.

No wonder I couldn't fit this thought in any of my social media!
In other news, MLG Anaheim has made my weekend absolutely amazing. My sleep schedule is dead as shit, but, y'know... totally worth it. Can't wait for the finals.

buyer's mixup dream

Some dreams make for mildly amusing stories. This one felt like a rather subtle advertisement...

I was browsing stores with video games in the nearby Centrum Janki mall, starting from the local Empik. I considered for a while a Command & Conquer complete set of games, then decided against it. I kept peering around, then I went to the Real supermarket to see what games are there. Strangely, in the dream the available games spanned a wide range including really old titles (I recall seeing Fallout 1 and the Quake series). I eventually settled on buying Fallout 3, but somehow never actually did...

The dream skipped forward to when I was at home. I think I had asked Dad and Mom to pick the game up, they went with me and it turned out Dad chose something completely different - which I only learned of at home. I was very unhappy with this. I stormed off to ask the store's customer service for a swap. They were unwilling to make the trade, they listed complex conditions under which they would agree.

This concluded the dream on the note that I would have to spend more money to get Fallout 3 and make up for the mistake. The regret lasted until I woke and realized I had dreamt of all that - the thought brought me considerable relief.

I guess my subconscious is advertising Fallout to me for some reason...

ghafla

Sometimes, a sensationalist story is born somewhere. Something utterly wild, something ridiculously audacious in its claims. It grabs everyone's attention. It provides a distraction.

This time, it's a prediction of the Rapture made by a random spokesman based on very shaky Bible research.

Every joke and every post regarding this sensation, sadly including this one, has time and again irked me for one important reason. It is hypocrisy of me to talk about it, since I am lending myself to it as well - the only excuse I have is that I want to make the following point.

The whole thing is an obvious farce, in my opinion. A distraction that serves to turn heads away from more important thoughts and issues, clogging people's brain RAM and CPU time for nothing (as it is doing with mine, unfortunately). And every single moment of time we spend propagating it is time that, in my opinion, is wasted...

This is not the first time our society is given such a delicious morsel by the media to distract itself with. A lot of sensations are like this. Sometimes, there is a piece of importance in there. I don't feel the exact same way about Osama Bin Laden's death, for instance. He was a dangerous man, devoured by dangerous ideas. However, the Rapture noise has no real importance. All that's going to happen is a bunch of people feeling a little embarrassed about themselves for having fallen for it.

Once you start talking about such a distraction, your approach towards it doesn't matter much. Some of the jokes are amusing, but even joking about the whole thing still propagates and increases people's awareness of the topic, thus further spreading the distraction, the ghafla, turning our eyes away from more interesting or important matters for a moment, blocking out our valuable mindspace.

I think we should be more mindful of the harm those distractions cause and more cautious with the choice on whether to discuss such news at all or not bother. A distracted mind is the easiest to deceive, to control - its energy is redirected elsewhere, its eyes turned away, allowing something important to be slipped past without it being noticed.
Turn your eyes away from the gadfly.

the division bell

According to my definition of what constitutes a day - from good morning to goodnight, regardless of such mere things as dates and times - it's Day 29, the second-to-last day of my 30 Day Song Challenge undertaking. The theme for this day is "a song from your childhood".

As soon as I saw this position on the 30 Day Song Challenge list, I knew it would be an opportunity to share with you not just a song link, but something much more - a small part of me, a memory and a tale, an example of how music is an integral part of my life.

So, let me tell you a story.

It was a warm summer evening. My parents and my grandmother were packing for a trip to my grandmother's cottage in a distant village by the name of Pogorzelec. Our house had a humongous satellite dish and assorted TV equipment. In a spare moment, my father was scanning the horizon with said dish, hopping between TV satellites and looking for interesting transmissions. Eventually he found a very curious transmission, indeed - a live stream from a concert. He thought it was merely a fragment, but it was in fact the whole thing.
It was The Division Bell Tour.
My much younger self was there to see it - and reportedly, it caught my full and undivided attention. Yes, indeed - the attention of a normally fairly spastic kid, completely centered on the lights and the music. I sat down cross-legged, resting my head on my fists, thoroughly entranced.
My parents were quite amazed by the intensity of my focus. They didn't wish to interrupt me. In the end, they chose to not go and instead watched the concert with me, much to their pleasure.


Pink Floyd's music was always there when I was young. My parents listened to them frequently, inbetween classical music and other rock artists from the same generation as Pink Floyd. Even now, a few of my favourite bands cite Pink Floyd among their inspirations and indeed the music I listen to is much in a similar trend, filled with melody, spacious, entrancing, rich and dripping with sound.
I still recall those long roads we've traveled with my family, playing music on the car audio. I would occasionally have a wish in regards to music - in particular, I remember frequent requests of mine for a certain CD which I called the mottled or spotted CD ("plamiasta płyta" was the exact Polish phrasing).
High Hopes stood out in my mind, a song about nostalgia and the passing of time, as touching and powerful now as ever - and every time I hear these buzzing flies and that tolling of iron bells, my mind's eye never fails to summon an image of those warm sunny days spent travelling with my family. Trees, water... that rich, warm, yellow light...
The grass was indeed greener and the light was brighter, then.

wake

It's high time I said something, here, that has more substance to it - something more communicative than a shitty poem written before sleep (somewhat like this note) or transcribed from my university notebooks.

I think it's time to wake.
I've been spending long days doing very little even in the things that I claim to enjoy. Beset by Facebook and Twitter, surrounded by simple content that I absorb through my eyes and ears. Starcraft 2 makes for a good example of what I'm talking about. I did claw my way into the Gold League, once, wherein I stood my ground as a potent Zerg force... and then I just stopped playing.

Recently, I found myself drawn by watching countless SC2 games as a form of pasttime. Much like the man who sits in front of a TV, sipping a drink and watching a football game, I would stare at my monitor in awe as world-class players battled for dominance in a sport that only occurs within a virtual space.

It eventually occurred to me how passive I have become. Most of my thoughts are short enough to squeeze into a 140-character tweet. The words stopped spilling out of my pen. Even as a "gamer", I only really watched - the only game I actively played is World of Warcraft, raiding with my guild.

Complacent and passive, how would I ever move forward? I have no right to complain about mediocrity and complacency if I myself am not doing anything with my hobbies, with my ideas or indeed with my studies.

Personal development and self-betterment is not something applied directly in singular, discrete spots. The fact I'm bringing up hobbies is because I feel our hobbies - all of them - have a much greater impact than what we notice. Gaming trains the mind and its connection to the body, whereas Aikido trains the body and its connection to the mind. Understanding the world through the various sciences also allows us to get closer and closer to very important answers.

I shall wake up the mind and body, lift myself out of slumber. Go forward, create or do something every day. Lose those SC2 games and learn the hard way.
It just feels good when you realize you're doing and not just watching things being done.

nothing new

The crushing weight of a pen resting idly.
The paper decaying, slowly drained by time.
These strings are quiet, gnawed by creeping rust.
Words of the wise restlessly flail in closed books.

Old yellow light paints the wall
The falling dust does not stir.
The unbroken spell of silence
where once a sound so warm echoed in air.

Nothing more left to write.
Old drawings of the past, moments locked in amber
fade away on yellowing paper.
No presence, no soul, no vibration.

The memories glow in the fading sunshine.
Movements, places, moments, words...
And as night falls, something moves.
The pen is lifted, the page is turned.

silence and echoes

prowling those dreary halls
a dark mansion of twisted stone
the silence is overwhelming
nothing moves in the still daylight
except dust, slowly settling...

I crept past the creaking gate,
following your trail of warmth,
but I cannot sense it anymore.

how long have I been here?
the light is slowly fading,
the last moments of the day.

what of the night, then?
what strange things could rise
from these cobwebbed corners?

a sense of urgency...
I need to find you
before the night falls,
before it's too late,
I want to deliver you
from this dark and cold place.

so I call out your name...
the silence shatters loudly
the sound reverberates
from stone to dark stone
repeated in a nightmarish cacophony.

I dare not speak again,
I barely move after the echo,
paralyzed by fear of the strange things,
lurking deep within the silence.
I dare not wake them from slumber.

I creep forward,
how long has it been?
I still cannot find anything.
the sun is already setting...

the spring

a soul drifts on northern winds
suspended in darkness it barely moves
frost crawls along its useless limbs
and what little warmth remaining drains away

yet a voice escapes its dry lips,
movements from an old memory,
an ancient process still active
a whispered prayer for the light.

"oh Sun, endlessly burning,
find and release me.
oh Sun, beloved warmth
free me from the ruthless winter."

a moment and a chance,
a movement into light.
and something stirs, something wakes
in the empty shell of a man.

a spark in his eyes,
words cease, prayer is answered.
and life creeps once more
thorough the waking forest.

warm light seeps through branches,
an ember is lit in the shade
a fire fed from within,
resonating with the radiance.

blood flows faster,
breathing in the fragrant wind
rich with renewed life.

silence is shattered.
words escape his throat,
far louder than prayer.

"oh Sun, endlessly burning
you found me and released me.
oh Sun, beloved warmth
the winter gave way to spring."