Backlit

in fiction

2011-10-28T19:49:00.001+02:00

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.

Isn't that just fucking amazing? Think about it for a second. The world of Middle-Earth is a popular example of a world much unlike our own with its own history and lore - everything guided by the will of the author (Tolkien). What is he to the world he created if not some kind of God - the creative force which defines the laws of that world and guides its history?

I distinctly recall an experience among those who create these worlds - where these worlds have a semblance of life of their own, a story that writes itself, every page arising as a natural consequence of the previous pages.

With modern technology, we are able to emulate those worlds to a certain extent, as well. As I write this I'm logged into a game called World of Warcraft - which indeed has its own history and lore, its own set of physical rules.

There are some limits to that creativity, of course. We are subjected to a pre-existing reality with its own set of rules and limitations. We are a subset of that all-encompassing reality - and in a similar way, the realities we create are a subset of our own consciousness. We cannot imagine something we have never experienced, although we can take elements from our collective experience and rearrange them. Terry Pratchett, for instance, defines a completely new, eighth basic colour in the Discworld - octarine, one which does not exist in the spectrum of light that is visible to us. As such, he is forced to approximate it through two colours we can imagine - orange and purple, as far as I recall.

I would like to recommend a book called Sophie's World which beautifully demonstrates the point of this post. It's an amazing philosophy course as well.

howl

2011-09-15T06:51:00.000+02:00

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.

It was about 4AM and Kasia was laying in bed with her boyfriend, talking about random things. The silence of the night was thereby interrupted by a distant howl. Kasia interrupted and asked whether the BF heard it, but he dismissed it as a dog's howl. It was, however, followed up by another, much closer howl - which, as Kasia described it, was certainly not that of a dog's. The best approximation would be a wolf's howl combined with a lion's roar, with the bass resonant and turned up somewhat.

After a long silence, there were two more howls, this time coming from further away...
...and eventually, the church bell rang. Once.

It is worth noting that it did not strike four times, nor would there realistically be any mass at that hour. The bell only ever strikes at noon and midnight, 12 times.

This experience was definitely not unique to Kasia and her boyfriend. Eventually, my friend found the courage to peer out of the window, half-expecting to see something return her stare from the pavement, but what she found instead is people standing in their doorways with lights turned on, huddling together and somewhat disturbed.

The experience is not completely new to her, either; a long time ago, when Kasia lived in that same area (in the present, she was only borrowing the place to occupy with her boyfriend), she heard similar bellowing roars in the night. For the record, she did check the nearby area for possible escaped animals from the zoo, but found nothing of the kind.

EU Battle.net Invitational 2011

2011-09-07T22:33:00.002+02:00

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.

My first encounter with a progamer would be in a small supermarket on the bottom floor of Złote Tarasy (Golden Terraces, a mall next to the central train station of Warsaw). The Ukrainian Terran, imbaFXOStrelok, was buying something (I can't remember what it was). I simply wished him good luck.

When I arrived at the venue - Multikino - it was still quite a bit early, over an hour before the gates were actually opened. Nerds accrued at a somewhat slow rate - a vast majority of them appeared right before the official opening time. In the meantime, the party of progamers arrived in full suite, led by a tour guide. I could recognize them - it was quite real - they were the players I saw competing in so many foreign tournaments.

The gates were opened really late. There was a stand with 10 PCs for Starcraft 2 and another stand with another 10 for World of Warcraft. The SC2 PCs were equipped with the Razer SC2-themed peripheral sets, the WoW PCs had a set of Steelseries stuff including their famous Siberia headsets.

The first autograph I got was from Mr. Bitter, an ESL/MLG caster. I complimented his cocast with Husky at MLG Anaheim. Tarson was talking to people in the crowd. A lot of people had their own cheerfuls prepared, there was a group of people who had a multi-part sign for both Polish players (a Ret sign was prepared for the next day).

I believe WhiteRa showed up sometime during either the huge downtime before the opening ceremony or inbetween games. I was one of the first people to realize he's actually there to interact with fans, so I ran down there to get a signature. Lucky, too! The queue formed quickly and was incredibly long - the whole length of the stage, I think, since he was standing on one side and the queue spanned the rest of the space underneath the stage.

The atmosphere was tense - not only due to the presence of dozens of nerds, excited about the games, but also because the air conditioning was terrible. It felt like a hot summer day even though it was not nearly as hot outdoors. I rarely sweat this hard while stationary.

The stories behind my other autographs are as such:
I talked to Thorzain, wishing him luck in GSL - I thought he could do well in a tournament like that. He did, however, note he'll have no time to prepare and he will have to face MarineKing for the next match.

Naniwa was done with his games for the day and was heading up the cinema stairs. He was carrying a rather large pillow with him. He stopped for a few autographs and photoes on his way, probably partly due to me being the first to interrupt him. Thankfully, he didn't get too swarmed.

I got Ret's signature on the second day, right after his incredible finals against Naniwa. He was incredibly happy, signing stuff for all the excited nerd fans. I neglected to bring along the notebook I bought for these autographs - all I had was a few pages of SC2 stickers, so I borrowed a pen and he used it to sign. The sticker pages are race-themed and unfortunately I gave him the Protoss page by mistake. Oh, well, I got the signature anyways.

The mexican waves, the loud cheers, Carmac's fantastic crowd management, those were some major highlights. I've also had the opportunity to talk to some fellow nerds there - a good way to kill time in the long queues that formed when the hall was full of people already. The finals saw a 100% seat saturation, with not a single seat left empty. People sat on the stairs on the first day, but security didn't allow that on the second, since the staff (including Carmac) had to be able to run up and down the stairs quickly (and of course the stairs had to be already empty in case something dangerous happened and we had to evacuate).

I think that's all I can remember for now. I'm terrible at clearly remembering things. I can tell you for a fact it was time well spent - and more importantly, a shocking realization regarding the size of the eSports fandom in Poland. It was real and it was happening right here in Warsaw. After being used to experiencing eSport events through streams, whether they were European, American or Korean tournaments, it was a mindblowing realization that this is something that can (and most likely will) happen in Poland with perhaps increasing frequency.

A dream of mine is to experience that once more, to one day go to America and attend an MLG event. It's not likely to happen very soon. Maybe next summer? In any case, I hope it'll be possible one day.

Official picture albums:
Day 1
Day 2

ghost key II

2011-08-29T02:29:00.002+02:00

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

2011-07-31T21:07:00.002+02:00

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

2011-07-23T12:38:00.001+02:00

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

2011-05-21T17:35:00.003+02:00

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

2011-04-07T00:44:00.005+02:00

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

2011-03-30T01:00:00.003+02:00

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

2011-03-18T22:08:00.002+01:00

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

2011-01-17T03:06:00.001+01:00

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

2011-01-03T15:56:00.005+01:00

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."

victory of the sun

2010-12-19T18:31:00.002+01:00

When you hear Last Christmas for hell knows which time already, when you watch with weary eyes yet another bloody advertisement with Santas and reindeers telling you to be jolly and buy someone their product as a gift, when people whine about Kevin not being on TV, when your bus crawls through streets muddy with abused remnants of snow and you're already 15 minutes late to whatever place you're heading off to...

Stop for a while and remember one important thing.

This is not the true nature of Christmas.
I would not be hasty to condemn the ENTIRE Christmas time. There is a very important reason for which we gather in the warmth and safety of our houses - for this one moment in time we are together again, feasting and wishing each other the best.
We are, in fact, celebrating the winter solstice. Christmas occurs several days after it, also for a reason. The winter solstice is the longest night in the year, when the Sun stays in the sky for the shortest time. And a few days after, the days start getting longer again. This is exactly what we are celebrating - the Sun's victory against the growing darkness, the point in time where a new hope is born, the light that will yet save us from the cold, dark winter and bring Nature back to life.

I can't think of a culture that did not celebrate the two equinoxes and two solstices. It is important, especially in such a depressing season as winter, to cultivate this spark of hope, the memory of a warm light that will yet return to save us all.

Do not listen to these demons, peddlers of useless wares, do not listen to these insane people who sold the soul of Christmas for gold. Listen instead to your traditions, gather round in your families and sit by the table, reminisce of the past and hope for the future. Christ will be born again, if you believe that kind of thing - after all, Christians have the same idea, they just nicked it and put it differently.
The Sun will win.

personal note #99

2010-11-26T14:19:00.003+01:00

A friend of mine, Marek Mateusz Narożniak, writes a blog which I follow quite closely. He frequently shares bits of wisdom, short or long, that I read with great interest. Recently, he posted this note and I felt strongly compelled to translate it into English - I thought it should be shared with more people than it would be otherwise if left in its original Polish language.

I am somewhat uncertain as to whether I can add anything meaningful with a comment. After all, the matter discussed by this note already eludes any possible words.

The original note in its original language can be found at this location.

First, he decided to limit the power of his will, surrender to his ego, forsake his divinity and perfection for futility and illusion, and all that remained were tears, despair, everything else is silence. Constantly lost, still far away from his true self. Addicted to naming and terming. Isolated and lonely.

Who cares whether God exists, what does it matter how your country is called, whether you eat rice or bread, whether you have normal or slanted eyes, how your skin color is called and whether it is similar to others or not. Who cares about politics, a bunch of liars and fools, totally and helplessly attached to their brief identities. What's the difference if someone else is the president? The prime minister?

You have no idea how much of a speck of dust you are, a blink of an eye in the face of what the universe is. All you care about are elements of your microscopic world, completely unnoticeable from the perspective of all that is due to its insignificance.

You are afraid that you'll disappear, that you will stop being. You are a slave, but you do not serve any secret brotherhoods, any secret (or overt) monarchs, you don't serve your parents, your boss at work, you don't serve your teachers or friends.
Your ego is your master. You give in to it entirely. You can oppose anyone, you can free yourself of anything, but you are only truly afraid of losing your identity. This is the only step you will never find the courage to take, the only step you are too weak, too small to take.

You are so asleep and unaware. You can have beautiful cars, a perfect life partner, you can visit the most beautiful places on this tiny planet, you can own anything, others can serve you, you can never have to do anything by yourself again, but even all those things put together cannot be compared to one second of feeling your own heartbeat, to one true, alive breath, the one you will never feel, because you're a slave to a master that you cannot see, that exists within you without your knowledge, that has convinced you that you are him.

Being truly alive and free, being one with the universe, that is something no word can describe. That is a feeling that drives the painter to tear apart his canvas and burst into tears, unable to paint it, aware that he cannot share it with anyone, since other slaves cannot perceive it.

Noone can give you this, you cannot earn this through hard work, no blessing can help - the wisdom I speak of cannot be written in any book, cannot be even shared through words. The truth is so slippery that no word can grasp it. This whole false civilzation is based upon words. Law is everywhere, you have so many dictionaries, body-builders can train their muscles with them, dictionaries are useful only for that.

I am powerless as well, I can talk endlessly, I can't convey anything to you, you won't understand a thing anyway, slave. You won't understand anything until you disappear, until you vanish into nothingness, you won't see anything nor feel anything. You are a living corpse, your biochemistry reeks, you disgusting abnormality of evolutuion, grow up to that which exists, look up to the stars instead of looking into your worthless books which are about to turn to dust.

dance with the devil

2010-10-03T16:29:00.002+02:00

and I dance with the devil
and prance and sing with him
to the primal beat of my heart
our frantic steps bring us close
and then apart again
he cannot corrupt my soul
he cannot bring me down into the abyss
he knows and he must dance
for I know his true name

but I must not miss a step
I need to balance on the line
I cannot waste this chance
to prove the devil wrong
I must keep dancing
until the music ends
then I will walk away, free

I need to post more here...
so here's something I wrote on a bus trip to work.

sexuality again

2010-08-08T01:55:00.002+02:00

It's a topic I return to way too often, maybe. I think I actually wrote about this before, but I've found new ways to describe the problem that I keep sensing so often.

It's in the way we talk about sex, it's in all those euphemisms, all those descriptions, you know - sexual thoughts being dirty or even wicked, for example. Discussions or laughs about sexuality being perceived as crude, low-brow.

At the core of this lies some ancient notion that sex is wrong - and it's wrong to delve too far into our own sexuality. Isn't it high time that we began to consciously purge this notion from our lives? Open our eyes and see how it has been creeping for ages into our ways of thinking, our vocabulary, planted firmly in these strange corners of our minds through a sort of societal gestalt.

Of course, in these days human sexuality is becoming a far more open topic, but it's still not something completely natural to us. There are still inhibitions in place. The topic still demands some respect due to how special love and sex are (or, at least, should be) in our lives, but respect should not be confused with fear.

Here's something that touches on the subject as well, a compilation from Bill Hick's sketches.

takeahnase

2010-07-18T17:24:00.003+02:00

The elements sure are harsh this year, aren't they? In fact, they have been quite harsh for a while now, since winter, I believe.

When I reach back into my memory, I recall mostly bland weather. I recall a thoroughly rainy summer that I spent in the country, at the cottage my grandmother owns. Most winters were uneventful, the temperature rarely went below -5 degrees Celsius and snow was rarely seen. Summers were also moderate - rarely did the temperature soar above 30 degrees C.

Long before that, we would of course complain about heat or frost, but these were occasional events, seemingly receding...

It all started, I think, with the incredibly harsh winter we experienced at the beginning of 2010. Not only was it fierce, it was also incredibly persistent, hanging around even during March. April brought us a short spring. Summer was in full force around the end of May... The intense rains combined with the melting snow resulted in floods all across Poland - even Warsaw was flooded by Vistula.

And now? Intense waves of scorching heat that last for whole weeks. Today finally saw a change of weather - a massive storm came around (come to think of it - most thunderstorms this year are incredibly fierce). One of our networking devices was actually damaged when the blackouts came, after a deafening thunder struck nearby.

Even as I write this, heavy clouds hang overhead, threatening rain any second. And it's still hot...

I wrote about this strange tendency because I find it somewhat fearsome - a mark of the interesting times we live in. Will it eventually yield to another period of moderate weather or will it continue spiraling out of control? We'll have to see.

different worlds

2010-06-17T01:18:00.003+02:00

I haven't posted in ages. I couldn't find the time and motivation to share my thoughts here. It will probably occur increasingly rarely. I was expecting this...

But now, triggered by something I said in my guild chat, I decided to put this thought out here.

I have an acquaintance. A friend... I wish there was an equivalent for the word "kolega" in English. He trains at the same dojo as me. However, he refrains from our activities and he doesn't really grasp Aikido.

From my many talks with him, I have come to realize that he presents a certain worldview that I observe - in a way you would observe a wild animal out of its natural habitat.
His obsessions are partying, liberal amounts of alcohol and fucking girls. I am not exaggerating when I say this. He is indulgent, he lives from party to party. He is obsessed with building an image of manly strength. He always carries arms with him - a baton, perhaps a knife. He smokes cigarettes, of course, and prepares his own wine.
When I tried to explain to him how I felt about these things, he wouldn't understand. I frequently felt that we operate in completely different worlds. I am an alien being to him, with strange ideas such as having a steady girlfriend (I don't have one, but I digress), not partying every week and being careful with drugs (alcohol and pot).
About the first one - he genuinely asked me this: "Seriously? You want to be with a chick for long?" I was like, well, yes, I do - and he found this answer somehow dismaying.

He is living proof to me that it is, indeed, possible to meet someone who is completely alien to your world in every way. He reminds me that this bewilderment is mutual. I am somewhat surprised that he actually tolerates me despite how different I am. This is a good side of his. I could've met someone like this who would have simply rejected me entirely.

organic

2010-04-21T00:57:00.002+02:00

Have any of you ever stopped for a while to contemplate this:

Have you looked at, say... a pet animal, a tree, a house plant - and realized that what you have before your eyes is a little factory, a little machine that locates and obtains all the required materials to build itself?

Any plant, from grass to enormous trees, starts from a little seed, somewhere between a small grain and a coconut, generally something you can hold in your hands. Some start from microscopic spores or zygotes. This also goes for mushrooms.
Any animal starts, similarly, from a small zygote.

And from the very beginning, the first cell of the organism begins executing a program coded in its DNA which tells it what nutrients should be absorbed and what form should they take.
Through complex algorhytms and reactions, the organism obtains everything it needs from its environment, be it a mother's womb or soil or organic matter, creates appropriate tools to process matter and operate in a material world.

As you gaze at the organism - be it plant, animal, mushroom or even a human being - do you ever realize that you are staring at an achievement of technology, a miracle of life?

It's worth stepping aside from the beaten path of mundane thoughts and mundane lives to contemplate such things, even if for just a while. Yet there are so many people completely uncapable of that. They just tread onward, unable to stop and gaze in wonder.

feast of sorrow

2010-04-14T01:54:00.004+02:00

the heads of a nation roll
upon this hallowed ground
to find solace among peers
and while another sun rises
above their carcasses
the vultures gather
swoop down
and tear into the tragedy
feasting on the bitter tears
exposing the delicious sorrow
everyone turns to watch
and their hearts are stolen
by a callous pathos
that grows towards insanity

This shit is getting way out of hand. We all know what happened in Smolensk (assuming that we are living human beings). Now they want to bury our President and his wife among Polish national HEROES in the Wawel castle's necropolis in Cracow.

Lech Kaczynski, however, was by no means a hero. He was the President, he died in a tragic accident on his way to pay tribute to the victims of Katyn mass murders. Apparently, though, that makes him worthy of joining the ranks of dead heroes and ancient kings. Why? Because of what I just listed, which apparently is enough to qualify.

By the way, something curious for the Poles reading this:
The prophecy of a girl who had annoying dreams of the future.
Note the date. We've got April and the nation is mourning...

shell

2010-03-05T02:33:00.003+01:00

Humanity has built several shells based on spirituality, trying to fit it into a form that works for them, a layer of interpretation, ideology and institution based around a pure essence of spirituality.

When that shell becomes a dead husk inside, when the inner spirituality dwindles and dies, leaving only the institution and ideology - that discarded husk may become an incredibly dangerous weapon or a powerful tool of manipulation.

haze

2010-03-04T23:49:00.002+01:00

everything I create
is mere dust in my hands
spilling out on the floor
everything I build
becomes ghostly shapes of hazy mist
my presence is but a quiet, grating noise
and I'm just sitting there
while the works of my hands
collapse and fade into wind
nothing more but whispers
ripples in the sea
torn apart by a subtle breeze
and I cannot do anything but watch

soon, this all will be nothing

crack

2010-02-08T01:03:00.000+01:00

we were doing fine
we were all together once
I still remember
these warm, sunny days
the flowing water
woods full of young life
the brilliant fire by which we sat
but now
there's a crack on the glass
a faultline on the ground
and I am afraid
of the flood that might come
of the hammer that'll break this down
break us all apart
tear us all apart

neural frenzy

2010-02-02T20:19:00.000+01:00

mind on fire, neural overcharge
a frenzy, storm of electricity
impulses firing rapidly
faster, faster
hurrying towards nothing
running away from nothing
speeding through nothing
unexplicable rush
friction of thought
spark of calculation

An actual state I'm encountering right now. Happens to me occasionally - quite remarkable and fairly helpful in WoW raiding situations.

tides

2010-01-23T03:33:00.000+01:00

why are you drifting here my friend
why are you letting yourself sink
have the demons gotten to you
have you lost the will to swim
come back to the shore with us

they are grasping my feet
choking my breath closing my eyes
I can't see the shore anymore
perhaps this is where I belong

you must not stay here
the demons are mere lies
why would you let them hold you
we will lift you out
do not let yourself sink

and then I found my strength again
the shore came into sight
the weight became lighter
my hand broke the surface
and plowed the water

creativity

2010-01-18T17:51:00.002+01:00

I'm a fairly creative person. My problem with this, however, is that I'm not very skilled at putting whatever visions or ideas I get into a form. I can't draw particularly well, my guitar skills have barely started to develop. What remains for me is writing. There are probably a few people who'd say I can write and operate words fairly well, though my Polish teacher would most likely strongly disagree...

Since a long time, I've engaged in a habit that started... well, I'm not sure when exactly. I write short pieces of something that vaguely resembles poetry - trying to give my feelings, thoughts and visions a form in words, more compelling than a mere dry relation.

I've already posted a piece of what I write here, but it was under different circumstances...

So I'm going to try and post some of the things I write in school and see if I can keep that up along with regular posts. This post will have two bits of poetry in it.

close

close your eyes you don't have to see
close your heart you don't have to feel
close your mind you don't have to think
close yourself you don't have to be
let us take your hand and lead you astray
think, feel and see for you
feed you automated lies
let us have our way
we will make you comfortable and safe
from dangerous truths

awake

you have awoken
eyes staring wide
you have finally seen
and you saw everything
crash into oceans to drown
a falling, burning bridge
tall spires and towers
everything came down
and you stood and stared
far too late to stop it
far too late to see it begin
now the sun is setting
but you haven't closed your eyes yet
pray that you never will

resolutions?

2010-01-01T22:01:00.002+01:00

An old year has died.

A full cycle of death and rebirth has completed to give way to a new one.

Normally, a new year is a time of resolutions that people settle on, goals to achieve...
Meaningless statements that lose their worth within up to a month, broken before they start meaning anything.

From year to year, I've never arrived at any resolution for each new year. I never really bothered. If you should arrive at a firm resolution for something, you don't need a specific time for it. Any time is good. Any day is good. Whatever works to align your will and set it in stone. If you let yourself be pressured into a resolution, it will lead you only to failure.

I have a lifelong resolution, however. A sort of motto. It's not hard to guess from this blog, I think.
Evolve.
Create something, preferably something positive.
Move forward in spite of everything.

A new year is a good way to remind myself of this. After all, a new year is another blank slate that we write upon.
(Though, personally, I feel that my life is chaptered differently, not in years - but in phases of life.)

I'm not a Star Trek geek, but there's a line from the show, which I believe is Spock's, which is a motto I really like...

Live long and prosper.

the winter solstice

2009-12-24T22:25:00.002+01:00

Another milestone in a cycle of death and rebirth.

The winter solstice holiday is one of those things I accept as a part of my spirituality, as something very important to everyone regardless of the faith they've chosen.
And yes, I'm talking about what majority of the world knows as Christmas.

I don't believe there is a culture that does not celebrate this solstice whatsoever. In every culture, all the important points in the annual cycle - including winter - have a holiday of their own.

The importance of the winter's solstice comes from the fact that on this day, the Sun stays up for the shortest time. After the Solstice passes, Christmas comes. The Fire, the Light, the Sun has been reborn, victorious against the night of Set and will now reinstate its rule over the night, slowly but surely.

So, if you still visit Backlit in spite of my recent silence...
I wish you a merry Christmas (or whichever solstice day you celebrate, but it's probably Christmas anyway) and a happy New Year.
Be creative. Evolve and develop. Stay healthy. Everything else will come to you as long as you live and breathe fully every day.

goodbye, father

2009-12-14T12:38:00.002+01:00

Yeah, so in the end, I forgot to explain something I meant to explain 7th Dec. I've already posted the morbid news on Facebook, though, I've already received condolences.

The person who inspired creating this blog, a visionary, a creator and my father...
On 30th November, I returned from school to find a home of tears, to discover that on this day, my father has chosen to leave this world through death.

A sad fate, but in all this time I have already dealt with it. The moments of sorrow are gone. Acceptance came easily.

Now his body already rests in the soil, soon to be food to things of the earth. His soul, as I believe and hope, has found all the answers he ever wanted.

So, just one last time.
Goodbye, Father.

fear

2009-12-06T18:15:00.003+01:00

I have come to understand a few more things about death.

I do not fear the fact itself that I will die. In fact, I'm curious as to what's on the other side. I want to know, I want to see, but I may not get any answer until I leave the chains of this world behind.

However, I'm afraid of what would happen if I were to die, especially as it is today.

There would be a price to pay - a price of sorrow, paid from the tears of those closest to me. No matter how few or many they are, they would have to pay for the answers I would find.

There would be a void left behind, a void impossible to fill in.

I would probably feel guilty.
I do not want freedom at such a price.

There are so many things I haven't done or experienced. There are things I haven't told to those I love. There are places I want to see. This, also, is something I cannot ignore.

This is exactly why I want to live.

p.s. I'm taking the Twitter gadget off - it has gone insane for some reason, showing a certain "undefined"s tweet feed.

i can see you

2009-11-30T22:41:00.004+01:00

the dried red on the floor

the glint of cold stained steel

in the forever empty room

a weak foundation gave way

the tower collapsed

now the rubble is gone

now everything is gone

the stone is still turning

the ball of flame still reflects

from a white rock in the sky

everything is a true lie

have you found your answers?

have you found the infinite light of peace?

is there a great spiral beyond the sky?

something greater beyond the water?

is silence all I will know?

your blood is still alive in me.

your imprint in the sand is still there.

we will guard this passing moment

against the tides of history.

a watchfire in the darkness

armored against oblivion.

your memory will never die.

It's meant to be a little cryptic. What lies behind it is a short story and a long tale. In time, I will deal with the truth. For now, I can offer nothing more but this little piece of "emo poetry". It's a little longer than the shit I write in my school sketchbook - plenty of inspiration where it came from. The title is borrowed from Neurosis.

third eye

2009-11-17T01:46:00.003+01:00

There are many sides to life in a state of strong, intensified perception, where every information from outside is amplified and shown in vibrant colour. This is perhaps one of the reasons why I heavily lean on music and especially seek out long-winded, colorful tracks. This is the draw of bands such as Tool, Isis or Neurosis and the source of my occasional forays into trance.

My perception of music is tuned at a level of almost synesthetic sensitivity, especially when combined with the right mood, going far beyond simply hearing a melody, into a realm of wild imagination, where tiny little worlds are briefly born, given motion and portrayed in front of my mind's eye.

Visions can come forth from various tracks - twisting combinations of vibrant lights, landscapes, shapes both moving and static, folding into patterns that dance in my imagination. Filtered through a matrix of associations, interpretation and reflection, even more specific visions can distill themselves from the swarming images.

For some examples...

Isis - Hym.

A vision I can't exactly explain, only portray.

A rusted anchor hangs from the gallow, strangled by a chain wrapped around the mid-section, near the ring where it should normally be fixed. It slowly sways in the wind upon the small, cemented port near a gray sea reflecting the gray sky.

Isis - Wavering Radiant

Most of this album is a game of vibrant lights against darkness, occasionally with elements that I can imagine based on scraps of lyrics or titles. For instance, Hand of the Host rotates between five lights. Hall of the Dead features some kind of underground tomb with a crack in the ceiling to allow a sliver of sun. Threshold of Transformation involves a yellow-golden fire transforming a greater spiritual being, embodying it in a little child blessed with power (recently, I've related that to Leto II, the God-Emperor of Dune).

Cult of Luna has one song that carries an immense load of emotion - Dark City, Dead Man. It has a strong autumnal vibe and I always see myself wandering in the titular dark city, an urban maze of cold cement, punctuated with bright orange streetlights, littered with falling leaves and drenched in the rain.

Tool's songs, such as Third Eye or Lateralus, unfold into simpler patterns, the most obvious one being a spiral, full of psychedelic colors.

Neurosis... Stones from the Sky, Given to the Rising, both of those involve an immense whirlwind, though the former involves - unsurprisingly - stones from the sky. "Purify" brings a sense of immense, shaking force from the explosions of white, burning light. I Can See You gave me the vision of three stones, suspended in a starry void above an endless ocean that reflects only the sky, with rings spreading from beneath those stones. They are, of course, turning - and turning, and turning...

This all may sound suspiciously like insane trips and I only have my own word for it, but I haven't experimented with psychedelic drugs in amounts suitable to embark on trips like any of these. In fact, I'd rather avoid that - combining drugs with such a wild mind might be risky.

Unfortunately, any portrayals of those visions on paper with my meager drawing skills are quite lacking. I can't really render them in any other form than words and pencil/pen scribbles. It's quite a shame...

isis live

2009-11-12T16:11:00.002+01:00

Once news of Isis visiting Poland to play a show in the Proxima Club, in Warsaw reached me, I immediately put the date down in my mind. This was something I could not miss - my favorite band visiting a nearby club to play a show, a perfect chance to see them live.

Once the fateful day came...

The club was quite full by the time I got there. People gathered around drinks and chatted. I was alone, with noone to talk to, but I felt at ease. Most of them looked fairly normal, I didn't notice any obvious metalheads... There were of course pairs, some people wore Isis shirts, I noticed a Tool Aenima t-shirt as well.

The first supporter was Mamiffer, who began to play rather early. A cute keyboardist woman, a drummer with several strange tools, chains and other metal props and a man with bushy hair, a bushy beard and what seemed to be one of Aaron Turner's guitars, played with an E-bow. Their music was strongly based around the sound of a piano, but a dense atmosphere was woven by the strange tools the drummer used and the steady hum of an overdriven guitar.

Mamiffer was quietly appreciated and earned quite an applause from the crowd, which I eagerly joined in - really interesting music.

While they played, their music was filled with plenty of strange squeaks. And the same squeaking noises came back when Dalek came out to play. Dalek is a two-man band with one bald, tattooed guy handling two MacBooks and a sound console to process beats and provide a background for a rather overweight rapper. The sound was mostly obscured and I couldn't make out the lyrics. I kept putting down those squeaks as either part of the music or my ears being overloaded.

While Mamiffer ended fairly quickly, Dalek played for quite a long while, as the crowd thickened in anticipation of the main course. Once the support finished, a while of playback music aired. Musicians skulked around the stage, preparing instruments and effects. Among them was the guitarist of Mamiffer, which I thought to be slightly weird. Was he from Isis?

Then, the band gathered. Cheers broke out, eventually cut away by the first riff of Hall of the Dead - and then, the crowd went insane beyond all of my expectations. An intense mosh pit started up and I was on the edge of it, not so much standing as leaning on pretty much everyone in the crowd. And there I was, expecting a mellow crowd of dudes just swinging their heads in rhythm...

Of course, once the band had assembled, I realized that the guitarist was actually Aaron Turner himself. He does make a rather strange impression in his movements. He seemed somewhat removed or absent - not in that vacant, dumb way - it seemed more like he was focused on something else. That lasted until Aaron started getting into the music Isis played and swinging around his guitar - almost like a rock star.

The squeaks persisted thorough the show and I still didn't know where they came from - I still thought it was something with my hearing... However, some of the songs were recognizable - I could make out most of Hand of the Host and Ghost Key, but I couldn't recognize Holy Tears until the vocals came in.

After a powerful finish with Threshold of Transformation, Isis got off the stage - but obviously their stay was too short and they came back, summoned by the crowd's wild "ISIS!!!!!" chanting. They played Carry and Dulcinea. There was a dedication attached to Dulcinea, but I wasn't sure who was it directed at.

After the show, I felt positively drained... It was incredibly intense, even despite the shitty sound engineering - which was, as I learned later, responsible for the screeching noises. I regret not sticking around, though, as apparently you could meet Isis after the gig somewhere...

outside

2009-11-02T23:40:00.003+01:00

I've started realizing something recently...

Every time I'm at school, I get to observe society...

The laughs and jokes people share. The physical and psychic forces pulling them together. Simple, wonderful, and yet...

I've come to realize that I can never truly be a part of it.

All of this I observe as if from behind a thin glass window...

Unable to reach, unable to place myself in this phase of reality. There is no doorway, nowhere to fit in.

I can communicate, I can sometimes find a way across the glass.

I can sometimes peer out from above that wall and find someone else, peering out as well, waving to me.

But I can never stay inside.

A part of me feels far too removed, leaning its metaphorical hand on the glass.

This feeling is much weaker among the Kuro, but still comes around sometimes to haunt me. Even there, I sometimes feel pushed back behind that glass...

watchfire

2009-11-02T23:25:00.003+01:00

Some thoughts are too short to share on a blog.

Sometimes, there's something I can neatly encapsulate in a single sentence...

Short forms of expression are also something I greatly enjoy for quoting songs or short thoughts. F

Recently, the place to go to with this was Facebook. I'll probably continue posting on Facebook though, even as I simultaneously use Twitter...

Twitter is a fad though, isn't it? People gathered around it because it's a recent cool thing, there are even people using it for fierce marketing...

I'm not here for that. I merely recognize the merits of this form. The mundane occurrences and short thoughts can go there, easily sent from more and less remote locations.

For integrity, I've added my Twitter feed to the sidebar. I figured it makes sense.

Neurosis - Watchfire

W7: hype and truth

2009-10-26T16:53:00.004+01:00

October 22 has come around and Windows 7 is now plaguing every single store with a computer department while Microsoft has gone on a bold and proud crusade to bring its new system into every little nook and cranny.

So naturally there might be one or two of you still out there, overtaken by hype backlash and strongly pessimistic about Microsoft's new magnum opus.

Myself, I've taken a minor interest in Windows 7 since the beta stages.

While XP in itself is a great product that lasted a really long time, I was slowly growing envious of the shiny neat interface and structure of Vista. At the same time, however, all my switch attempts were short-lived, simply because Vista gave me more problems than useful changes and thus was not worth the problem.

When Windows 7 Beta came around with Microsoft going "Okay, right, Vista was shit, let's try this again", I figured I might as well check it out - so I made a separate partition and installed it...

And I was positively surprised.

Even then, it functioned as smoothly as XP and came with all the Aero shine and beauty of Vista bundled with a few more interesting interface, layout and functionality changes.

Libraries are an especially interesting change. They essentially work as a shortcut and a method to link several folders scattered across the hard drive together. They made keeping track of everything somewhat easier.

The interface has a few interesting functions added. When you grab a window and press it against a border, it'll either maximize (if you choose the top border) or take up one half of the screen (if it's a side border). You can also pull away a window from maximization.

The taskbar got a major makeover and turned into some kind of dock-taskbar-shortcut bar hybrid thing that's actually very practical. The way you can single out a window while browsing through the window lists is great.

Performance wise, I don't feel any significant difference between XP and 7, apart from the fact that 7 has an impressive boot speed which makes rebooting that much less of a nuisance. Otherwise, it functions really smoothly.

My dad has been running Vista SP1 for some time. He generally didn't mind Vista, but at some point it started getting really bogged down and he was considering a reinstall or something.

When Windows 7 RC came around with the ability to update from Vista SP1, I suggested an update to him, based on my current personal experience. He wasn't too convinced, but he eventually managed to upgrade.

Reportedly, the upgrade alone came with an enormous performance boost, quickly sweeping away any remaining skepticism.

The only problem I've run into is with hibernation. The regular power setting hibernated the computer after 30 minutes of inactivity. Whenever I booted my PC after hibernating, the reawakened OS did not react to my mouse or keyboard, forcing me to reset. It was a minor annoyance, so I turned auto-hibernation off.

All of this is still actual in the release. I'm not sure if they added anything more.

All in all, I personally think the hype is partly deserved. Windows 7 probably won't cure your cancer or AIDS or lift you into a new level of transcendence, clarity and understanding - but it's better than XP and MUCH better than Vista. If you can satisfy the minimum requirements for it, I recommend it.

the sound of silence

2009-10-25T18:08:00.002+01:00

Which can hurt one more...
A painful word or a wall of silence?

I've found this question somewhere on Grono.net, the Polish clone of Facebook. It was quite interesting and sparked a few thoughts, combined with a song I discovered recently despite its rather old age.

Words may hurt. They may become a weapon. They may also construct.

More importantly - words form a shape, an information.

When someone speaks, I can try and analyze their words and context and learn more about them through this. I can see something, interact with it and store the information.

Silence can become a heavy, cold wall of steel.

Silence does not give me any definite information. There are no windows in it. There is nothing to look through, nothing to discover.

Under its weight you can either resist or find an opening - but if both fail, you are left helpless.

In a different context...

When we travel through streets, we meet thousands upon thousands of people.

All of them focused on their own little worlds, their own goals, their own troubles and joys. All those little worlds walk past each other, encircled by immense walls of silence.

Even in the city, we are alone.

The only difference is that we're surrounded by other people.

Simon and Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence

carved in stone

2009-10-17T16:49:00.002+02:00

No state is eternal.

As we walk through life, we find ourselves in all sorts of low and high times.

When we soar in the light, warm from excitement, we may wish for this state to last forever. It won't.

When we sink down into a sea of darkest emotions, we are too quick to forget that, eventually, this too will pass.

As we evolve, so too we will learn lessons from these states. We must learn how to soar higher, how to avoid sinking too deep. In this endless, fierce river of life, we cannot hang on very long to rocks or branches we find. Our strength will run out or the branch will break. The water will sweep us down.

Thus, we can never stop in one spot and claim a certain state forever.

This is something that I am slowly coming to understand as I personally wade through all kinds of mires and soar through different skies. Dark times would pass and so would bright ones. Nothing is carved in stone.

Scar Symmetry - Carved in Stone

the sun and the moon

2009-10-16T10:44:00.003+02:00

The recent outburst of winter in Poland reminded me of a reflection interesting enough to write about here...
There is a question I have never found a definite answer for: my favourite season. I can't pinpoint one.

Winter - the promise of a white sheet of snow to bury the world, giving it a completely new look. Walking through the falling snow on a cold winter night is quite fascinating. But every uncovered bit of my body keeps falling off and I keep forgetting to take a scarf with me, and snow making my feet slip is really irritating...
That particular wintery day of 14th October, however, somehow reminded me of the winter Aikido/ski camp I went to this year. An amazing, colorful time which taught me a lot and also a missed opportunity.

Spring - the rebirth of life and Sun. Less clothes needed, though the weather is unpredictable, like in fall. Everything is slowly turning greener, the promise of an Episode trip into the mountains with Kuro comes close... though, unfortunately, this summer we also have maturas ahead.

Summer... If I don't have a favourite season, I probably have one that I like less - and it would be summer. The sun is shining, everything is in full bloom and Nature is at its full glory... But there are plenty of downsides. On the up side, every summer begins with an Aikido camp - a bit over a week's time full of awesome. However, the burning summer heat is even worse than the freeze of winter, mosquitoes pester me for my sweet blood, flies and wasps are everywhere. Man I hate insects.

And finally, Fall. Everything is slowly dying and the weather becomes unpredictable again. However, there is something I really enjoy about typical fall weather - the dark, melancholic rainy evenings, the golden leaves littering the streets. In November, the dead have their days of remembrance. The insects usually die out around then, too. Unfortunately, school begins anew and the only hope is a promise of an autumn Episode.

In summary, I'd say Fall is closest to the top, but only by a little margin...
The paradox of summer and winter is also an interesting thing. In the coldest days of winter, I tend to wish for the summer sun - and inversely, I really wish for winter to return around the middle of summer when my face is melting.

46 & 2

2009-10-14T16:12:00.003+02:00

Over the last two weekends, together with my mom, we made significant changes to both of the two rooms I inhabit. My life space for both everyday perusal and sleep has been completely changed.

I painted my personal room a shade of blue. All of my furniture has switched places, two bulky bookcases were moved out along with an enormous mound of books I never read anyway. This freed up enough space for a sofa soon to be bought and placed there.

Thanks to all this, my room is much better suited, not only for social needs, but also for my own needs. I can't wait for the sofa - being able to crash down on it, switch my speakers on and just listen to music like that will be priceless.

My bedroom took on a shade of green. We moved a wardrobe into the room, as well as a basket for dirty clothes. One of two beds was moved out and the other was set in a different position, resulting again in more space and a better place for my clothes (until now, they were all over the house and keeping track of them was difficult).

The aesthetics of both of my rooms have increased, the new space in my living room is better suited for parties (the sofa will provide a place for several persons to sit down or sleep). It's actually a bit of a trade-off, as we're also closing off a part of our house which will soon be rented by a student.

I somehow feel that those significant changes also reflect and mark the beginning of a new chapter in my life... The changes aren't a direct cause of the new chapter, nor is it the other way around. The chapter, I think, began somewhere around the end of September. The changes in my living space coincide neatly with the changes I've described last post and perhaps reflect them in some ways.

p.s. When I rose up from my bed today and peered out of the window, a landscape covered in white greeted me... For a while, I was really confused. Despite all my doubts, it is still October, we haven't jumped in time and yet the snow cover would make last winter really proud if a little embarrassed.

Though the temperature is way too high, so if it doesn't snow again really soon we'll all be swimming...

Tool - Useful Idiot/Forty Six & 2

purify

2009-10-10T01:58:00.005+02:00

September was an interesting time. Many things happened in the space of those few weeks and I feel that I have learned a great deal about myself. I managed to clarify my view of the world, I managed to understand several things that were important me.

I feel like I've managed to become a slightly better human being.

I've realized the most important thing for me is creative communication with other human beings - to reinforce the positive spirit of unity within the Blacks, to maintain the bonds, especially those I tried to sever (only to realize severing them is not possible for me).

I am still full of multiple inhibitions originating from my social detachment, from problems with self-esteem and overthinking every little thing I do - but I've started chipping away at the walls, trying to act on my positive impulses, exploring the real boundaries instead of cowering behind the false boundaries I imposed on myself.

Nothing is final, though. This is a state that will waver, will fade. I may find myself gripped by hate and rage - and in fact, even after the lessons, I still do from time to time, but the grip is weaker and even through those emotions I keep focusing on what I've learned. Self-control is another important thing. I cannot let those emotions spill over and hurt others again.

On the average, though, my recent days have been far more positive. The rebuilt bond is as strong as ever, if not stronger. I know what I want and who I need.

p.s. Figured I might as well start including the songs I steal titles from.

Neurosis - Purify (Part 1) (Part 2)

sign

2009-10-04T23:21:00.005+02:00

Another short one.

Me and my mom went out shopping today, during rainy weather. On our way, the sun came out, but the rain didn't stop - so we expected to see a rainbow.

When we found its arm, I realized that I cannot remember ever seeing an entire arch of a rainbow. As soon as I mentioned it, however, my mom noticed that...

...an entire rainbow arch is clearly visible.
We actually stopped in the middle of a fairly empty road just to gaze in awe.
And, as you can see here, I brought back picture proof.

I'd say it was a little wink at me from Nature, saying that things like this can happen. Perhaps other miraculous occurences await...

intuition

2009-10-04T15:42:00.003+02:00

I've slowly started seeing and realizing the presence of something in my mind that began to grow and unlock itself after the long mire. An empty source inside my head, a white blankness which creates ideas detached from my intents and typical behaviour, gives inspiration to mysterious artistic visions in my head and has already subtly guided several moments in my recent days, brightening them somewhat.

Intuition - a strange power... This is the true source of what I described here. I had no conscious project or intent to restore the friendship. The outlook was still fairly grim. And then I tossed that packet of tissues. It was just an invitation onto the path which led me to bring the pieces back together. All along the path, for once I did not think over every step I took.

Today, I went out bowling with my friend and her dad - and before that, something quite anecdotal occured, which however gave spark to this reflection.
While exploring the Centrum Bemowo shopping mall, I came across a rather cheap vending machine. I put 2,50PLN in and took out a Cherry Coke, which I promptly tried to open - only to have it burst out all over my hands and stain the floor. Whoops... I ran off to the nearby toilet to wash my hands and the bottle.
On my way out, I saw a rather cute woman getting a coke from the same machine.
"Watch out, it'll burst", I called out. She looked at me and smiled.

Trivial and tiny, but at least I made that woman's day a little more amusing... And once again, this is something I normally wouldn't have thought of...

I realized this is what I lack and what I need to develop. Cast overthinking aside and act according to that blank space whenever I hear its voice again.
And yet, it's difficult. There are still many impassable barriers within me that prevent me from connecting fully with people I care about. All I can do is keep trying, keep looking to the light of emptiness, blossoming from my optimistic, positive state of mind.

causes

2009-09-29T17:17:00.003+02:00

A really short one.

Why should I exactly be aware of your cause?
Whether it's animals getting tortured, Islam spreading across Europe or whatever else some fanatics are banging on about...

What does my awareness help the cause with?

I can't help those causes much. I'm an omnivorous human. I am designed for eating meat. I'll eat whatever I can find and enjoy. Even if I choose not to support such things, they won't stop. As long as humans exist, so too will evil deeds of egoism. I can choose not to do such things myself.

Egoism is stubborn. You can't stump it out.

By the way, bleating on about it will only take you so far. Actions, not words.

As for Islam... Well, yeah, even if it's true they're flowing in: So? I am not in a position where I can stop this at all. A mere stick against a flood.

kymatica

2009-09-28T17:56:00.000+02:00

Something that once helped me out with my world view and still remains as a solid truth.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6736722752013377089#

Kymatica.

It's an hour and half long or so, but if you can spare the time, it should be an interesting movie.

It's a sort of documentary that compiles various views on the truth of the universe, life, spirituality and society.

parabola

2009-09-26T21:13:00.001+02:00

The Near-Death Experience site I've posted contains a great amount of NDE relations. The positive ones where the soul comes in touch with the Light we call God have somehow slightly affected my feelings and thoughts. They have definitely helped me update and flesh out my personal view on this world.

Ah, my view on the world... Something I meant to share for a while.
This is something I've arrived at myself, but in no way is it completely original or indeed original at all... It's a compilation from world views that I found myself in agreement with based on my personal observations and thoughts.

I believe there is a greater being. A God, if you will. I personally like the term "Creator", as that's what it truly is.
The Creator is the primary reason for things existing. It is the laws of physics and chemistry that bind energy into a form we call matter. Without it, all we would have is a condensed, swarming mass of energy, unable to take form and become stars, galaxies or asteroids. Through the Creator's will and creative force, this universe is what it is.

Now, life...
Haven't you ever noticed how complex living beings are? As a student in a biology/chemistry profiled class, I looked at the core of those intricate, complex processes responsible for the life of a cell, an organ and a whole organism. We are carefully constructed machines, designed with all the tools required to sustain and reproduce ourselves, engineered for evolution, development and variety.

Surely, this can't be the work of pure coincidence. Coincidence alone does not possess the intricate knowledge of physics and chemistry required to construct such complex organisms. What's the best part of it? We're all constructed according to a blueprint - the DNA code. It's a complex knit of what is essentially CODE. Programming code that contains all the essential information and tools necessary to control and compile itself into a functional "program" - a complete organism.

This all couldn't have been arrived at without a creative force behind it, guiding and shaping the process of evolution. Thus, as I believe, the phenomenon of nature and life as a whole is another project of the Creator, of the Word, through which the information develops itself, discovers itself and its true nature and fulfills itself.

This works at every level. The Creator has succesfully constructed an environment where life has ideal conditions to occur, then carefully engineered a powerful, whole organism - the planet Earth and its life. Everything in the world is one, bound together via the ecosystem.

The question of why have we, humans, become so intelligent, can probably be answered through this as well. We are the perfect evolution of information, capable of developing abstract thought and exploring the Information that governs the shape of this world. Through us, the Creator discovers itself.

The fact that we have such a vivid mind and are capable of believing in abstracts and creating something is what I call imagination. Thanks to imagination we can also create worlds, however imaginary and abstract from reality. Those worlds can achieve a high degree of complexity and intricacy, a reality within our own heads... Imagination is truly a powerful thing, something greater and not fully inherent to our bodies. You could also call it a soul - another device to explore creation which allows us to be far more than mere automatons.

Animals also have souls. Those souls are at a varying degree of self-awareness. A snail does not possess much of an imagination, as far as we know at least. There are however animals such as dolphins, humanoid primates or pets that have some degree of imagination that allows them to learn and make vaguely abstract decisions.

Why then are we so blind, why then do we have faults, why do we die?
It's necessary. It's impossible to compile a perfect machine. Our own machines of metal and electricity are also imperfect and full of faults. I do not believe the Creator is omnipotent and perfect. Nothing is perfect and the Creator can be no exception.
Thorough the process of self-discovery and experimentation, we will certainly make mistakes and learn from them. Trial and error is necessary to learn.
We cannot be open too wide to the Creator. We are not yet in a state where we are fully capable of it. Those who seek something greater are often unable to fully function on a normal, mundane level and will always be detached to some degree from the arbitrary construct called "society".

As to the prevalent observation from NDEs that we are all one... Since the Creator is the inherent reason for everything being the way it is, I suppose that would validate this theory. Our souls are individual, but we can connect with other souls at some level, peering through the walls which separate us, communicating via words and emotions. Aren't our bodies the same? Each cell is an individual existence, but combined with all the other cells it forms a single entity which has an individuality of its own. Cells also communicate with each other and cooperate in order to run our bodies.

There is also an interesting explanation I found for hate, negativity, wars and such: a malfunction of information, a failure of communication. Doesn't this happen in our bodies, as well? We call it cancer. When a cell becomes malignant and malformed, erratically replicating outside of the boundaries specified by our DNA, eventually shattering the unity of the organism and killing it as a result.

The most important thing that brings us close to Creation and each other is, in my opinion, creativity - we should not work to destroy, but we should seek to create something positive in our lives. "Something" can be very broad. It doesn't have to be art, though that works as well. If you've sent some positive thoughts to someone, you have created something: a positive feeling in that someone, which strengthened the bond between you and them. This also counts.

ghost key

2009-09-23T01:47:00.002+02:00

http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html

A decent amount of proof that there is something greater beyond our world, beyond the seemingly final boundary of death.

I have never been skeptic...

In spite of that, I have not a single experience with anything supernatural. This is something I regret.

It's a comforting thought, though. That I will continue to exist in some form after death. That I will find something greater, perhaps answers, perhaps some kind of greater truth. That I will eventually meet everyone beyond the veil.

I do not yearn to see this place at any cost, however. I will in my due time, but I am not in a hurry.

the grudge: conclusion

2009-09-21T17:44:00.000+02:00

I probably take some things way too seriously. I'd say it's part of my personality. Mundane things can easily become quite fantastic and give birth to a plethora of interesting emotions and thoughts...

In any case, during the camping trip, the grudge slowly faded out. By the time of farewell, we no longer ignored each other.

It all started somewhat like this...

On our path to the camping spot there was a tiny river we had to cross. An incredibly cold and pleasant stream, followed by an overgrowth full of nettles... Our group somehow clumsily waded through it all. Once we were on the other side, my once-friend asked around for a pack of tissues.

So I tossed her one.

Thing is, we haven't exchanged a word since this morning.

That little motion, I believe, was the first hole in the foundation of the wall that eventually came down.
To this day I'm not sure what pushed me to do that, to react and to bring down the wall. It seemed like a good idea at the time - well, it was - but I did not plan for it. I had a vague expectation that this could happen if anything, but I didn't actively seek it... Intuition, I guess.

This couldn't have lasted, though. The dissent would have been far too destructive to remain in this state.
I've probably ended up learning something from it. The air should be completely clear in due time. Maybe things will come back to how they used to be. Maybe they won't.

At least now all those memories in my head are still valid and still alive, rescued from a bitter death. And, for once after a long and tiresome streak of negativity and pessimism, I finally saw the light again. I came back feeling absolutely great. It was a long time since I felt so much life and positive energy.

I hope it stays that way.

the grudge

2009-09-18T23:01:00.000+02:00

This will probably be another ambiguous post, but what I'm focusing on here are raw thoughts and feelings.

How does it feel to lose a friend?

A friend who once claimed I'm on top of her list, too.
But for some time, poison started to seep between us.
Words like knives. A slow and dawning realization that everything in her irritated me and brought me rage and hate to compensate with interest for the positive feelings.

The poison has finally taken hold.

A party last weekend. The arguments that finally broke the last straw.
This weekend, the Ro Kuro are going camping into the woods.
I was at first promised a spot in the same tent as her and our friend.
And after the weekend party, I was cast away. Apparently, the possibility of a conflict was far too great...

Look at what that decision brought.
We spoke. I saw the true reasons. I saw the venomous rash on the bond. I sought redemption - I thought I was forgiven, too.
Apparently not.

Only then did I realize how much of a grudge there already was. How this has freed me rather than brought me down. Freed me from the negativity.
I'm feeling better now.

You've brought this upon yourself. This is what you get.
I have not locked the door. I have not closed the windows. The path is not yet overgrown.
Yet those memories are slowly fading.

I hope you are not arrogant enough to think I will come back crawling and seeking further forgiveness though. I am beyond this. I am not going to rebuild this by myself. You shattered the bond - you pick up the pieces.

I hope you realize what you have done, though. Do you see it too? The blood from the bond, spilling out where people are already noticing it. This cannot last forever.

I will wait and see how this ends - for it has only begun.

reflection

2009-09-13T21:11:00.002+02:00

It's been a difficult time for me.

For a long time, I have been growing less and less stable. I had my peaks, I had my lows, but recently, in an incredibly stressful time, I have almost completely forgotten myself.

I slipped into egoism. I justified my pessimism, I allowed it to drive me. It reached a critical point.
Only when someone took notice and showed me my own fall, did I wake up. Only then, with a sharp pang, I remembered who I am and what do I mean to others. I remembered that I should not allow all of my negative emotions out to parade, to control me and drive me.

Being sensitive is not easy. There were times, like I mentioned before, when all I wished for is to shut my brain off, to become normal, mediocre. That is impossible. A simple person with simpler emotions and feelings can easily aspire to lesser things and find their happiness, but my happiness is different and therefore much further away.

And now, I've experienced another cathartic epiphany.
I still couldn't control two things: rage and hate. I stopped controlling what I said, unknowingly hurting those that are closest to me, driving them away from me. Only when I pushed this to the limit, I was shown my errors once again.

I know it's all somewhat vague, but I feel that the details in this case are not necessary and would sound even worse.

I sought and found forgiveness. I can only continue the journey, I can only keep trying to find out who I am and reconstructing myself, looking for the person I was beneath my madness. I can only seek to heal myself.

The post title is twice as meaningful as usual - a song by Tool that helped me with this reflection.

keep talking

2009-09-07T07:25:00.003+02:00

Trivial matters surround me.

People wish to talk to me about things completely mundane, meaningless movements in life that hardly even matter to anyone but themselves.

I've always had a problem with small talk.

I find it incredibly difficult to bang on about trivial matters. I always have the same feeling in the back of my head as when I listen to them - that nobody really wants to hear about my exciting body clock trials and tribulations or the dinner I had in Ikea with my mom yesterday. Of course I can talk about trivial things, I can even blog about them if I really have nothing better to say. But I try to avoid that.

Therefore, I highly value people I can actually hold a meaningful or entertaining discussion with. I don't really demand top notch philosophy - we can be throwing dick jokes around and as long as I'm entertained, that's alright. Insightful discussions are definitely a favorite, though, and really not easy to come across.

Discussions about important topics always receive my full interest and intellectual engagement if it's a topic I am interested in (I usually just stare and listen if it's politics, I am far too uncultured for that).

Still, small talk is an unfortunate but fundamental element of social interaction...

So I can do little more than avoid it or just give it a go and try to bore the other person to death with my life.

ghost in the machinery

2009-09-05T17:19:00.004+02:00

Thorough the beginning of my last liceum year, a very important question resurfaced quietly, a question I will possibly never find an answer for.

Where am I going in life? Where will I go from here?

I never planned my future for myself and I still don't plan any future further away than a month ahead or so. I have always taken life on as it came, doing my best to survive through everything it throws at me.

The school I am currently in was also chosen not by a clear desire, but because of how things worked out. I aimed for three random schools with mat-inf profiles, unwittingly choosing one that's REALLY far away, but I failed to get in any of them, being a few points short for each. My mother somehow managed to find a spot in one of those schools, however, in a bio-chem profiled class. Not something I was aiming for at all...

It turned out to be a mixed blessing. The class, like I already mentioned before, didn't get along very well with me. However, our set of teachers is fairly forgiving when I compare that to stories I hear of teachers grinding the shit out of their students by piling mountains of work on them - so I'm lucky in this aspect.

It's always good to have a class like Geography where I can doze off, then cheat on a test and get a passing grade so I can pay no more attention to a subject that I don't give half a shit about...

And now, matura is coming around... I will have to declare the subjects I'll undertake soon. I've basically taken the basic set and expanded English (obviously) and Maths (still not sure on that).

Of course, I still don't have any idea how will things turn out after the liceum - what college will I go to, what will I study, what will I do for a living... I am not worried though - somehow, I feel things will work out one way or another.

So I drift from day to day, carried by the winds of change, wading through a sea of bleak banality like a ghost in the machinery, seeking something above the sea, seeking for experiences, feelings and thoughts that go beyond the bleakness to discover something different, something greater beyond the horizon.

p.s. A note completely unrelated to the subject...

I've returned from another nightly movie marathon with the Kuro.

I feel sick and tired of feeling and thinking. I feel confused to a point where my subconscious is beating at the windows of my consciousness, giving me hints and I can't just embrace them. I can't embrace any path. I can't embrace reason nor madness.

I just want to stop for a while, sit down, stop thinking and dissolve until I'm ready again.

This doesn't mean the marathon was not enjoyable - it was - it just left me with the usual low after the high and a baggage of thoughts that overload me.

p.p.s. Isis is playing in Warsaw on November 10. Oh god yes.

way through woven branches

2009-08-28T02:04:00.002+02:00

The summer vacations are mercilessly coming to an end - I figured it's time for a retrospective of sorts.

So, on the good side...
As a result of searching for new experiences and new outlets of creativity and emotion, I have started this blog and kept it alive for a fairly decent length of time. I've neglected it a little recently - there's not much to write about and frankly this is also a result of my shitty attention span...
I also took up the guitar and began learning the basics. Of course playing turned out to be a difficult matter and of course I am great lengths away from being able to entertain people with my music, though my parents enjoy even the simple ditties and awkward noises of a beginner guitarist trying to master his instrument.
Just wait 'till I get a proper amp with distortion and overdrive...

On the bad side...
There were two things I had as goals for this summer vacation.
One was to visit the sea. Unfortunately, this never came to pass. The situation somehow didn't allow it - I'm not really sure why, something about cars and money...
The other was to find a part-time job. That in itself is a failure and I feel I haven't even put proper effort in doing that...

A new school year is approaching.
In many ways, it feels like an update, the next patch to my life.
The number next to my class' letter has increased by one - from Class 2-B to 3-B.
The Black split (this is really awkward, so I'll call them Kuro from now on. Japanese for "black") will be applied to Aikido training sessions from now on. The new schedule includes what I call a Black Friday.
The younger group, Kuro, trains before the older group, Rokuro (the "ro" is another symbol separate from "kuro" and means "burden") on the same evening - and after both sessions, plenty of time is left for social stuff.

Like I wrote before, I still don't feel quite prepared - somewhat resigned if anything, but also encouraged by the Black Friday's presence and by the prospect of a bonfire party tomorrow to bid this summer farewell, as well as the upcoming movie marathon, which is also a tradition among the Kuro.

Apart from that, a job opportunity has appeared - a little part-time job, surprisingly enough - for the dojo in Mokotów, a sort of central dojo of our club. Apparently, I'll be doing some detailed cleaning duties. Even my first job is tied to Aikido in a way. It's amazing how Aikido has shaped and keeps shaping my path forward.

I can't promise anything, but I'll write again as soon as I can hold on tight to an insightful thought for longer than a minute... For now, enjoy this helping of trivial life matters as I struggle to find something less banal.

estimate the cataclysm

2009-08-21T22:30:00.002+02:00

Okay... so this is a World of Warcraft post, pure and simple. If you don't know about World of Warcraft, you WILL get severely confused by what follows here... If you're a WoW player or even nerd like me, read on.

So, yeah...

The new expansion has been announced.

For a while, I've been reading the speculation and rumours, surrounded by a dangerous amount of leaks and proof... and resolutely going "No, no, no. No fucking way Blizzard is going to pull off all of this shit." It all sounded far out, completely crazy. I really just expected a few new zones, a new level cap, the usual deal - but not something that encompasses, well, essentially 80% of the game.

And it was all true.

I was honestly and truly surprised.

It's a thought that occured to me once or twice during Outland and Northrend...

Those zones are really well done, especially Northrend with phasing and a thread of an all-encompassing story thorough everything, which got especially good in the latter expansion.

But none of that pertains to Azeroth. It's a tangled mess of quests, confusing and poorly itemized, remainders of a fledgling design that pales in comparison to the newer zones.

Azeroth could use a remake, I thought.

And a remake it gets... What a remake, too! Not just going over quests and items, oh no. A whole, enormous, all-encompassing cataclysm that impacts on almost everything. The story continues to evolve, struggling against technical limitations of the MMO status quo and toppling them to deliver more plot to spice up the gameplay.

Some of these revelations still reek to me slightly of simplification, like guild skills or talent changes... but overall, I'm highly impressed by the announcement and how much of the rumours were confirmed.

I will be impatiently waiting until Azeroth is shattered and frantically looking for metal that can serve as a decent background for the Cataclysm. So far, I've only found this and this...

all out of time

2009-08-18T02:58:00.003+02:00

The summer is closing in on a rather eventful end and the threat of school looms over me, with its final year, the matura and the community therein...

Usually, once summer vacation was 3/4 done, I was already dreaming of returning to school. This anticipation had steadily dropped over the years and has become completely negative this year.

School has become a bleak place.

I feel strongly isolated and distanced from the people in my school. I have not found my way into any of the cliques in my class. If I disappeared, they'd probably just check if I'm still around like once or twice, then forget.

I am simply not a part of school, of my class, not a part of these little worlds - I don't fit into the puzzle.

I always felt about them as a mass, a sea of mediocrity, with very few thoughtful and interesting individuals inbetween. The portion of mass in my school is at least a decent sample, not rock bottom, a bit closer to the top, but mediocre and bland nonetheless, close to opening their eyes, but still too far away.

Now that I have come to know the Blacks and grow close to them - by contrast, the incredible bleakness of the mass has never been more obvious.

I don't feel higher and superior.

It is not easy to have your eyes open and see the swamp you're sinking into.

It's much easier to sink blindly, to accept the swamp and drown.

It's difficult as a sensitive person to live in a world of banal thoughts and simple emotions.

I don't feel like going back there. I don't feel ready to face education again.

think for yourself

2009-08-16T01:14:00.003+02:00

The long-awaited date has come.

15.08 has passed.

Everyone is returning to Warsaw.

Soon enough we'll be meeting again on weekends, there's a birthday party scheduled for 22th of August...

I will be lifted out of my stagnation into the sun.

Meanwhile, I've been playing WoW and watch a lot of stand-up comedian sketches.

My two favourite comedians...

George Carlin.

His style has two sides. He sees through the rot in our civilization very clearly, but on the other hand, he knows a lot about those things in life that we share, like when you think there's one more step while walking down the stairs or when you think all Thursday that it's actually Wednesday (both have occured to me).

Ways to Keep People Alert
American Double Standard

And... Bill Hicks.

He's far more cutting than George Carlin. His favourite topics (with some overlap with Carlin) are religion, civilization and the inherent corruption in both, the truth about America and the truth about drugs and his own philosophy of life.

Positive Drug Story
Play From Your Fucking Heart

I really enjoy stand-up comedy for some reason. Mostly when under that "comedy" cover there's a cutting, thoughtful world view coming from people that actually form their own insightful and informed opinions.

Of course, the motto there is thinking for oneself... I can't say I agree fully with Bill's support of drugs, but I agree that people should be free to choose their poison and that allowing beer and cigarettes - fine drugs much like any other, can ruin your health (and alcohol CAN RUIN LIVES just as well as any other drug they love to warn everyone about) - makes stories of drugs ruining someone's life hypocritical.

Hope you enjoy these comedians. It's worth noting that Tool led me to Bill Hicks via them tributing him in the Aenema album - in the attached art and in the song Third Eye.

sexuality 2

2009-08-11T02:53:00.003+02:00

This is a bit of an addendum to the sexuality opinion I wrote recently. It was meant to be a post scriptum for the blog post below, but it grew long enough to warrant its own entry.

I remembered a certain teacher from my high school (liceum) who I won't have classes with anymore (a shame, really - hot and interesting to talk with).

She's a particular type of woman. Highly sexual, doesn't avoid the topic or indeed enjoys it maybe a little too much, irritating the less sexual students in my class.

She's not dumb - she has troubles with talking correctly, but otherwise likes to at least think she's intelligent. I haven't been able to judge fully objectively how true is she...

But I definitely noticed one thing.

She enjoys the topic of human sexuality. She enjoys talking with students about it, steadfastly and frequently reminding them that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being aware of your sexuality in any way, from masturbation to any consensual sex.

There was basically no way of avoiding this disclaimer in EVERY sex-related conversation she ever took part in.

See what this is?

This is the result of these feelings, this part of our life being so strongly repressed.

This is something not everyone accepts yet. Some people still look down on masturbation, as if it was something beneath their distinguished selves. (Once again... Pushed through a vagina at birth. Your parents had sex in order for that to happen.) Some people still think such topics are distasteful and should be left alone in the quiet corner.

If we were not repressed at all, if our culture was free from these shackles, this wouldn't even come up!

Mrs Teacher wouldn't feel so obliged to shove this disclaimer into every discussion.
We wouldn't point this out to ourselves so much.

I wouldn't even have to write either of these posts.

We would have been over and done with all this and sex would be a perfectly normal part of our lives, an intense and enjoyable experience between two persons with the chemistry and/or spirit of love bringing them together... or a simple act of mutual pleasure. We wouldn't have sciencists going "Whoa, this masturbation thing is actually incredibly healthy!".

There would be no disclaimer anywhere.

from sinking

2009-08-11T02:36:00.002+02:00

All my friends have left Warsaw.

There is not a single soul left here to meet up with. My neighbour guitar nerd left for UK and is trying to find a job and education there. The Blacks have left for more interesting vacation pasttimes than pixels behind a glass.

And it would stay like this for a week.

15.08 is when the first bunch would come back to Warsaw. If my friend will not find a job, he'll come back on 17.08 (I wish him success, though it'd be a shame if he never returned from England). Until then... I'm mostly alone.

Or so I thought...

Until yesterday, I got suddenly contacted by an ID number on Gadu-Gadu (polish IM) that I didn't have on my list.

It turned out to be recently met good female friend of mine, Marysia, whose number I somehow lost in GG profile existence failures.

And tomorrow, we're checking out Harry Potter at the cinema. I've heard various opinions and from the looks of it this may be a poor use of money, but we'll see. The movie is not the only important thing here - I appreciate any good company.

So, yeah... in a twist of events, I was spared from absolute boredom. It wouldn't have been that bad anyway, I guess. My family can be quite enough company, but of course it's not the same thing.

threshold of transformation

2009-08-11T02:18:00.004+02:00

And at long last, I have obtained a new instrument.

The piano is already sold. The money from it went towards this wondrous piece of modern musical technology. 750 PLN, which as of writing amounts to 182 Euro or 156 GBP. A J&D production, obviously a Les Paul lookalike with two humbuckers. Yeah, it's not THAT amazing, but I enjoy its sound, it feels good to play on and it's at a decent price for starters.

Of course, the guitar itself is a start... but at the time of buying, we didn't bring enough money to buy the rest - I'm going to get all that stuff tomorrow. I have to buy strings (the ones already attached are slightly rusty), an amplifier (I have a particular one in mind), a cable and a guitar stand. I'll probably also get a string-cleaning kit.

In any case, I feel proud to have this guitar and feel it's also an obligation I made to myself and my wonderful parents who supported me with the decision and sold the piano they had bought so long ago to fund the guitar set. Now that I have a guitar, I'm going to enjoy it as well as learn as much as I can. If it ever ends up gathering dust in a corner, I might as well garrote myself with its strings - but I'm fairly sure I'll enjoy this too much to put it aside.

jamaica

2009-08-07T20:08:00.002+02:00

There is a rondo in Warsaw, where an artificial palm tree is planted upon a little grassy mound. A palm could not survive the middle of a city. It serves as an unusual decoration in the busy city to be admired on your way through the rondo.

Yesterday or so, my two friends (called Pawel and Agata) called me with greetings from Jamaica. Of course, they couldn't be on Jamaica. I played along anyway, somewhat mystified by them having found a Jamaica somewhere...

Today, however, I was with them at the swimming pool and they invited me to their own little Jamaica - the tiny grass mound with the palm on it. An isle of calm in the sea of asphalt, between the busy streets of Warsaw.

I was quickly sold on the idea.

It seemed to me mostly like some kind of "zany" and "crazy" "hijinx" typical of all teenagers at first, but when I arrived, I found out part of the true nature of this "Jamaica".

People driving through the rondo, closest to us, with windows opened... reacted in various ways. Some of them kept hiding behind cold walls of indifference. Some merely glanced.
But some were amused. We would give them a greeting, a wave, a nod, "greetings from Jamaica!". We would joke about the drought, about us being too poor for real vacation. If they were receptive, they smiled in response, waved, even talked briefly before driving on.

It was the most positive thing I have done recently.

For the people who shared a greeting and a brief chat with us, our Jamaica may have been a highlight of their day, something to improve your mood, something worth mentioning or remembering in the end of the day as an interesting experience. It should be interesting to see young people with vivid imaginations trying to send out some positiveness into the sea of gray.

We obviously intend to return to our Jamaica. We might print out and hand out jamaican flyers with "Have a nice day!" on them. We'll bring more Blacks to Jamaica, maybe bring instruments and spice up the place with a bit of music. We'll come there again to transmit some good vibes.

This idea is probably something that occured completely naturally to my friends, but there was a similar action somewhere else in the world, which was just as positive and constructive as our little idea, only on a much larger scale - the High Five Escalator.

sexuality

2009-08-03T21:38:00.002+02:00

Inspired by Daine's post about women on the Internet from his and Katie's blag linked on the sidebar and mine and Katie's comments, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts regarding human sexuality.

It's a sad thing, really.

For centuries, sex was a strongly repressed taboo in European culture. What we have today is a result of this repression. We snapped out of it and there was a very strong backlash - and yet we're still struggling with the powerful stigma left on us by Christianity. Signs of it are inherent in our language, our ways of thinking, methods of censorship, behaviours...

To this day, there is a significant difference between promiscuous women and men.

If a man has many successful and enjoyable sexual encounters -he's a winner, a conqueror, a real man. On the other hand, a woman who can claim this will rarely find the claim to be seen in positive light. No, she's more likely to be made out into a slut or a cumdumpster.

Vulgar words, for the most part, can all be related to sex in one way or another. Not only that - the very existence of double entendres and puns in such a MASSIVE amount shows how difficult it still is for us to talk about sex in frank and straight ways without either sounding like doctors, sounding immature or being vague.

There are still plenty people who cast those who have an avid interest in human sexuality in a bad light. Crack one too many "perverted" joke and you get the "pervert" or "swine" thrown at you. Admit that you masturbate - you're a disgusting wanker. Admit to owning folders of porn or watching it on YouPorn or whatever... Same pattern there.

"Pervert" - I dislike this term and how it gets used. It's enough that you crack two "indecent" jokes, and you're branded a pervert. ("indecent" - what's so indecent? A vast majority of humans were shoved through a vagina into the world at some point, anyway - and guess what has to happen for a human being to be conceived?) The term "pervert" is completely watered down this way.

You know what really IS perverted? Rape. Sex should always be an act between two people who desire physical contact. If one of them is completely against it and is forced into it - that is truly perverted. It can't even really be called sex.

The post on Drama Llamas I've already linked covers another result of repressed sexuality on the Internet.

Another thing...

Why is it that bloody murder and violence, things DEFINITELY far more gross than a nipple or penis, have lower age limits on them? I mean, blood is okay, but human flesh or love between humans - oh, hell no.

Remember that incident where some singer tore off another woman singer's cloth and exposed her nipple? The resulting soccer-mom outrage concerning how their poor kids might have seen a God FORBID nipple? Come on, what's so damn special about nipples that might endanger a youth's fragile psyche?

Why is it that even mild "porno" stuff such as Hustler or whatever is 18+? A guy needs it the most when he enters puberty and develops a newfound curiosity about the body of the opposite sex - which, incidentally, usually happens BEFORE 18 years of age.

All this just causes unnecessary awkwardness around something that should be an inherent and natural part of being a human and serves to create a poisonous, lingering aura of wrongness about something that is completely fine. Even the most liberal of us have problems breaking completely free from the shackles imposed on us by centuries of conditioning, engraved into the very core of our culture. It's really, really sad.

chasm

2009-08-03T17:17:00.002+02:00

Discovering that you can actually feel about and relate to other human beings can be a difficult revelation, even if it's less of a revelation and more of a sudden realization. It's not like I never could - it's just that I only recently began discovering the importance of this.

Sometimes, however, I find myself snapping back into a sudden state of regress.

The wall I'm scrupulately trying to tear down I suddenly put back up again. I isolate myself and start looking inwards. To those who try reaching out to me in this state, nothing is shown, no answer is given. They meet nothing but cold stone.

I've felt this twice so far.

It's an odd state. It's a warped form of enlightenment. My eyes are wide open, but what I see and what I hear doesn't reach my core. Nothing can really reach me. All that remains is a stampede of poisonous thoughts.

In one of the cases, this state was reached completely at random, without any emotionally logical stimulus, but in the other, it was a generic reason I won't talk about.

It's a destructive reaction . It's not easy to return from. It's not easy to explain to others.

In a recent, third case, I somehow fell very close to that state, but then took control of it and turned it into... something else. My eyes were wide open again. It felt as if I was looking out of a window, carefully steering my body. I half-consciously pitched my voice much lower like in every case, but I did not withdraw into myself completely. Rather than isolating my mind from my body, I drew them closer.

I did not say hateful things to those I care about this time. I did not run away into myself.

None of these states are truly me. One of them is a repressed echo of what I could have become by this time if I didn't meet the Blacks. One of them is something else altogether, even though similar.

I still haven't found out who I am exactly.

The absurdist, cheerful and snarky Wikt known to my friends.

The deadpan, cold-warm, insane Zark in WoW.

The pseudointellectual smartass writing this down.

The antisocial cynic in the chasm.

Maybe they're just all facets of me. Maybe they're different aspects of a whole.

That's all for today's fauxlosophy.

high hopes

2009-08-02T14:22:00.004+02:00

This summer is probably one of my small turning points in life. I've started a blog already, something I've been holding back on.

Another thing I've been holding back on, I have already mentioned in the first post.

Every time I visit one of my guitarist friends, I can't resist the urge to borrow their instrument for a while and play around, trying to figure out a recent song that's stuck in my head. There are a few bits of songs that I already remember the frets for - not that I could just say it off the top of my head, but when I have a guitar in my hands, I remember.

It's always like this. My neighbour friend is a bassist, but that's not an instrument for me. Two friends of mine from among the Blacks own electric guitars. Sadly, one of them is lefthanded and so is his guitar. I can never resist...

They don't especially mind, and the bassist has suggested that I should at least find out if my interest is not just a passing thing.

So I decided... I'm going to step forward and give it a go. Soon, I'm buying an acoustic guitar. Those are not as costly as electric guitars, don't need amplification and I like their sound. They're vaguely similar to electric guitars in some aspects, too.

Maybe the story with the piano won't repeat itself... (Incidentally, we're selling the piano off.)

edit: Uh, yeah... actually, I'll be getting an electric one after all, I guess. Because I won't feel good without distortion.

a man and his chair

2009-07-30T23:52:00.005+02:00

A bright sun beats down on the cobblestone square around the arched, blue domes. I come out into the open from the tunnels filled with people, food shops and gambling machine booths and cross the space in front of the entrances to the Centrum station of Warsaw's subway - "metro", as we call it.

The square is already bustling. The crowd is not very thick, but there are plenty of people hurrying along, on with their little lives, in their little worlds - just like me. I take a newspaper from one of the people giving them out, then head on to the wall on the square's side, lean against it and begin reading.

It's 9:40 in the morning. In twenty minutes or so, most of us should be gathered and we'll head out to see the animals kept in the Warsaw zoo. It's a long time, enough to read through the paper.

A man brings a chair to the centre of the square.

He puts it upside down, on a stack of other bits of furniture, from what I could see. He grabs a pair of sticks and begins a strange ritual.

He beats on the legs of the chair, creating a slightly disorganized rhythm of clacking, clattering and crashing noise. The sound permeats the square. Not even my earbuds can block out the noise completely with music and rubber.

And he bangs on and on. Noone accompanies the rhythm he creates. It's way too fast for footsteps to match up with. It's a hustle-bustle that only a thousand footsteps could match.

And I wonder...

What is his purpose here? Does he really think he'll receive money for this... noise? It's nothing like someone playing on an accordeon or a guitar... It's just noise. I don't believe I have ever witnessed him getting any money. As I was told later, neither did my friend.

On the other hand, maybe he is stating something with this noise.

Maybe that's really how the "rhythm" of our cities sounds. A disorganized jumble... Thousands of legs, beating down on pavement.

Maybe he wants to enhance the jumble that already fills the little square of Metro Centrum. Maybe the noise is meant to be like another thread woven into the musical composition of the bustling mass of humans.

I will never ask, so I will never know. All I can do is just watch as the man beats out his noise on the chairs restlessly.

Or go back into the tunnel and get myself a Mirinda.

edit: This might be either my memory failing me, or the man changing his setup - in any case, I've recently been to the Metro Centrum square at the same hour. The man was already there. He had a single chair, a box for donations and two sticks. The chair was upright, on its legs, and the man was striking a metal handle that you normally could move the chair by. This might have been different from what I saw prior to writing this post, though...

Memory is a fickle thing.

drift

2009-07-29T18:05:00.003+02:00

An interesting pattern... After a week of lonely boredom in my house, starting with Monday this week turned eventful and somewhat exciting.

It all started with the previously mentioned get-together. We had a pleasantly lazy time. I had the chance to sample a macaroni with something rather suspicious poured as a sauce on it. It didn't taste particularly well. We then spent the rest of the day lazing around until the evening, when the PlayStation 3 borrowed from our host's friend arrived. Then we pretty much watched movies 'til everyone was falling asleep and called it a night. The following morning, we prepared and ate a breakfast, then left to our homes.

Save for two of my friends, apparently. So the next night was spent at one of my closest friends' house, or more precisely - a little, tiny tower hut. It was even lazier than the first meeting, and one of our friends (who's a girl) had to leave due to a misunderstanding and following quarrel with her parents.

This is something I'll stop at for a brief moment. It's a somewhat sad thing. There were three of us - me (18 years old), the host (15) and the girl (13). We heard and were told that one of the arguments against her staying was that she might get abused or raped by us.

We know her for a year, we've met many times, we trust each other... and yet her parents paranoically reached towards this. Regardless of whether it was an excuse or argument, I told her to say this: We didn't like being considered irresponsible persons and potential rapists.

In any case, we split ways the following morning...

It was all such a lazy, drifting experience. We didn't really do any exciting or zany things, so to say. We just... spent time together, in both cases. It was pleasant. I probably didn't entertain myself as much as I would at home, but the others made up for it. It was a little boring, I'd say, but a lot better than being alone.

And it was the first time for me to spend more than one night in a row sleeping somewhere else than my own home or any organized trip.

Such normal, plain, ordinary things... I still don't know the extent, the depth and possibilities in a world of social interaction. I am still somewhat cynical towards this kind of life, this simple, banal way of existing. I can only see and understand the point while I'm still in the experience. Even though it's been two years or so already...

forward

2009-07-27T03:43:00.003+02:00

Yeah, this was written at a late hour. The sky here is slowly gaining a bluish tint, marking the slow arrival of the day - which, in my head, is still "tomorrow", despite being the same segment of 24 hours I'll wake up in. And I have to wake up in about four hours from writing this... to meet the Blacks and head out on another long and hopefully enjoyable get-together.

I was staring at my blog, at the blogroll I just experimentally added... (Sadly, the blogs are particularly specific - two of them are strongly related to my favourite game, World of Warcraft and one is in Polish.)

Then, something occured to me.

Several years ago, under this very address, I had a blog.

It was one of those brief ventures into blogging that I quickly abandoned...

I have changed vastly since then. I saw it in how I constructed my blog this time around...

I also see it when I look back at my past.

There are so many things that make me cringe with disgust and horror at how stupid, immature and blind I was. It may have been years ago or actually not so long ago... but in general, I was always worse than I am.

I think it's a good sign.

It means that I'm moving forward. If I weren't, I would either not notice any gradual changes, or in fact find the past something too good, something I wish to return to.

Of course, there are also regrets of the past. During winter, I had a really good opportunity in front of me to get closer to a girl I was genuinely interested in... and I let it run past. There was never a better moment.

I should never stop, I should never try and turn myself back to how I was. This is building myself on experience. Experience and using it properly are what makes us develop ourselves and go forward.

Never close your eyes, never turn your back, never stop thinking.

Forward.

seacats

2009-07-26T18:18:00.005+02:00

The other Japanese bit of my interests aside from Aikido is the subculture of anime and manga. I don't delve too far - I do not have shelves stacked with anime character figurines, I don't share a bed with an anime character hugging pillow. I just watch several series, read a few manga and treat them as works of fiction not unlike any other.

For the first time, though, I was tempted so much by a series that I actually came to the original source for its anime and manga - a visual novel. Basically, the equivalent of a book, but with illustrations and sound effects... I would not call it a game - it shares similarities with the form of a game, but is 99% passive - just like a novel.

Umineko no Naku Koro Ni (When the Seacats... I mean, When the Seagulls Cry)

The story centers around the family Ushiromiya and their annual family conference at the island Rokkenjima in a remote archipelago. Eighteen family members gather at the mansion on the island, eventually isolated from the world by a typhoon. The head of the Ushiromiya family - Kinzo Ushiromiya - is proclaimed to be approaching his death, and his children gather to discuss splitting the inheritance of their Father's wealth, a major part of it supposedly obtained through mysterious occult and black magic.

The grandchildren are joined by Battler Ushiromiya, who has not visited the conference in six years. They find themselves interested in the legend of the Golden Witch, Beatrice, who reputedly lives on the island and rules it during the night, resulting in various ghost stories. The children contemplate the epitaph of the supposedly long-dead witch underneath her portrait in the main hall, which describes a bloody path to a "Golden Land" and Beatrice's revival.

During the typhoon, on the morning of the second day, mysterious and inhumane murders begin to occur. They appear to be murder mystery scenarios at first, but none of them seem to be possible to a human. Battler and the rest of the family refuse to believe that it could be the work of a witch, but nothing else can explain the horrible deaths.

The basis of the entire story is the problem of anti-fantasy versus anti-mystery. The anti-fantasy stance, favoured by Battler, assumes that every murder can be explained within human capabilities, and thus does not require a fantastic, magical explanation. The anti-mystery stance obviously states the opposite. Even if you can prove the scenarios are possible for humans to set up, this does not disprove that a witch didn't do it. You can prove the existence of witches, but you cannot prove they don't exist - a simplified form of the Devil's Proof.

The story is a battle between those two stances, a mixture of horror fantasy and murder mystery, and an extremely pleasant mind fuck. I think the two-three weeaboos that may be by any chance reading this already heard me praising its glorious name on high, but just in case some other weeaboo comes across this - I strongly recommend Seacats. Any of the three formats presents the story just fine, though the anime and manga adaptations have barely gotten off to a start while the visual novel is far ahead.

Besides, it's slowly consuming my mind, so I just had to write that down... Currently, I'm trying to imagine how would Beatrice work as a boss encounter in WoW, but writing that out here would be going too far. That's a little habit I have for every work of fiction with a high density of fantasy. I just finished the second episode of the novel and, yeah, I really need to let my mind rest for a bit.

a sun that never sets

2009-07-25T19:12:00.004+02:00

I was always an outsider.

In my class and school, in the local neighbourhood, in any social circle I had to be in, I was an outsider - sometimes shunned (or even bullied), sometimes merely tolerated as someone who's there, but not a true part of the group.

Because of this, I had very few friends and none of them were truly close. None of them sought my presence for any reason. My social life, as a result, was almost nonexistent.

Until three years ago.

I was at conflict with someone from my gymnasium (Polish middle school equivalent) back then, which arrived at a violent conclusion. I was ambushed, pinned down, and forced with violence to never anger the attacker again.

My parents saw in this a danger to my future and concluded that it was time for a wake-up call. An ultimatum was placed before me. I had to choose between joining an Aikido club or living the rest of my life offline, without a computer of my own.

My first reaction was strongly emotional. I threw a tantrum and chose the latter option in my immature rage. Only after my mind cleared did I realize that the first option is much less harmful for me.

On my second training session in the club, I met the leader of the club, master of Aikido - Sensei. More than a distant teacher, he was very human and very sociable, full of wisdom and wit. His guidance eventually further encouraged me to train dilligently, though I was still slightly resistant to the idea of training there.

Over the years, I started acquainting myself with other practicioners - many of them slightly younger than me. I met people who I occasionally had contact with on trainings and I talked with them.

None of them shunned me or merely tolerated my presence. I felt accepted.

Every year in the summer, the Aikido club organized a camp trip in a remote area - several days of frequent Aikido trainings combined with other terrain activities, games and social interaction. The kids and youths of the camp were split up into groups by age, each marked by a colour. I was assigned to the oldest group - the black group, led by Sempai Piotr ("sempai" in our club's case is someone adult with a high rank in Aikido, instructor, trainer and leader capabilities)

One that would soon be known as the Blacks.

The group grew close together, eventually united under a banner, with a whole microculture of its own, memes and all. We started meeting each other after the camp on trainings. However, the real beginning was soon after, once a new kind of trip was announced for the youths of the club - the Episode I (inspired by the Star Wars theme we adopted during the camp), a journey into the Beskid mountains.

Soon after this, we met for the first time in a major shopping mall - Centre "Arkadia" - in north Warsaw. The meetings grew more frequent. People started changing their main dojos for training (there are several dojos in Warsaw owned by our club). With every Episode, with every camp through these three years, we grew together, meeting more often and often on various occasions. The group grew around a core... a core that I belonged to, together with two of my friends.

To this day, nothing could shake this unity. Our group grew - recently a split became necessary between the younger and older members of the group, to make organizing easier and to provide us with challenges suited to each age group. Even despite the split, we are still united. Two more Sempais were introduced into the Blacks - Sempai Paweł and Agnieszka.

And among the Blacks...

I am not shunned. I am not outside. I am at the very core of the group, among friends who are almost like comrades. Among the Blacks, I have also made true and close friends - one of them has even told me outright that I am their best friend.

I still cannot fully comprehend and accept this fact as normal and not completely unbelievable and incredible - that there are people who actually seek my presence in their group, in their lives, who wish to speak to me, to whom I am important to some degree.

All around me are normal people to whom such social circles are completely natural and normal, but to me the Blacks are a gift, a miracle.

I don't really care if this all sounds idealistic to the point of dripping faggotry all over my manliness. Sappy, rose-tinted and long as this may be, this compilation and these feelings are something that lived in my mind for quite a while, spilling over to my private, paper diaries, shaping themselves up as a blog post I didn't have a place to publish on - until now.

The title is a shout-out to Neurosis this time, another band whose music I highly enjoy.

lateralus (and music in general)

2009-07-24T18:10:00.002+02:00

This might already be visible in the two previous posts, but music is an inseparable, most important element of my life. You will most likely never find me outside without my phone and headset. (I don't need an iPod or anything like that - my phone serves just fine as a mp3 player.)

I often express my thoughts or feelings by quoting songs that somehow resonate with those. My communicator statuses or descriptions always quote a song. I do realize it's not my own creativity - but I think the music I listen to is a large part of me or indeed a large part of anyone with my level of audiophilia.

In music, I seek interesting artistic experiences, which bring emotions that resonate in me, thoughts or observations that I share. And... yeah, this whole lead-up is partly to introduce a song that has become a sort of mantra for me, whenever I'm looking for positive and constructive tones.

Tool - Lateralus

Lyrics

the sea

2009-07-24T15:36:00.000+02:00

From the start of 2009, I've noticed a certain motif that stalked me through my life, appearing in music I listen to and occasionally even in events of my life.

The sea.

Recently, I discovered for myself Isis, already mentioned in the previous post. One of their albums is called Oceanic and obviously the sea is a theme that appears through the entire album. Aside from that, I've noticed that I know a fair amount of songs that involve the sea. The first songs that come to mind are:

Amon Amarth - Embrace of the Endless Ocean

Iron Maiden - Ghost of the Navigator

Moonsorrow - Sankaritarina

Oceanlab - Ashes (in fact, their entire album is full of oceanic melodies)

After one notices something stalking him, a pattern that appears regularly, a natural thing is to become highly sensitive to similar patterns. I could find many more subtle references to sea and water in the music I listen to, but that'd just make for a long and unnecessary list.

Soon after I started being aware of the sea patterns, I found another major one appearing in my life. At the end of June, after my school year was over, I left for an Aikido summer camp with the Blacks (a story for another post, the Blacks are essentially an age group of Aikido youth that evolved into a social circle of friends) and it turned out the camp had a mariner theme (despite being in the middle of land, with no sea or any major body of water nearby). After I returned, I had set my mind on where do I want to go next in this summer. Rather obvious conclusion there, so... yeah.

The sea brings with it various associations and emotions. About 70% of the surface of Earth is covered in water. Seas are vast and seemingly endless once you swim out far from any land. They are much easier to navigate these days thanks to technology, but still can be very dangerous, especially when combined with bad weather. The sea has the potential to be a fun place to be at, but can also be dangerous, foreboding and lonely. Its endlessness can drive to despair if you lose hope of reaching the shore. The sea is often personified as a woman (a hint of it occurs in the album Oceanic).

In the human past, it was an especially dangerous and mystical place, full of legends and mysteries - in fact, it holds many mysteries to this day, in its darkest, most crushing depths, which even our machinery still has difficulties exploring. It's no wonder that the sea is a frequent theme - with so many stories you can tell of it, so many mysteries and folklore to explore and such a variety of emotions tied to it.

the beginning

2009-07-24T15:13:00.000+02:00

I can't give you any guarantee on how long exactly will this blog keep running.

Since I'm not particularly extrovertive, writing things such as a blog has always been difficult for me. For similar reasons, what you'll see here will never be my entire self. Everyone has their most intimate secrets that they wish to keep.

Blogging for me has always been a kind of brief interest. When I was young, my grandmother sought to give me an outlet of creativity. We bought a piano and paid a teacher to teach me how to play. I quickly grew tired and unwilling - now, the piano is gathering dust in another room. It's been many years since that, but I'm still very wary of undertaking new creative activities. My family strongly suggests that I learn to sing in a choir or play a guitar. I'm interested in both to some extent, but the same anxiety is still bearing down on me - will I grow tired of both again and forsake them, to return to a life of introverted lazyness?

The whole problem applies to me and blogging. I've had several blogs over the course of many years, but all of them were eventually left aside, neglected and eventually consumed by Blogger to free up the space.

Yesterday in the evening, a fierce and powerful storm suddenly swept across our village. The power went out soon after the hurricane caused a draft in our house, powerful enough to completely obliterate the glass pane in my room's door. Without electricity, our family could be gathered once more around candlelight and I had the opportunity to talk, as none of us were restrained by pixels anymore. I brought up the topic of creativity and once again, a new blog was suggested (my father, who'll be following this, liked my previous blogging ventures a lot). Determined to entertain myself somehow during what is possibly the most boring and excruciating summer in my life, I decided to at least start this blog and give it a try to find out - maybe this one won't end up being neglected.

The title of the blog is derived from a song title - Backlit by Isis. I recommend checking out the lyrics as well.