year in review

It's that time, when everyone celebrates a new cycle of the calendar and takes time to reflect upon a slice of time and all the events of various significance within that slice that they took part in. For me, 2012 was not by any measure an insignificant year, and I feel that a blog post summarizing the year warrants writing.

The year began with an introduction to a new community and a new interest. This alone revitalized my life when I was reaching a status quo that needed to be broken. This granted me new friendships and new past-times. Through this new community, I was introduced to other things such as, most importantly, Dota 2, a continuation of the story of an originally unassuming custom map in Warcraft III, which had enough unique appeal and innovation to herald a new genre and kind of competitive gaming.

I've also experienced a great deal of generosity, which reached its peak towards the end with the new PC from my dear friend Kasia. No amount of gratitude is enough - all I can offer in return is repayment in friendship and a passing on of that generosity (which I am struggling with currently - I meant to ship my previous PC to a friend in 2012, but procrastinated upon it - very guilty over this! First thing to do in 2013). As such, I begin 2013 fully caught up on every little material thing I desired in the past year.

Towards the last months of the past year, I've also rekindled some old friendships, one of which is with my neighbours - including a person who returned to Poland after a long time of studying abroad, and is currently sticking around here.

From negatives, one thing I've been dealing with is a downswing of negativity. Reminiscence on old doubts, regrets and failures has caused me to become reticent in some matters, but very harsh and aggressive in others. All the good I've experienced slipped away from my awareness, as I focused on hiding away and warding others off, afraid to disappoint or accept my disappointment, as others (and myself) failed to meet unreasonable standards I set for them.

I am not one to form strict resolutions for any specific timeframe such as the beginning of a year, but the above reflection is something to keep in mind, the one thing that, if improved upon, will make 2013 a better year than the previous.

Happy New Year - I really hope and believe it will be an improvement for us all.

dust

Inspired by talking to Kasia, a friend of mine, about the subject of experiences and memories. I often find the quality of my memory a little lacking. I value the 'now' considerably, because the second it turns into 'then', it begins devaluing until it's just a fact listed in my head. 
I'm not sure if I've already written something like that or not, but I don't think I have.

cold dust has settled
upon the stone floor
hidden from sun's light
memories rest

I sift through that debris
looking for anything
reflections appear in the shards
and vanish as I move them

the dust seeps through my fingers
and clouds form again
billowing, intangible, surreal

women and men
moments and places
brief images and sensations
moved by unknown winds

as quickly as they appeared
these shadow puppets fade away
and the dust settles again
still and quiet

the old man and the gift

I haven't had much to write about on this blog. To some extent, I suppose Twitter is consuming my mental bandwidth. That - or all my thoughts can actually be compressed very easily into packets of up to 140 characters each. It's like thought snacks, I guess. I'm not closing down the blog, though, because evidently I have an use for it right now.

My memory is terrible in general; my consciousness as a whole seems to absorb things very poorly. Every experience washes over it and very little residue remains in the creases and cracks - which makes it especially important to act quickly on a memory worth recording.
Especially if the memory is a dream. Those are quite slippery. That's why "dream diaries" are a thing. I guess, in a way, this blog serves that role among others.
So here's a dream which was transcribed by me directly after I woke up and realized I mustn't forget it.


I was at some kind of resort, sharing a room with some people, where I also had a PC on, with a brightly lit monitor which I kept checking (I believe mIRC was running on it).
It was near a forest, with a sea nearby.

I was out doing something (swimming)?, then I returned and noticed (I think it was on a porch or something) a box in which was a set of fairly nice headphones. I was looking at them when an old man showed up and told me that I can have them, if I want. I expressed gratitude. However, when I took just the headphones from the box, he was like "no no, have the whole box", and I realized that it was in fact a portable music player the size of a small radio set (it's the sort of thing you put on a table rather than carry in your pocket, but it's light so you can take it when travelling... yeah, a somewhat pointless concept, but it is a dream.)

I further expressed my gratitude, but I realized that something in what he was telling me is off... it was as though he was giving up on himself. Suicidal, perhaps. I inquired further mainly to learn that he had some nondescript disease (it was not cancer - it wasn't specified at all) which greatly shortened his lifespan and that his particular lifespan is very nearly exhausted.

I was quite touched by this. As the man left, I implored - perhaps the clearest part of my dream: "Please remember - in this day and age, we have the means to fight such diseases! Please do not give up." As he was already on his way to his next destination, I was not sure if he heard.

I returned to my room. It was set up in a strange way, permitting a water spout to be left open above a pillow. I made to turn it off, quite bewildered, and then met the person currently using the bed. He explained it was intentional - some way to cool the pillows off.
I set the gifted music player on my table beside my bed.

This is all I could remember.

intersection

Recently, I have become a part of a small sub-community that makes its home on TeamLiquid forums and in an IRC channel: TLPonies, a group of people who are fans of both eSports and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This has reminded me of a certain observation I have made.

My favourite type of community is, after all, a small one. While it is quite inspiring to be a part of something greater much like indeed eSports, I mostly find myself having the best times in small social circles.

Such tiny sub-communities are often either defined by more than one interest or are simply less common (Aikido). As such, the people who do, in fact, seek out such sub-communities are often shaped by the interests they pursue. 

This creates a filter for shared traits, the amount of which rises as the filter narrows. As such, while in a huge community there will be all kinds of people, in a small one the people you get will often share additional interests beyond the few that define their sub-community. It becomes much easier to find that middle ground, that common language which is so important in binding societies large and small alike.

I even have a few examples to give you an idea of what I mean. I have met among TLponies some people who are aware of Isis, Cult of Luna or Neurosis, some who have raided in WoW, a person who knows Aikido somewhat closely. This may not seem that special, especially the WoW example, but the truth is that I find it rare to find so much common ground with others in any community. 

Another great aspect of such small communities is how they're a lot more personal. You generally recognize everyone, everyone is aware of you and this creates more familiarity and makes interactions more interesting. The size aspect alone is why I preferred 10-man raiding once it was a thing in WoW.

That is why I enjoy hanging out in the TLponies IRC so much and that is also why I mostly chose roleplaying servers and kept to my guild more than I posted on the realm forums (although I did use to post a lot more in WoW Vanilla/TBC).  That is also why I rarely post on forums in general (such as Reddit or TL outside of the pony thread). 

And yeah, this post is basically one huge shoutout :D I tried to make a point with it, at least. You guys are completely awesome.

in fiction

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

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

howl

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

EU Battle.net Invitational 2011

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