Thursday 17 September 2009

What Is Yet To Come

Pieter has improved over the past few days from a fever to a severe cold to an ear-infection today. It's a kind of improvement, I guess. At the very least I'm not going crazy from hearing him blow his nose every five minutes anymore. I doubt he regrets that part either. Now I just have to live with his grumbling and whimpering as he deals with this last part of him being sick :P

Yesterday I went through another joyful time at the beauty salon I currently frequent: Jafemy (www.jafemy.nl). I have now had one or more treatments almost every week for over a month. In terms of effects I can notice a reduction in the hair growth, especially in the more coarser hairs. So far I'm quite satisfied with the results, which have made it possible for me to only shave once every other day instead of every day like before.

The exact treatment I'm undergoing is called 'Thermo' electrolysis, whereby a very slim needle (for me K2, the smallest size) is inserted into the hair follicle alongside the hair and a very short electrical pulse is applied, which solidifies the proteins of the hair follicle, effectively killing it. The hair is then pulled out. If a hair returns it'll be smaller and thus easier to permanently kill.

In terms of sensations, one can feel the needle sliding into the hair follicle, which sometimes is somewhat painful. When the electrical pulse is applied it feels like a small electrical shock, mildly painful. Sometimes the hair follicle contains a lot of fluids, such as when it's early in the growing phase and will essentially explode, which can be heard as a loud popping or sizzling noise. This rarely hurts. The hair pulling is rarely truly painful either, most of the time one barely feels it.

By the end of this year the expectation is that I'll be able to see even more impressive results than I do already. Most of the hairs being pulled out now were in the growing phase, meaning that they're most likely permanently gone. For someone like me with relatively thin, blonde fuzz instead of thick, black hairs, this is the ideal method. I can't wait to see the results the coming year. It'll be so liberating to be freed from this stigma of having to shave.

Yesterday and today I have been in contact with my contact person at the Zelfstandigenloket Flevoland on the Bbz welfare request. Yesterday I received the acknowledgement that it got accepted and that the relevant documentation was on its way. I received it later that day. Today I confirmed a few more points with my contact person.

Essentially I'm receiving just over 640 Euro a month for six months, with the possibility of an extension for another six months. I'll receive the first money by next week or the week after that. As the Bbz starts from the date when requested, I'll be getting the money for 3.5 month, starting from June 19th. This leaves me with 2.5 month to figure out whether I'll need that extension.

In order to rent an apartment, I'll need to find a place which has a rent of less than about 650 Euro/month to qualify for financial compensation and is okay with a special case like me. After that I can request extra money from the Bbz. This all makes it quite hard to find a place and I question the possibility of this working out this year.

Something which plays an essential role in my life and determines most of my actions and decisions is my understanding of the bigger picture. In Artificial Intelligence research it is a realization that if one were to develop a self-aware AI, it would have to find or be given a purpose. A super-intelligent, self-aware AI would otherwise soon realize that there's no point to existence, that anything we do, anything at all doesn't matter as the universe will eventually wipe everything anyway.

To get to the point where someone realizes this truth about the universe, and I mean truly understand it, not just acknowledging it, a certain kind of intelligence is required. Having the resulting three types of people, those who can understand but haven't yet, those who do understand, and those who never will understand, thus leads to a serious amount of friction. To those who understand, it's almost maddening that others have such a two-dimensional understanding of the world. To those who will never understand, those who do appear to be just weird, not comprehensible, just 'weird'.

I had an intense vision of this 'big picture' quite a few years ago, generating an intense feeling of senselessness, pointlessness, fatalism and all such nice terms. It took me a day to recover from it, but I did come up with a new way to look at life now that my innocence had been destroyed.

Materialism is irrelevant. When the universe destroys or resets itself, everything will be wiped. What is relevant is increasing knowledge, sharpening our understanding of logic, of the universe, of everything. In the end humans are just seeds. When a farmer puts new seeds into the soil, half of them never even make it to the surface, but get eaten by birds and such or simply rot away. Of the half which do reach the surface, not all of them mature into grown plants.

Humans are seeds, even when we are talking about mature, adult humans, they're still seeds, as we aren't talking about physical, but intellectual growth. Intellectual understanding of the Big Picture. During history there have been some individuals who did grown beyond being seeds, but got choked by the weeds of an unsupportive environment. Those who remain seeds will always hinder those who wish to grow into a mature plant.

The past few years I have somewhat forgotten this truth, pushed it away to the background in what seemed an attempt to deal with the urgent matter of finding a diagnostic for my body. This has failed. I have encountered many who have attempted to destroy me mentally. I do not wish or see the need to go back to yet another psychologist or therapist as I do not trust, do not think they can truly help or understand me.

I have to move away from Materialism again, away from this body, away from people who only want to hurt me, away from those who have no desire to help me. This body I have is only temporary, my memories and who I am as a person are not if I, possibly together with others, can find a method to transfer them to a new host body.

I will take care of this body I have now as well as I can, yet I deem it unlikely at this point that it'll ever make me 'happy'.


Maya

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