Yesterday while taking a nap due to feeling exhausted and somewhat sick, I had a nightmare, one in which I had somehow met this guy and I found myself in his room which I knew to be inside his mother's house. I never saw her. The guy was kind of lonely so I wanted to help, yet throughout this all he exhibited a weird mean streak. Only afterwards did I realize that he had just been cruel. I eventually managed to sneak away and hide in a pile of firewood ("becoming the wood"). I woke up from this dream with one of my arms crossed over my chest, and both hands more or less clenched into a fist and my heart pounding like crazy.
Today I felt very agitated and depressed. After deciding to go take a nap again I got to my bed where something inside me kind of snapped. I felt so frustrated that I began to hit myself on the head over and over again until it started hurting so much that I could only drag myself into bed where I fell asleep. I then had another nightmare.
The initial part of the dream I do not remember well. I was apparently in the house in which I grew up, and yet it wasn't really. It was more light and spacious. There was something going on with food. Dinner, I think. I didn't feel like eating yet, until at one point I told my mother that she could warm up some of the pasta for me. Shortly after that I decided to go upstairs to my room. Nearing the top of the stair I could see that my room's door wasn't fully open as I had left it, but slightly ajar. Pushing it open I went into my room, which again wasn't really like my room of the past. Again more light and spacious. To my left was my bed, but in it was already someone. A woman. First she looked like Jeri Ryan, who was wriggling about under the blankets, seemingly amused. As I got closer and slid into the bed as well, she changed into a more African looking woman.
The moment I first saw a woman in my bed I didn't really feel anything, it was more a matter of observing a fact. Sliding into the bed next to her I found it to be a comforting thought to be next to her. Nice and cozy. Lying next to her she suddenly proposed getting intimate with me, which caught me by surprise. Working in my head through the logistics of such a thing, I found no problems there. Preparing, I had just changed from fully clothed into wearing the same but my pink pyjama pants instead of my jeans, when my mother came into the room to tell that dinner was ready. At this point I thought it would be a good idea to lock the door, so I got out and wandered over the other side of the room where I knew that the key probably was. I didn't find it, however.
Meanwhile the woman was just wandering about near the bed, talking with my mother or such. Her presence didn't incite anything negative, which I think meant that she was supposed to be there. Maybe she was my girlfriend after all. I decided to ditch the locked door idea and walked back over to her. My mother and the shadowy male figure I had sensed near her had left. As the woman and I came close we embraced. As we stood there, I started trembling. The really bad kind of shaking when you're either nervous or anxious enough to nearly bolt away to safety, or stricken with fear. I held her tightly as I said to her in a trembling voice that I felt so nervous, more than I had ever felt before. The image then suddenly distorted into nonsense.
As I woke up from that nightmare, I found both my arms firmly crossed on my chest and both hands tightly clenched into fists. I was crying.
Thanks to today's nightmare I think I now know what yesterday's nightmare was about, namely my experiences living together with that person. The second nightmare was for me a frightening look into how traumatizing sexuality has always been to me. I have actually experienced such trembling before with a real-life experience, though I chose to ignore it at the time. In the nightmare I chose to finally admit to myself that there's nothing which fills me more with terror than the thought of sexuality. I have just been forcing myself to try and accept it as something normal, while further damaging myself that way. My experiences the past months more so.
This all taken together it seems quite clear where some of my worst traumas are, and the worst roadblocks on the way to recovery. It's in some ways infuriating that a good, healthy relationship could be so beneficial to me, while the possibility of such a thing happening is sheer random chance. I could run into the perfect person tomorrow, or never. Maybe a plan B is in order, with a shrink specializing in sexuality poking and prodding me. Maybe.
Or maybe that's plan C and plan B is to become a bloody hermit.
Maya
Sunday, 28 April 2013
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Planning My Pride Photo Award Debut
Today I got a message from photographer Eric Brinkhorst informing me that he'd like to plan a photography session for the Pride Photo Award really soon now to fill up the series as the final submission date is May 31st. It's going to be quite excited to see what will end up in the final series in the end. While a lot of things you can plan yourself, there are a few variables, such as when the first public hearing against the VUmc's gender team gets planned and what the response from that surgeon on my final surgery will be. Both would provide excellent material for the series, but there's no way to know whether any of them will work out the way we hope and whether they would occur within next month.
I felt pretty heartened by the response from Pride Photo Award (PPA) so far, with them spending an actual news article on their site on my story. I think that having a successful submission to PPA could mean a lot to intersex people in general. It would not only inform a large number of people that we exist at all, but also of the major horrors we have to suffer due to medical and political ignorance and will will. My hope is that the series works out well and gets into the top 5 at the PPA.
As far as the surgery goes, I doubt that it'll get into the series, as physicians are very busy people. I was supposed to be contacted by the surgeon this week, but with just one more day to go, I think it'll take longer. Probably far into next month. Even then I expect a rejection, as that is the only response which would be consistent with this world I was born into. Deny, crush, extinguish. Fatalistic, maybe, but based on years of cruel experience.
Then the public hearing. This may actually work out, as I received a response from the VUmc's lawyer via my own lawyer's office to the hormone level results I had put in as new evidence for my case. That the disciplinary commission is sending this now may mean that they are preparing to set a date for the public hearing. I really hope that this is the case and that the hearing is next month. Not just for the PPA series, but also to move this case ahead at last. This waiting is killing me.
In my fantasies I am contacted by a enthusiastic surgeon who wants to examine me for that surgery which he thinks will restore full functionality of my vagina. I also hear that the public hearing is early next month. In those fantasies I can finally shed off a lot of the impossibly heavy burden resting on my shoulders.
In reality, however, I'm left a bitter, overly sarcastic person. It's not who I want to be. It's what life has made me into. As someone once said, only fairy tales know happy endings.
Maya
I felt pretty heartened by the response from Pride Photo Award (PPA) so far, with them spending an actual news article on their site on my story. I think that having a successful submission to PPA could mean a lot to intersex people in general. It would not only inform a large number of people that we exist at all, but also of the major horrors we have to suffer due to medical and political ignorance and will will. My hope is that the series works out well and gets into the top 5 at the PPA.
As far as the surgery goes, I doubt that it'll get into the series, as physicians are very busy people. I was supposed to be contacted by the surgeon this week, but with just one more day to go, I think it'll take longer. Probably far into next month. Even then I expect a rejection, as that is the only response which would be consistent with this world I was born into. Deny, crush, extinguish. Fatalistic, maybe, but based on years of cruel experience.
Then the public hearing. This may actually work out, as I received a response from the VUmc's lawyer via my own lawyer's office to the hormone level results I had put in as new evidence for my case. That the disciplinary commission is sending this now may mean that they are preparing to set a date for the public hearing. I really hope that this is the case and that the hearing is next month. Not just for the PPA series, but also to move this case ahead at last. This waiting is killing me.
In my fantasies I am contacted by a enthusiastic surgeon who wants to examine me for that surgery which he thinks will restore full functionality of my vagina. I also hear that the public hearing is early next month. In those fantasies I can finally shed off a lot of the impossibly heavy burden resting on my shoulders.
In reality, however, I'm left a bitter, overly sarcastic person. It's not who I want to be. It's what life has made me into. As someone once said, only fairy tales know happy endings.
Maya
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
An Overload Of Wrongness
Despite the fact that humans are quite irrational beings, they still seem to hold firmly on to the belief that all actions and thoughts are still somehow governed by reason. There is also the belief originating from this initial belief that every human being is capable of complete self-control. Suffice it to say that this is as far from the truth as one can be. Case in point is that of a post-traumatic stress disorder - or PTSD - which is a crippling psychological and neurological disorder which completely shorts out one's capability to reason before it has a chance to act.
Knowing something and feeling the same about it are two separate things. Sometimes they align, but more often they don't. With conditions like PTSD they can go so out of whack that there's no stopping it. I can say without exaggeration that PTSD is the worst thing I ever incurred and that the thought of living with it untreated seems quite unbearable. What keeps me going is that the coming time things will happen which will soften the traumas at the root of the PTSD and thus reduce the stress.
This morning I was just sitting there, working, when someone started talking with another person about the latter guy's girlfriend. While logically this shouldn't do anything to me since even if I did know the people in question it still shouldn't matter to me. Instead I began to experience a sensation akin to physical pain or severe discomfort. Continuing to listen to the conversation was impossible. I became beset by a feeling of... wrongness. Everything I heard was wrong. What was happening was wrong. I had to shut it out. Do something about it, but I couldn't.
Even after walking away and finding a calm spot I found myself unable to control my emotions. I was overcome by this massive sense of frustration, pain and anger, all targeting eventually the root cause of the wrongness: this body I inhabit. It's exceedingly hard to not give into the urge to then assault, maim and even murder one's own body. I have complete understanding for war veterans who struggle to live a civilian life again. The sense of wrong must be agony to them.
It's all conflicting emotions, reasoning and thoughts. The sense of wrong where there is no wrong. Every PTSD episode is another attack on one's sanity and another step taken towards ending one's tortured existence. Having to never experience or even better know this overload of wrongness must be bliss indeed. I'm not sure I'll live long enough to ever experience it again.
After withdrawing from the situation in which the episode started it usually takes about an hour for me to regain my senses, although I'll feel numb and emotionally worn out for a while longer. It will also reinforce for me the underlying traumas and the associated conclusions, no matter how misguided. Should I really be considering relations between men and women to be evil and wrong? Of course not. Is being intersex something akin to torture, best ended swiftly and mercifully? Of course not. There should be nothing keeping me from living a happy life.
And yet... the undercurrents of the brain, where the subconscious lives and emotions reign freely, there such logic doesn't hold. There is just the pain of past experiences. The memories of all that happened and the concrete conviction that all that will happen again. The frail conscious mind is no match for it.
No match at all.
Maya
Knowing something and feeling the same about it are two separate things. Sometimes they align, but more often they don't. With conditions like PTSD they can go so out of whack that there's no stopping it. I can say without exaggeration that PTSD is the worst thing I ever incurred and that the thought of living with it untreated seems quite unbearable. What keeps me going is that the coming time things will happen which will soften the traumas at the root of the PTSD and thus reduce the stress.
This morning I was just sitting there, working, when someone started talking with another person about the latter guy's girlfriend. While logically this shouldn't do anything to me since even if I did know the people in question it still shouldn't matter to me. Instead I began to experience a sensation akin to physical pain or severe discomfort. Continuing to listen to the conversation was impossible. I became beset by a feeling of... wrongness. Everything I heard was wrong. What was happening was wrong. I had to shut it out. Do something about it, but I couldn't.
Even after walking away and finding a calm spot I found myself unable to control my emotions. I was overcome by this massive sense of frustration, pain and anger, all targeting eventually the root cause of the wrongness: this body I inhabit. It's exceedingly hard to not give into the urge to then assault, maim and even murder one's own body. I have complete understanding for war veterans who struggle to live a civilian life again. The sense of wrong must be agony to them.
It's all conflicting emotions, reasoning and thoughts. The sense of wrong where there is no wrong. Every PTSD episode is another attack on one's sanity and another step taken towards ending one's tortured existence. Having to never experience or even better know this overload of wrongness must be bliss indeed. I'm not sure I'll live long enough to ever experience it again.
After withdrawing from the situation in which the episode started it usually takes about an hour for me to regain my senses, although I'll feel numb and emotionally worn out for a while longer. It will also reinforce for me the underlying traumas and the associated conclusions, no matter how misguided. Should I really be considering relations between men and women to be evil and wrong? Of course not. Is being intersex something akin to torture, best ended swiftly and mercifully? Of course not. There should be nothing keeping me from living a happy life.
And yet... the undercurrents of the brain, where the subconscious lives and emotions reign freely, there such logic doesn't hold. There is just the pain of past experiences. The memories of all that happened and the concrete conviction that all that will happen again. The frail conscious mind is no match for it.
No match at all.
Maya
Saturday, 20 April 2013
Wishing I Could Leave This Prison
Two nights ago I once again dreamed a dream which seems to reoccur regularly for me. In it I am in a bare prison cell; its walls painted white. There's a window to my left. This window I can just open, but I can not crawl through it. People pass by on the outside, who all know me and they ask me things. When the next hearing is and such. I can talk to them, but never ask them to help me escape.
The door of my cell is open, and I know that I have free passage through the entire prison building. Thus I leave my cell and wander through the completely abandoned building. There are always the same white and light-grey hallways and rooms. I never encounter a single soul. As I wander through the building like this it feels peaceful, with its sunlit rooms, but it's also exceedingly lonely. A part of me wants to leave the building; join the people outside, but I know I can't do that. There's no way out of the building.
Actually that's not quite true. There is a way out, and it's via those court cases. Defend my case successfully, gain redemption, be set free. I just have to wait out these endless days until the next hearing, as those people outside my cell's window keep asking me about. I wish I knew.
Thus I wait. In my dream and in reality.
Maya
The door of my cell is open, and I know that I have free passage through the entire prison building. Thus I leave my cell and wander through the completely abandoned building. There are always the same white and light-grey hallways and rooms. I never encounter a single soul. As I wander through the building like this it feels peaceful, with its sunlit rooms, but it's also exceedingly lonely. A part of me wants to leave the building; join the people outside, but I know I can't do that. There's no way out of the building.
Actually that's not quite true. There is a way out, and it's via those court cases. Defend my case successfully, gain redemption, be set free. I just have to wait out these endless days until the next hearing, as those people outside my cell's window keep asking me about. I wish I knew.
Thus I wait. In my dream and in reality.
Maya
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Shedding Tears For Those Who Were Struck Down
My initial response to the reports of the bombings at the Boston Marathon a few days ago was one of reluctance and hope. Reluctance about accepting yet another report of violence, and hope that it would not be too serious. The reality of the event soon became clear to me, however, with each subsequent news report and fact updates.
The thing with such reports is that one's mind tries to shut it out, and with good reason. There's something absolutely troubling and hopeless about the aftermath of an attack like this, regardless of whether it takes place at a market place in Iraq or an international event in an American city. The focus on harming innocent people in order to further selfish goals is beyond infuriating. It drives one to the edge of despair at the realization of so many lives destroyed or forever ruined.
The images of the Boston bombings are burned into my mind, same as for those of other bombings I have seen. There's something savage and brutal about the aftermath of an explosion like that, before one even considers the victims of it. From the gruesome details such as torn off limbs which one's mind can still ignore as being something innocent like a doll's limbs, to ripped apart bodies and those unfortunate enough to still be alive.
All of it just resonates inside your mind as being wrong, shaking the very foundation of your being. For someone like me it doesn't just resonate with that which makes me a caring human being, but also with the memories I had to suffer over far too many years. The stark contrast between a moment of innocent happiness when one is standing there near the finish line, cheering on a loved one or just enjoying the moment, to the sudden turmoil when one finds oneself lying there on the ground with the blast's shock wave still ringing in one's ears. Only to realize with a sudden feeling of numb panic the grievous nature of one's own injuries and forever remembering every single detail of one's surroundings as shock takes over.
At that moment there's just the pain, slowly burning through the numbness of shock. The worry about loved ones and the rush to save those struck down. I'll never forget those images. Not of those with only mild injuries lying on the ground as they got treated. Nor those of people with both legs blown off with just most of the bone still poking out. The moment when we all uncomfortably realize that we're just spirits inhabiting fragile shells of flesh.
Afterwards the anger takes over, as well as the frustration, feelings of hopelessness and despair. To me in many ways following the aftermath of this bombing is somewhat akin to reliving my own memories of what has been done to me. While shrapnel didn't tore away the flesh on my bones, a similar kind of damage was done inside of me. As the victims of the Boston bombings and their families go through the torrent of emotions following the event, all I can do is sympathize with them. I can feel their pain as it's my own as well.
The tears I'm shedding now aren't tears for my own pain, but theirs and mine. Together with those tears there is also the hope for them, me and everyone else that things will improve. That nothing like what any of us went through will ever happen again.
I can not turn back the clock on my own life. Nor can I turn back the clock on what happened in Boston. All I, they, anyone can do is face the future with raised heads, as tears stain our cheeks.
Maya
The thing with such reports is that one's mind tries to shut it out, and with good reason. There's something absolutely troubling and hopeless about the aftermath of an attack like this, regardless of whether it takes place at a market place in Iraq or an international event in an American city. The focus on harming innocent people in order to further selfish goals is beyond infuriating. It drives one to the edge of despair at the realization of so many lives destroyed or forever ruined.
The images of the Boston bombings are burned into my mind, same as for those of other bombings I have seen. There's something savage and brutal about the aftermath of an explosion like that, before one even considers the victims of it. From the gruesome details such as torn off limbs which one's mind can still ignore as being something innocent like a doll's limbs, to ripped apart bodies and those unfortunate enough to still be alive.
All of it just resonates inside your mind as being wrong, shaking the very foundation of your being. For someone like me it doesn't just resonate with that which makes me a caring human being, but also with the memories I had to suffer over far too many years. The stark contrast between a moment of innocent happiness when one is standing there near the finish line, cheering on a loved one or just enjoying the moment, to the sudden turmoil when one finds oneself lying there on the ground with the blast's shock wave still ringing in one's ears. Only to realize with a sudden feeling of numb panic the grievous nature of one's own injuries and forever remembering every single detail of one's surroundings as shock takes over.
At that moment there's just the pain, slowly burning through the numbness of shock. The worry about loved ones and the rush to save those struck down. I'll never forget those images. Not of those with only mild injuries lying on the ground as they got treated. Nor those of people with both legs blown off with just most of the bone still poking out. The moment when we all uncomfortably realize that we're just spirits inhabiting fragile shells of flesh.
Afterwards the anger takes over, as well as the frustration, feelings of hopelessness and despair. To me in many ways following the aftermath of this bombing is somewhat akin to reliving my own memories of what has been done to me. While shrapnel didn't tore away the flesh on my bones, a similar kind of damage was done inside of me. As the victims of the Boston bombings and their families go through the torrent of emotions following the event, all I can do is sympathize with them. I can feel their pain as it's my own as well.
The tears I'm shedding now aren't tears for my own pain, but theirs and mine. Together with those tears there is also the hope for them, me and everyone else that things will improve. That nothing like what any of us went through will ever happen again.
I can not turn back the clock on my own life. Nor can I turn back the clock on what happened in Boston. All I, they, anyone can do is face the future with raised heads, as tears stain our cheeks.
Maya
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Story Of My Life
The past few days I have been thinking about many things to write about on my blog. Today as well. There are so many things and thoughts which pop up or trouble me either constantly or when they get triggered by something. I'm not sure that kind of reactive writing is what I need, or what is most useful to you, my dear reader. Hence I figured that maybe a more meta kind of post might be more appropriate.
One item I wanted to write about today was a post I would have titled something dramatic involving how I do not feel that I really have a body. How my experiencing of the world around me is quite surreal. How when I was a child I'd look forward to growing up, yet that this would not happen. That I looked forward to puberty, but that it turned into a both disappointing and extremely confusing and painful experience. That thanks to the extreme brainwashing by Dutch specialists I further lost grip on any kind of self-image and connection with my physical body.
That I have experienced the pleasures of connecting with someone I truly cared about, when I could feel what my body feels, but that those moments were rare and that I feel that I'll never experience such a thing again due to the damage suffered the past time. How absolutely and outrageously frustrated, disappointed and angry I feel at the fact that I will never be able to experience a relationship with a loved one. The depth of my jealousy at those who have such a relationship, and how the intense pain of it makes me want to run away and bury myself. Kill all feelings.
It would have been an intense post for sure. Heavy writing and large amounts of drama, all trying to perhaps futily allow others experience the depths of my mental agony. To gain understanding for the torturous choice between cutting myself literally off from sexuality in every form, or to continue to allow its existence despite everything pointing towards it only being there to cause me agony. I don't think that I could ever bring across my thoughts and feelings there to someone who has never experienced anything alike.
Thus I won't write about it. All you get is the bare summary above. Does it mean anything to you? Probably not. To me it resonates with what I feel inside. To those not like me it just leads to tired advice and equally tired expressions of keeping up hope.
What I did do today was work. Working on this iOS application project for my new employer. I'm beginning to like the work more and more. Just having a solid source of income is more than welcome, it strengthens me to take on everything else which comes along. Such as handling a communication from one of my lawyers regarding the situation surrounding my apartment. Which seems to be proceeding quite well now, by the way.
Much of what I do outside of my work these days feels odd due to that same matter. Not having access to my home and most of my possessions means a lot of improvising and buying stuff anew. It's kind of like camping out in the wilds, only without a set date on when one will be returning home.
Still, today I managed to acquire a new supply of my medication for the hormone therapy I'm undergoing for the rest of my life. It's good to have that settled for a while again. I'm also relieved that yesterday my awesome friend Trevor came back online after having been gone for a few days. Turns out that the part of Canada he lives in suffered a major ice storm, causing power lines to fail. I imagine it must be very... quiet to be without power for a few days straight.
I'm getting more and more enthusiastic every day about making Trevor and my company Nyanko into a success. This means bringing out video games and applications this year. Establish a name and get enough revenue going to make the two of us feel like our efforts were worth it. For me there is not too much I can do yet at this point, as I am still stuck with this old laptop from 2007 which has trouble running even basic applications, let alone 3D modelling and image editing programs such as 3DS Max and Photoshop.
My new laptop should be arriving early next week now. Its specs are quite a match for the desktop system I have at home, with an Intel 3630QM quad-core processor at 2.4 GHz base, 3.4 GHz Turbo speed, 8 GB base RAM and an nVidia GTX660M video card. The display is a 17" full-HD TN LCD (matte), which should be sufficient to do real work on, even if I still miss my two 24" IPS LCDs.
At the very least it should be much faster to compile large projects on the new laptop than on this old one. A regular release build of my WildFox browser takes about ten minutes currently. On the new CPU it should be less than a minute. That's what you get when you go from a slow AMD TK-53 (Athlon X2) dual-core CPU at ~1.7 GHz to a quad-core, modern CPU at 2.4+ GHz. More cores, higher per-core speeds and higher IPC (Instructions Per Cycle).
So yeah, I'm absolutely a geek. No lying about that. The past weeks I feel the energy and motivation returning to work on various software, hardware, AI and robotics projects again. Now that I also have money to spend freely there's nothing really holding me back to undertake at least some of them the coming time. Others will have to wait until I have a home again.
And thus life continues like a dream tinged at the edges with the deep black and red of a frightful nightmare. I wonder which one I will wake up from first.
Maya
One item I wanted to write about today was a post I would have titled something dramatic involving how I do not feel that I really have a body. How my experiencing of the world around me is quite surreal. How when I was a child I'd look forward to growing up, yet that this would not happen. That I looked forward to puberty, but that it turned into a both disappointing and extremely confusing and painful experience. That thanks to the extreme brainwashing by Dutch specialists I further lost grip on any kind of self-image and connection with my physical body.
That I have experienced the pleasures of connecting with someone I truly cared about, when I could feel what my body feels, but that those moments were rare and that I feel that I'll never experience such a thing again due to the damage suffered the past time. How absolutely and outrageously frustrated, disappointed and angry I feel at the fact that I will never be able to experience a relationship with a loved one. The depth of my jealousy at those who have such a relationship, and how the intense pain of it makes me want to run away and bury myself. Kill all feelings.
It would have been an intense post for sure. Heavy writing and large amounts of drama, all trying to perhaps futily allow others experience the depths of my mental agony. To gain understanding for the torturous choice between cutting myself literally off from sexuality in every form, or to continue to allow its existence despite everything pointing towards it only being there to cause me agony. I don't think that I could ever bring across my thoughts and feelings there to someone who has never experienced anything alike.
Thus I won't write about it. All you get is the bare summary above. Does it mean anything to you? Probably not. To me it resonates with what I feel inside. To those not like me it just leads to tired advice and equally tired expressions of keeping up hope.
What I did do today was work. Working on this iOS application project for my new employer. I'm beginning to like the work more and more. Just having a solid source of income is more than welcome, it strengthens me to take on everything else which comes along. Such as handling a communication from one of my lawyers regarding the situation surrounding my apartment. Which seems to be proceeding quite well now, by the way.
Much of what I do outside of my work these days feels odd due to that same matter. Not having access to my home and most of my possessions means a lot of improvising and buying stuff anew. It's kind of like camping out in the wilds, only without a set date on when one will be returning home.
Still, today I managed to acquire a new supply of my medication for the hormone therapy I'm undergoing for the rest of my life. It's good to have that settled for a while again. I'm also relieved that yesterday my awesome friend Trevor came back online after having been gone for a few days. Turns out that the part of Canada he lives in suffered a major ice storm, causing power lines to fail. I imagine it must be very... quiet to be without power for a few days straight.
I'm getting more and more enthusiastic every day about making Trevor and my company Nyanko into a success. This means bringing out video games and applications this year. Establish a name and get enough revenue going to make the two of us feel like our efforts were worth it. For me there is not too much I can do yet at this point, as I am still stuck with this old laptop from 2007 which has trouble running even basic applications, let alone 3D modelling and image editing programs such as 3DS Max and Photoshop.
My new laptop should be arriving early next week now. Its specs are quite a match for the desktop system I have at home, with an Intel 3630QM quad-core processor at 2.4 GHz base, 3.4 GHz Turbo speed, 8 GB base RAM and an nVidia GTX660M video card. The display is a 17" full-HD TN LCD (matte), which should be sufficient to do real work on, even if I still miss my two 24" IPS LCDs.
At the very least it should be much faster to compile large projects on the new laptop than on this old one. A regular release build of my WildFox browser takes about ten minutes currently. On the new CPU it should be less than a minute. That's what you get when you go from a slow AMD TK-53 (Athlon X2) dual-core CPU at ~1.7 GHz to a quad-core, modern CPU at 2.4+ GHz. More cores, higher per-core speeds and higher IPC (Instructions Per Cycle).
So yeah, I'm absolutely a geek. No lying about that. The past weeks I feel the energy and motivation returning to work on various software, hardware, AI and robotics projects again. Now that I also have money to spend freely there's nothing really holding me back to undertake at least some of them the coming time. Others will have to wait until I have a home again.
And thus life continues like a dream tinged at the edges with the deep black and red of a frightful nightmare. I wonder which one I will wake up from first.
Maya
Saturday, 13 April 2013
The Peace Of Damocles
"Does not Dionysius seem to have made it sufficiently clear that there can be nothing happy for the person over whom some fear always looms?"
So did Cicero [1] describe the weight of holding a position of power and the constant fears it brings with it. The same fears keep anyone awake who carries great responsibility and worries. There's always this lingering fear of what might come next, spoiling any joy one could experience in life. Maybe that's why so many people in a position of importance seem to lose themselves in psychopathic, care-free behaviour. It's either that or to go insane.
No peace can be experienced and no joy felt until the sword is finally removed, although strengthening the attachment of the sword to the ceiling can help immensely with removing much of the fears. Similarly one can make life more bearable by reducing the strength and number of those fears which keep one awake at night.
Drawing parallels with my own situation, I can feel the burden of a few items crushing down on my shoulders; some more heavily than others, yet together enough to bring down a person less accustomed to bearing the pain.
What weighs most heavily on me at this point has to be that of the idiotic decision to start an impossible relationship which blew up in my own foolish face, leaving me with only legal recourse to get back the place I used to live in. A place which I could rightfully call my own for the very first time in my life and which I will not get back until justice has run its course. Every time I'm assaulted by the memories surrounding this and what occurred before I feel more tired of it all and more resentful to the person who happily inflicts this all upon me. I pray that this torture will end soon, somehow.
Beyond that weight there isn't just an assault on my home, but also on my very body and psyche. Next week I'll probably hear back from the surgeon I contacted this week about his thoughts on whether he can help me in any fashion with restoring my body to its intended state. Aside from three German and one Dutch physician I have had dozens of Dutch and foreign physicians and surgeons reject me in a number of rude manners. This all makes me beyond apprehensive about what the answer will be this time. I expect another rejection and the inconceivable pain and agony that accompanies it. I literally am risking my very life by gambling on this surgeon. Because I have to. Because I want to. Because there's no other choice. Because I still have hope. Because I'm desperate. Because I hope for salvation.
I still laugh a few times every day. I even feel somewhat joyful at times. Yet they're mere moments, instantly followed up by a feeling of loneliness, despair, sadness and fatalism. The best I can do is to laugh bitter tears at my own life, which I stumble through akin to a court's fool.
Here's to this fool turning into a bard.
Maya
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles
So did Cicero [1] describe the weight of holding a position of power and the constant fears it brings with it. The same fears keep anyone awake who carries great responsibility and worries. There's always this lingering fear of what might come next, spoiling any joy one could experience in life. Maybe that's why so many people in a position of importance seem to lose themselves in psychopathic, care-free behaviour. It's either that or to go insane.
No peace can be experienced and no joy felt until the sword is finally removed, although strengthening the attachment of the sword to the ceiling can help immensely with removing much of the fears. Similarly one can make life more bearable by reducing the strength and number of those fears which keep one awake at night.
Drawing parallels with my own situation, I can feel the burden of a few items crushing down on my shoulders; some more heavily than others, yet together enough to bring down a person less accustomed to bearing the pain.
What weighs most heavily on me at this point has to be that of the idiotic decision to start an impossible relationship which blew up in my own foolish face, leaving me with only legal recourse to get back the place I used to live in. A place which I could rightfully call my own for the very first time in my life and which I will not get back until justice has run its course. Every time I'm assaulted by the memories surrounding this and what occurred before I feel more tired of it all and more resentful to the person who happily inflicts this all upon me. I pray that this torture will end soon, somehow.
Beyond that weight there isn't just an assault on my home, but also on my very body and psyche. Next week I'll probably hear back from the surgeon I contacted this week about his thoughts on whether he can help me in any fashion with restoring my body to its intended state. Aside from three German and one Dutch physician I have had dozens of Dutch and foreign physicians and surgeons reject me in a number of rude manners. This all makes me beyond apprehensive about what the answer will be this time. I expect another rejection and the inconceivable pain and agony that accompanies it. I literally am risking my very life by gambling on this surgeon. Because I have to. Because I want to. Because there's no other choice. Because I still have hope. Because I'm desperate. Because I hope for salvation.
I still laugh a few times every day. I even feel somewhat joyful at times. Yet they're mere moments, instantly followed up by a feeling of loneliness, despair, sadness and fatalism. The best I can do is to laugh bitter tears at my own life, which I stumble through akin to a court's fool.
Here's to this fool turning into a bard.
Maya
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles
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