I had this strange feeling for a decade or two that I was meant to have lived in the UK. And that I've really missed out on a lot of stuff in that I instead lived in West Virginia. It's about the people I think I might have known living there instead of here... Friends, loves....

It's said that people are really the same everywhere and that happiness must come from within. The former just isn't true. I haven't spent my whole life in WV. I've spent probably almost ten years total here and there and I've seen it's not true. As to the latter, it's partially true but can be carried to the ridiculous.

As to this idea about the UK, would my life have been so different? I don't know.

I found this person online that has a blog and some music they created. A very gothic, creative... rather intelligent person with such a beautiful british accent/voice. I've been reading her stuff and she was representing that UK life I feel I've missed.

Should I take steps that could destroy this idealized vision I'm having about the UK? I've visited twice; a week each time. That didn't remotely dent it. I figured reading this person's blog might dent it. It's kind of a painful lamenting this thought about the UK... And things like visiting, reading this person's blog are/were painful. But on the other hand it's nice to pretend there's better things out there...

Anyway turns out this person had a second blog; a sex blog. She still is relatively intelligent but... I dunno. I have no position to find fault that I can figure out... But all the same it's kind of lessened this romanticization of the UK strangely... (I think of my song 'Falling'... an unfortunate realization... with a bit of comedy added. This seemingly intelligent person that I've idealized a bit is mostly just interested in taking it up the arse... hahaHA!) (But seriously, on the extremely unlikely change she's reading this, I don't think bad of her (YOU) at all.) Why that would be makes no logical sense. It's just one person I don't even really know at all. Just silliness. Too Far Future silliness. I'd be better off just thinking about short term fun like... sex with my spouse (like she's doing). But I just don't think that's really so interesting. TBH, I think I've mostly mastered the whole sex thing anyway and I don't need to spend much time thinking about it... Certainly don't need to do a bunch of writing about it. ...still the blog is the most interesting sex blog I've read. Rare for someone that seemingly intelligent to be spending such time on that subject...

As I get older I do notice I'm very slightly focusing on the here and now instead of the too far future. So perhaps eventually I'll get much more interested in sex but it seems unlikely. It would be like becoming a glutton... But maybe that's all life holds... And looking for happiness beyond that is just a waste.

Got wireless internet and my $200 ancient used laptop hooked up to it. I downloaded Reaper and Helix on it for the heck of it... It can handle about 4, maybe 5 tracks maximum of helix with no FX. So between 1/10 and 1/15th as good as my desktop.

But 4 tracks is plenty to get the important stuff....

What is it called when you can't remember the answer to something but as soon as you ask someone else the answer... as they open their mouth to reply but haven't yet, you remember the answer. Once would be a coincidence but I've noticed myself doing this for many, many years. Would be great to think of it as a low grade telepathy. But probably not. Probably my way of thinking about it changes in some fundamental way as they start to answer... I've tried then, to just pretend I'm asking someone, but that never worked.

It always seemed strange...

And I suppose I'm compiling all these out there thoughts here. This one falls more in the direction of being even more useless than usual. I have a ton more... But as they go further in this direction I may not bother. That wasn't the goal. Well there was never particularly a goal.

Sleep

Bad sleep. Got back into a very very short unorthodox strength training regimen. And... it's messed my sleep up. Insomnia. Feel like an old person the way I keep waking up at exactly 3AM every night. When younger I would have trouble getting to sleep but usually provided I didn't have to get up early could sleep really good and hard beginning at 5am. Today not till almost 8AM and still a mostly light sleep...

I did last night have a period where the thoughts quit making sense (which is normally when you then cross over into sleep) but instead I think the period of nonsense thinking just kind of stretched out quite a bit. Stretched on and on. Was offcially sleeping? If so it was very light. Light enough that I suddenly switched gears sort of... like going up a steep hill, into sleep paralysis. Something I hadn't had in quite a while... Which I kind of enjoy. Brings back such memories of childhood. And I really want to experiment from within it. As the imagination works differently there. But I've developed a reflexive thing where I immediately jump out of it in terror. The worry is suffocating. As I'm truly paralyzed. What if somehow my wife moves and pillow gets right over my face? People don't normally just suffocate. They wake up, or shift in their sleep... But I'm truly paralyzed! I can moan and that's it. At least there's no old hag trying to suffocate me. What a horrible stereotype.

Anyway I immediately jerked out of it.

Before this insomnia I had routinely fallen asleep like so: thoughts quit making sense, original piece of music starts playing in my head, and off I go. I used to monitor for the original music and jump up occasionally to record it. Then I'd just wake back up enough to examine it. Now I just don't even bother. I'd rather just enjoy sleeping I'm afraid. I can manage to write music when awake well enough........

What happened last night that was interesting enough to be writing this was that after jerking myself out of sleep paralysis I did a version of the original music but instead it was abstract pictures with perfect silence. I suppose if I were a painter that might be what happened every night. When I wasted such time playing chess my nonsense thoughts would be things like going to the grocery store by knight jumps, etc. The pictures were very pretty though. How wonderful it'd would be to just have such a show going whenever I wanted it. Combined with music...

Do the voices come from inside your head or outside? That's what is asked of schizophrenics.

From where does this music and these pictures come? Inside or outside? Inside. But I'm not consciously creating them. I'm just the audience. But I am creating them. I know that. I feel here and there a part of me creating them. That's what I think schizophrenics lose, is a sense that a part of them, is them. At least maybe that's part of it.

So today I went off to school and found the rest of my clinical group saying a number of negative things about our instructor (who no one can actually deny is a nice man) to another instructor.

It makes me think of Kundera talking of the collective insanity with which people regularly destroy this or that person's career. I recall a story of his where a guy decided to never talk again to a long time friend of his because he didn't speak in his defense when the insanity was being aimed at him. (His friend meanwhile was proud of himself for not talking part in the attack.)

What do I personally do in these situations?

I don't just say nothing. I always speak up on the person's behalf if they even remotely deserve some defense. In fact even if I don't know anything about it I say something and piss the little monkeys off. I've done it everywhere and from this more than anything else in my entire existence I've realized, I'M NOT NORMAL. :(

In this case I had found absolutely no issue at all with our instructor while all the other people in the group bad mouthed him. They know he's been bad mouthed before. Do they understand they could get him fired? Destroy his life? Cause a nervous breakdown or worse?

I'm not sure. I think a few are dumb enough they don't understand this. Some of them are early 20's. But then some are into their 30's like me.

So I spoke up loud and clear that I had no problem with our instructor and tried to help them understand his actions which they had managed to take such offense at. I strongly suggested talking to him instead of going to the head of the department.

But no. They went to the head of the department. I again, made it clear I had no issue with him. If they don't like me for it. I don't care.

He's a good guy. They've at least just caused him a lot of unhappiness that they all went to the department head. Considering he's had such issues before this sort of thing is probably especially wearing on him...

It's all women and one effeminate guy while I'm a not remotely effeminate man and neither is the instructor. That probably plays a role. Hopefully with my defending him the seemingly very very reasonable department head will not do anything horrible. She said words in his defense. Mentioned gender differences... Etc.

Thoughts about this... people suck first and foremost. I think I get the same thing done to me at work to an extent... As far as I can tell some people think it's appropriate to fill any silence with smearing people behind their back. It's like juicy conversation or something....? I suspect they just straight out make up negative crap about others to fill silence. I've always been appalled by it and if I know anything at all about the situation stick up for whoever. If I don't even know who's being talked about I still usually say something. I'm sure I've made enemies as a result.

Which brings up the subject of conformity. I'm still reading Opening Skinner's Box and all the insane conformity experiments. How people will utterly ignore common sense in order to fit in... An experiment where two actors are ignoring smoke pouring into a room and the majority of unwitting test subjects thus insanely do the same as a film of grit covers their body.

Not a chance I'd say nothing as our instructor is being smeared. Not a chance I'd say nothing at work. This is not a world to conform with.

Or are you a panglossist? Is this the best of all possible worlds? Heaven on earth?

It is not a world to conform with, pretending otherwise is unethical, and thus even if I may be potentially hurting myself there is some conformity I'm just not going along with.

And for that matter someone was smearing me at work this last week also. Claiming untrue things. Such tired old crap... but still it does affect me. I don't want to get fired. Also just really annoys me that I have to get dragged down into such stupidity. Unfortunately the bosses don't seem quite so intelligent at work as this department head so the smearing is more of something to be worried about.

That I can see, it's pretty clear that the best defense is a good offense. The notorious back stabbers rise fast. But I'm not going to play.

It's really something how people do it to one another. Such evil little effing monkeys. I think it's just about all they know how to do.

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....but. It's not always this way. I've been in situations where such didn't occur so much. Actually had a recent very good stretch. The main backstabber at work, who rose like a rocket to being considered one of the top CA's in less than a year over people who had been there a decade, snagged herself a doctor and immediately quit without even two weeks notice. There was a nice calm period since she left. And pretty much everyone who's really worked any amount with me likes me. So, it's not all so bad. It can be OK.

The attack on the instructor is because he's being a little tough with people for what he feels is their own good. Trying to get them to figure stuff out on their own instead of immediately having him take over.

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...so then of course immediately after writing this crap I go out to dinner to a meatchain with wife and a few of her work people and all they do the whole time is make fun of/talk bad about people they work with.

Changing the world

Been reading Opening Skinner's Box by Lauren Slater. A book about great psychological/sociological experiments. I really like the one by Stanley Milgram, about seeing what percentage/type of person will obey orders to continue shocking someone while they're begging you to stop. 65% continue to the end when they have an authority figure telling them to do so even when they know they won't get in trouble if they stop. What was very interesting was how apparently it changed the lives of some of these 'obeyers'. I guess they had this very clearly shameful incident seared upon their memories for their entire lives and many really tried to not be like that from there on out. Many sent letters of thanks to Milgram about how it changed their lives for the better...

I wish I could accomplish the same on a much larger scale.

Was thinking to try to do so through the writing of a book... LeGuin's short story 'Those who walk away from Omelas' is a very loose structure to work with.

Of course the problem is, is that people won't face what they do. It takes something so over the top like electroshocking someone as they beg you to stop, then finding out this was really an experiment to see who would continue to obey such a horrible order, for people to admit they really have got some issues that need addressing.

That's the first issue anyway. Many more unfortunately.

In Omelas, Leguin at first seems to be trying to justify, to get you to sympathize with this utopian city where they have just a single child locked up in a dungeon, malnourished, etc. Somehow the happiness of the whole city depends on accepting that this one child can't be helped. It's a very short story. This idea isn't sold very well. A longer version could be written where you really get to rooting for protaganists that are doing something like that. She does manage to sell the idea to an extent in this short story...

Then she pulls out the rug and very lightly suggests that actually there are people who refuse to take part in that and immediately leave the city... Her actual somewhat hidden preachy point is that of being an idealist, refusing to accept that the suffering of even one person can't be helped.

I want to expand on this idea to get one to have the rug really pulled out where they feel ashamed for what they were going along with. I think though, what would happen is that as it's not something so obvious as electroshocking someone, people would just dismiss it, say I was being tricky, get really angry with me, etc.

I don't see it as having much chance at being successful.

One could write a seemingly randian book, then pull out the rug at the end. That might go a little better. But issues of capitalism/communism don't really matter much compared to more fundamental issues of obeying; conforming mindlessly; especially not in a society where democracy has so little meaning.

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Huge improvements with my music lately... Vocals, drums, etc. Attack for drums, condenser mic plus chorus with lots of compression (I hate compression but for vocals, reaper compression sounds good. I sound like Peter Murphy in the low register. I can live with that. That was mentioned before to me before and I suppose I sort of sounded like him but now, it sounds "professional", just as good. Plus more. Yes! Will be a while I think before I have time... but loving what I'm working on... Yes!)

Strength training

I can barely be bothered to write this. I suppose it's something I know that most people don't. Something that a lot of people could benefit from knowing. Unfortunately they're too stupid to manage it. Even when they're told it.

Protein stuffing increases physical strength by roughly 5 to 15% depending on the person and particular muscle. This is to say ...oh 200 to 300 grams of protein per day increases strength by roughly that much as opposed to something normal, like 30 to 40 grams of protein a day. (A healthy vegan diet.) Protein stuffing is not cumulative at all. You don't end up 30, 40% stronger a couple years later thanks to continous protein stuffing. You'll still be exactly the same amount stronger (assuming otherwise equal calories and nutrients..). Thus protein stuffing should just be used if you want your strength to peak for whatever stupid reason.

It's sad that many young men are stuffing themselves full of protein. I did it myself for a few years. What a pitiful way to live. Also hurts veganism.

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A more useful way for a man to peak his physical strength is to think about sex daily quite a bit while not actually having sex. After about 5 days strength can begin increasing this way. But not much point in doing the effect beyond two weeks if that. This can cause a large increase in strength, again, depending on the person and particular muscle. Huge effect on my hamstrings, personally. Added extra 100 pounds to deadlifting and could hold own against Michael Jordan in a slam dunk contest.

People miss this effect because it takes at least 3 days to kick in and once you have sex again there's a one day lag before you become weaker.

But this second effect is known here and there. Ali's one trainer Bundini Brown knew it. Someone locally (wrestling coach) was aware of it, he brought it up for some reason. It's out there, here and there. Lost and found I'm sure right back to the ancient greeks at least. (A training secret of many competitive athletes perhaps...?)But never found any evidence of this knowledge online.

Which is depressing but then consider the subject/s I guess.

The protein stuffing is actually more depressing. I've never found anyone who seems to have quite figured it out... And there are people who do strength training controlled studies, check nitrogen levels, etc. It's doesn't make me feel even the slightest bit special that I'm not aware of anyone else who figured it out. It feels like the sun's been blotted out. I really have read the literature. The top "experts" on this. They don't know. Such is life.

Feel a bit out of sorts lately... Something's changed. Some thing... Not sure what...

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I finally met a really creative musical person in my area. His music... perhaps is better than mine. Or just refreshingly different what with lots of fake guitars and such... He had jumped out a window because his computer was talking to him and things... He was very scared about these voices talking to him and asked if he could please be put in a mental hospital.

He has a big website with his own discussion board. It was... what's the word... something beyond depressing to read it. Scary, stark, dark, sad. It got me to the point of actually smelling something... Which is that a very very low grade more traditional synethesia? I did it more when younger. Usually while watching/reading horror stories I'd start smelling things. Like a vague corspy smell I imagined while watching HellRaiser. Actually smelled something looking at his site, reading his old posts, knowing where he is now.

Possibly it's related to my photic sneezing but it seems less likely.

Hope the guy will be OK of course.

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Otherwise it's really been a good time lately. Perhaps just the whole no longer having any free time plus barely seeing my wife is getting me down.

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Lots of lost thoughts. Some others saved on my crappy laptop. Sleeping like shaving cream. Stuff about reconstructing memories. How imperfect memory is a key to consciousness. Constant attempting to rebuild, needing to self reference continously to continously try to rebuild just in order to even try to rebuild some other things, etc infinitely in order to try to predict the future, etc. To decide the best action, etc. With perfect memory there's no need to continously self reference. There's no need to build. It never fell apart. It's just there. You reference it once and that's it... It's in the constant and imperfect rebuilding that we become human... Or not. Just something to think of later.