Paradigm Shift...

... on the blog, not on me.

Plangite will now also be a place for my philosophical rants. =)

After all, that's also some very fit material related to the Empress of the World, is it not?

Most certainly.

Technocrappy

Who doesn't have a cell phone nowadays?

In fact, who doesn't have a phone capable of doing almost all of the basic capabilities of a computer? You can go online, message people, send photos, see videos... the possibilities are endless.

And whenever we come across something that seems endless, what do we do? We abuse it. We grasp it and consume it and make the damnedest point of including that into every aspect of our lives like there's no tomorrow. Humans are children of exaggeration. It's never enough, with us.

So now you walk around and everybody is doing it: chit-chat, txt, facebooking, twit-twit. Mass-communication in the reign of technology.

And then the media catches on to that, and where TV was already bad, it gets worse: they talk about these stupid trends and new "social" rules that one must follow when communicating wirelessly. And then, guess what? Monkey see, monkey do.

I get it - we have a need to share things, to let others know about our achievements, mishaps, opinions, and life in general. Trouble is (and I paraphrase a very intelligent individual here) we are using that which should facilitate communication to replace communication.

We are tearing the strongest threads of human fabric: our social ability.
No? You don't think so? You think texting and all of that is being social?

It is not. It is yet another façade; another mean of escape, of hiding what is buried deep within each of us; what makes us true.

Sure, we have this drive to share things, but we also learned to hide that which either can never be seen or is too delicate to be seen.

This technocracy is just another way of expressing our mistrust for one another. And, as fast as it's happening, it will turn us all into...

... engineers!

=)

Joke aside, it will turn us all into people unable to truly connect; unable to show the best within ourselves; unable to exercise such best things; unable to feel all the things we should feel, from the greatest love to the deepest sorrow.

Life may be full of misfortunes but it does have merit. Let us not throw our tremendous depth and our infinite collection of wondrous and magnificent creations away just for a safe place behind a screen.

Let's get over ourselves already, before it's too late. What a practical joke it would be.

What a joke it already is.

The wait is over

The 9th of September was the first day of classes at UofT this year. On my way to school, in the subway, I came upon a familiar feeling; something I thought to be lost - or maybe not lost but simply "unfound". And in that moment, as if all of my efforts and achievements had met in a single crossroad, I found everything which I had - not lost - but "unfound". I say this because it was not by my hand that this thing escaped from me. I did not abandon it, nor did I put it where it should not have been. On the contrary, this was something extremely prized and necessary for my being. Months ago, upon seeing it flow away through my helpless fingers, I was certain that my destiny had changed: I would now be destined to the ordinary ways which haunt the world. I would be no different - would, but wasn't, thanks to the reencounter with, truly, my own being, my own soul. There, standing in the subway, amidst the cacophony of the people and the trails, I suddenly found once more my poetry.

The wait is over. The writings will flow once more. The extraordinary way has risen again.

http://marius--verius.deviantart.com

(And, of course, great complainings will come here as well!) =) yay!

I knew it.

Happy winter in April!

But snow was simply the last touch:

Monday, April 6th, 2009. I headed to the city Buffalo in order to submit an application for a study permit after having gone to a photo store and taken the necessary pictures; after having prepared all the documents and copies and records and all else.

Mishap 1: the office was closed. It closed at 11 in the MORNING.

So I walked around, thinking and trying to find restrooms because nature -really- was calling.

Mishap 2: Downtown Buffalo doesn't seem to have restrooms at all.

Well, tough luck. I then decided to find a place where I could purchase an envelope (within walking distance) - also impossible. So I went back to the office place and asked the security person whether I could just go up and drop it off, or if there was any sort of internal mail in the building.

No. So I asked where the nearest post office was, and headed there with my car after having paid for parking for no reason.

Mishap 3: The address of the office was not listed in ANY of the documents in my possession, so I automatically checked my e-mail in hopes that one of their messages to me would include such address.

No. At least I was able to go online with my Blackberry and find out the address. This wasn't the first time that the Blackberry saved my arse.

Well then, I went inside the post office, mailed all the documents, and got ready to take the road back home (about 3 hours of driving).

Mishap 4: the day before, I had completed a translation project. Well, the company contacted me with 2 more phrases that weren't included before but now had to be translated. Great - I had no internet access, and I couldn't use my Blackberry for that.

No problem, I knew a place about half hour away which had free wi-fi. So there I went (with a really full bladder).

Project completed, nature satisfied, I continued my path back home.

Mishap 5: rain, icy rain, snow and fog - all at once, in April.

Mishap 6: a random engine check indicator appears on my car's dashboard. (It was running fine, though. I'll get it checked tomorrow.)

So I arrive home safely, and go to my room to chill and rest from a very mishappy day. I go online, like I usually do, and then...

Mishap 7: the internet dies.

So I pull a huge network cable across the house directly from the router (after resetting it), and it works again. I just have to dodge the cable every time.

The next day, snow is still there - in April. For something like this to happen after such peaceful time, Fortune must have been orchestrating a huge strike on a very big population. I bet you have had your own mishaps lately, huh? The weather was just Fortune's great finale.

Oh, lovely, lovely Fortune.

No way!

Who would guess? Apparently my ranting has soothed Fortune into giving me a break - even some great luck!

Or maybe it was just waiting for me to say something so it can strike back. =)

We'll see...

So my inactivity has neither been lack of interest nor time, especially since I love writing, but simply for the lack of bad things happening to me. (Wow, right?!)

On that note, if you have had a really bad day and you'd like to tell me about it so I can rant here on your behalf, please do so.

I would love to compile the greatest collection of curses to Fortune, heheheh... it would be the new Carmina Burana - it just wouldn't sound so pleasant.

(picture from http://www.gildemeister-usa.com)

Weapons against Fortune: patience, perseverance, and...

... lockpicking skills.

Here are the general situations that made reach such (brilliant?) conclusion:

Games. They require skill, reflex, intelligence, wit, ability, but - above all else - LUCK.

No matter how skilled one may be, in any given random day or situation, if you're not lucky enough (a fact which is determined solely by some sort of unknown power in the Universe which has been labeled - and cursed upon - as Fortune) then no amount of skill, reflex, intelligence, wit, ability, or even bribery will make you succeed.

It's true. How many times have you craved to play that one game and, although you're the best at it, every circumstance goes wrong for you and you keep losing or dying and having to restart all over? 50, 60 times? No less, I'm sure.

But you're craving it, right? And you go on and restart it - 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 times, if needed. Soon enough, as long as the craving is strong, you will win. Why? You have just chosen the right weapons to fight Fortune: patience and perseverance. These are pretty effective against Fortune because the odds against you, no matter how high, are never 100% - so if you keep trying, one day you'll do it, right? Unless Fortune's sister - Fate - prevents it. But Fate deserves a whole other Blog (in addition to the excruciating amount of literature which complains about it), so we'll keep it at that.

Patience and perseverance. Pretty failsafe, right? Not quite. Sometimes one needs an extra, special set of skills, which is where lockpicking comes in handy. =)

You see, the problem with patience and perseverance is that, yes, they are weapons against Fortune, but they are also the weapons of Fortune! Therefore, they only work when your patience and perseverance are greater than those of Fortune in any given moment - or if Fortune just gets bored with you and moves on to bug somebody else. So you need an extra advantage, something to set you apart. That advantage is the lockpicking skill.

What better than to pull out a set of resourceful instruments (or make your own on the spot, like the great MacGyver!) and just open something that was previously completely unavailable to you? The list isn't too big - so go practice your lockpicking!

(Although I'm using the act of lockpicking as something quite metaphorical here - as in one must gather all the resources possible in life in order to be able to outmaneuver obstacles with ease and speed, thus opening new "doors" which before were "locked" - I did have to pick my mailbox lock the other day, which both relieves and worries me.)

(Picture from the game Thief: Deadly Shadows)

"If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster...

... then somebody will do it that way."

That is, according to Wikipedia, the true Murphy's Law, commonly cited as "if anything can go wrong, it will."

You're probably thinking that it was about time I posted something about Murphy, right? Yea, I know. I was just waiting for more frustrations to gather, that's all. =)

And this time, since they are so many and so scattered everywhere, I decided to just rant about the general misfortune surrounding them all - this is where Murphy's Law comes in.

Apparently poor Murphy was really serious about his law. This was just a cautious man's way of striving for perfection (and a good military strategy, might I add, if you emancipate the law to something like "expect the worst").

Ironically enough, even Murphy was a victim of misfortune: his law turned into a popular funny proverb, his attempts to make it serious a complete failure.

This gets one thinking: why on earth all this misfortune?! Just WHY??!!! Is there any meaning to it, or is it just a way of something way greater than us all to just get a laugh?

Is it all about mindless cussing, or actually about learning?

I think it's a bit of both. After all, what can one learn by having his or her piece of buttered bread fall face down on the floor?

But then, on the other hand, everyone always needs more patience, no matter how patient they are. Everyone always has something to learn.

Kenny McCormick would certainly disagree.

(Picture: Kenny McCormick, South Park TV show character. He always dies.)