I have a lot of trouble getting started on things. One area in particular that has been consistently difficult for me is going places – work, school, the store to buy muh colas before they close for the night, that sort of thing. I have recently discovered and begun formalizing a technique which seems to help with it. However, it is creepy, because it involves partially dissociating your mind from what your body is doing. Today I fashioned for it a shitty chuuni chant: there is strength in emptiness: Automaton!
To be honest, I’m half hoping the chant doesn’t work as a switch-flipper, considering how terrible it is. My apologies, O chuuni gods.
It begun one day when I was lying around, trapped in a familiar sensation where I seemed unable to will myself to any action, enmeshed in repetitive and irrelevant thought and generally getting nowhere important. I felt out of touch with the world, like there were no thread connecting me to this plane – indeed, was the world even real?
A seductive call beckoned. Perhaps I should try something I had done piecewise before, but never so deliberately, so completely – could I give my estranged body over to an imagined automaton, let the automaton collect the knick-knacks and tie the shoelaces and lock the doors and ride the elevators, and take back control once I needed to once again be human?
The attempt was a resounding, if alarming, success. My body proceeded to smoothly go to work, while I, dissociated, observed that I probably tie my shoelaces faster and more efficiently when I’m doing it on autopilot. In the end I spontaneously reintegrated over time without having to force it, which was a relief – one time I was at the store and borely (and likely boneheadedly) started practicing the mindfulness concept of framing your thoughts as things you are having rather than facts that are; while it didn’t really elucidate much, I did find myself unable to easily exit the frame, which was honestly a bit unchill.
I have used the automaton takeover concept like, two times after that, and it really does seem to work. It’s not just mindlessly doing things on autopilot either – the disconnect ensures that you have actual thinking time while carrying out business, and is the prime difference between this and pure distracted flow.
To use this technique you should probably be somewhat comfortable with feelings of derealization. The good news is that these correlate with depression, and I swear half of you fuckers want to kill yourselves, so it’s vaguely plausible that someone else might have had a similar experience. I do wonder if I have accidentally stumbled upon and formalized a Normie Technique(tm) that nobody told me about, but the fact that I’m worried that someone with psych issues will try it and end up being unable to return to united reality or fucked up in general does bolster me somewhat. Uhh, be careful trying this at home, I guess.
My personal motivation was that I was pretty derealized already, so making things more formal wasn’t really going to be that much of a problem. If you find yourself able to convincingly make that argument, this method may be worth trying.
I got my first welfare check in summer last year, just before I went on vacation with my parents.
There are some demands placed on those applying for welfare; one is that one must not unduly refuse suggested interventions. No interventions were suggested for about six months, but hey, cash money. Then I was summoned to a meeting, where I was given a plethora of options, except eight tenths of them were second hand shops and cafes and fuck anything where I have to do customer service. Also, everything had long waiting times anyway.
There were only really two options left: go back to the environment & ancient remains conservation agency where I worked in late 2013 / early 2014, or this other place that did carpentry – more specifically, in-shop manufacture of wooden items. My counselor was not particularly subtle in recommending the woodworking shop, claiming it had both rave reviews and, amazingly, the ability to accept new recruits right this moment.
I left the meeting put in queue for a potential spot at the agency and awaiting a text regarding an interview for the whole wood thing. “To start with you’ll build a box, and if that works out, we’ll put you straight into production.” Well, I’m not a huge fan of handicrafts, but it’s not like I hate it either; guess I’ll check it out and decide afterward.
About two weeks later I was given a tour of the premises, then an interview by the supervisor. I noted the structured approach to the interview; especially a technique used where, before asking about who I was as a person and where my problems lay, the manager volunteered some details about his personal life first – his kids, not enough time, how his work there gave him meaning, that sort of thing. It was pretty transparent; I figured it was likely an adaptation to help people with certain neurodivergences, but also wondered if it was part of the broader style of the therapeutic techniques used.
Earlier during the tour I was told about the “sharing” ritual, where at the start of your shift you sat with the other participants and could optionally share how you were currently feeling, if there were any special affordances you’d need or appointments to keep that day, and what you were working on briefly. This ritual was shielded from latecomers, which served to protect it, but also as a soft punishment for arriving late. I’m not sure how explicit he made any of this; I could feel myself starting to assign greater value to coming in time, realized I had been hacked, and figured that this was fine as the hack was desirable anyway. The boss seemed pleased, but in what might have been another affordance, he wanted me to go back home and think about it before taking any decision.
Two days after my social security contact had said she’d called me she actually did, and I accepted. I was then scheduled for a quick meeting where we would actually negotiate working times and other details. Some time later, I had agreed to work there from Monday to Wednesday, 12:00 to 15:00, with the assumption that I would eventually take on more hours. I was to start on a Tuesday, February the 21st. I was told by phone that day that, umm, I’m kind of sick so can we make it just tomorrow? Okay, fine, my sleep was all kinds of shit anyway that time rip me.
I woke up at like 2am on the 22nd. I had crisps for breakfast. Brewed tea, which is a pretty potent mindhack when you’re not acclimated to it. Biked through miserable snowfall on my mum’s three-speed bike, on which only the first two gears actually work. The front tire was inadequately pumped. It was not a good experience. I arrived twenty minutes early.
I mean, it’s not like I have better content to give ya. Like the last post, this is unedited from what I wrote down on the trot, with corrections at the bottom. You have been warned.
２０１７年１月１３日
私には３の合い約束[1]があります。１９日は脳の事。２４日は銀行、２５日はまた脳に対する。そして時が分からないけど、仕事のはも待ちます。
昨日は役に立てかもブログポーストを読んだ。「するべきは悪い」ってのは（ほんやく羽えぇ…[2]）、「するべき」の思いは苦しいけど大体に行動を変わらない。「するべき」の思いが私によくあるから、気に入った。
１月１５日
最近アイディーアがあった。大体はオリエンテーションで、今の合い約束と計画等を紙に書い[3]、未来と夢に考える時間だ。ふつうに、パソコンで遊びや買い物しとかに込み、大事と難しい事は頭に入いていない[4]。
昔はそんな事は何度も頭に回りながら良くないに終わりから、多分こんなけっかだ。でもざるを得ない事は世界に沢山あるから、少しでも変化がいいと思います。
１
I write 合い約束, but what I’m looking for is 会う約束. Repeated later on, too. ファック！
2
Meant to be 弱えぇ, but apparently I was 羽い（ふり：ハイ) or something and wrote this instead
3
pls zaka, that should be 書き. YOU KNEW THIS.
4
残念ながら、入るは一段じゃねぇ(´・ω・`)
正解は「入っていない」。
Well, long time no content here, eh. So, uhh, I started writing a diary when I poop. But it’s in bad Fapanese. I have some faint hope that seeing my amusing stumbles might inspire you to practice writing in Japanese. Yes, you over there in my target audience of maybe one person. The actual content of this entry is unlikely to inspire anyone, so it’s all the better that nobody will understand it anyway.
For authenticity (and hopefully showing that it’s ok to mess up a bit or something) I have preserved all the grammatical and kanji errors I made, noting what I spotted reading through it again below.
１１月２４日
２８日が近づつつ[1]、メールをまた書かなかった。ウェルフェーアのことも準備はなかった。正直に・・・この一月[2]は、リアルに対してゴミにしただけ。バーチュアルはもっと良かったけど、この生活はどうだろう？変化は難しいのはよく分かるでも、このゆっくり過ぎ流れは誰にも良くない。
まあ、ウェルフェア[3]限り[4]は今日するつもりにして・・・かもしれない。
・・・その適当すぎな感請[5]がきらい。でもそれ以上は出来ない。
いやでも、悪いでも、恥ずかしいでも、それは私の本当の気持ち。
それ以上の方には、負けの機会[6]っが沢山ある。
。。。また明日、うんこするなら。ってその終え方下手すぎ！ごめんなさい、みんな。
Fuckups
[1] I’m not even sure if the つつ grammar is any good here, but I made a more fundamental error. つつ needs to be attached to the actual stem of the verb in question (here 近づく), rather than what you get when I use ichidan verb rules on godan verbs. tl;dr this should be 近づきつつ.
[2] While 一月 apparently can mean “one month”, it also means “January”. What I meant to write was 一ヶ月.
[3] Pls decide if you want a chouon or not in the word you katakana’d because you don’t know the fapanese one, zaka.
[4] I wrote this kanji wrong, using 良 as the right side.
[5]感請 should be 感情 here.
[6] I wrote 機 without the tree on the left and kinda wrong in general. I have recreated my failure in paint for you to enjoy.
準備のことはまだ、でも今すぐやるつもりです。メーレは・・・まぁ。
Oh shit, I’m cooking today and it’s like one hour til I have to start. I really should have remembered to take something out of the freezer to thaw… I really don’t want to thaw something in the microwave, so my options are basically gradually peeling off a block of ground meat in the pan (huge pain), krögarpytt (brand of frozen mix of potato, onion and various meats, plus lots of things I’d have to look at the ingredients list for), or… oh yes, my saviour – that lovely meaty cylindrical thing I first had back in Eastern Europe.
Regrettably, I am not speaking of dicks.
The frozen ćevapčići lidl sells in 1kg bags is both delicious and affordable, but we’ve had it a few too many times recently. I should probably cook something else… maybe I’ll change the condiments from rice to pasta or fries… fuck fries turning them is a huge pain… meh fuck pasta too… okay it’s rice again… wait, I could make a sauce! …but what exactly? It’s not like I have the time to make tomato sauce from scratch, and frankly it’s not like it’s that great anyway (I’ve done it according to a legit recipe once!).
Well, if you don’t like a recipe you can always change it! I quickly search the fridge and find a fairly small red onion, garlic (not an option, was rotting), and okay that was all I was looking for in the fridge to begin with. Next I reach for the box of strained tomatoes I know is in the larder next to the fridge. Surprisingly it has not been abducted by aliens (maybe the red on the packaging scared them off), allowing me to wrest it from the depths of the… just kidding, it was at chest height on the second shelf.
I get a bouillon cube, a knife, put some rapeseed oil in a saucepan, and set to business; the business is making the bouillon cube submit to my knife (not the easiest), and cutting the onions.
I managed to not cry.
The preparation of the ćevapčići and rice was easy (and irrelevant). Anyway, the sauce. I heat the oil at medium-high for a bit, pop in a piece of onion to see if it’s ready, and the bubbling around it assures me that this is the case. I put in the rest of the onion and stir it around a bit, lower the heat, and pour in some of the strained tomato and the semi-powdered bouillon cube (it did not submit fully, but I was able to impose strict limits on its military and generally destroy its infrastructure), let it boil, add salt (used a lot, which was a bad idea – try not to do that, the bouillon cube prolly has it already), white pepper, and finally the x-factor ingredient I just had to put in: chili flakes. A bit too many, I reflected after I had thrown in a bunch. After letting it boil slightly and stirring it around a bit, I decided it was done, used a spoon to try it, and was promptly greeted with something strong and edible, probably in that order.
It was actually not too bad, and if nothing else it proves that whipping something up on your own isn’t necessarily too bad. At least if you’re a Zaka. I may or may not make it ever again, but I’ll probably take it a bit easier with the chili flakes and use less salt.
Thus concludes this episode of Cooking With Zaka.
Ingredients:
1 bouillon cube
1 red onion
strained tomatoes
white pepper
salt (maybe)
chili flakes / seeds / whatever
rapeseed oil (olive oil might be better)
Serve with other stuff, if you actually think it’s worth trying. There are probably better recipes.
I’ve always loved good food. It’s not too rare for the highlight of the day, in retrospect, to be dinner. Home cooking, whilst quite a bother, is something I’ve gotten more and more used to recently. Unfortunately, the more good food I cook, the more mum will want to make me cook instead of her, and the more of my time will be spent away from the keyboard. On the other hand, my chicken stew is kind of good, and I’m getting better at preparing it all, so I guess it all balances out.
Oh yeah, the stew. I did title the post after it and shit.
I based this recipe vaguely off of this one (I hope you can read Swedish lel), which actually looked a bit different back when I checked it. Among other things, it called for red wine, not white. I wasn’t too keen on the walnuts and prunes, but I figured a few substitutions were reasonable. I mean, it’s a stew. Science, it ain’t.
Unfortunately, you may have trouble getting the funnel chanterelle this recipe uses (we pick it ourselves at a certain place in the woods, then dry it.) Much like Dr. Boom in most Hearthstone decks, there’s probably no real replacement. You basically want something with a bit of spiciness and a bit of general mushroominess. Good luck.
INGREDIENTS
~500g chicken filet of some sort (~1.1 pounds)
1 red bell pepper, medium to large (this is known as red paprika in Sweden, while paprika powder refers to the powdered spice. Very confusing.)
1 yellow onion
~0.7dl of red wine (1/3 cup)
1 bouillon cube
1 tbsp wheat flour (15ml, this is apparently same as the Amurrican tablespoon)
2.5dl of cream (1 cup)
Thyme
(Dried) funnel chanterelles, reconstitute if dried
2 carrots, medium size
Salt, white pepper (Do I even need to add this?)
PREPARATION
Creamy Mix: In a convenient vessel, mix za cream with some thyme (don’t be shy), the red wine, and za flour, then crumble the bouillon cube into it. Take a moment to lament your now-crumbly hands. Lightly whisk it all together.
Cut za bell pepper into ~2cm (0.8 in.) wide, ~5cm (2 in.) long strips. Stripping own body optional but recommended (to be a naked chef).
Peel, then cut za carrot into thin rods about 5cm (2 in.) in length. Resist urge to joke about eating rods.
Chop za onion. Relish opportunity to shed manly tears by thinking about CLANNAD / listening to Close Your Eyes.
Cut the chicken meat into medium-sized pieces. If there’s a goddamn tendon in each piece like in what we use, do consider cutting that out too.
Be really annoyed that you have to wash your hands and everything in general like it has ebola or something because fuck chicken.
Time to start actually cooking. If you have a pan with a lid which you can both fry and stew in (Wikipedia makes me think this is a saute pan, but fuck terminology), use that. Otherwise you might have to put everything in a pot for the actual stewing stage (when you add the creamy mixture), which would be a huge bother.
High heat: Lightly brown the chicken in some kind of cooking fat. Salt and pepper ’em.
Medium-high heat: Sear the bell pepper, then the onion. If using a saute pan, be lazy and shove the already seared stuff to the side while searing the next item, it won’t matter really.
Medium-low heat: stir the Creamy Mixture into the pan, put the lid on. Let boil softly for 5 minutes. Don’t worry, it isn’t actually that reminiscent of semen.
Mix the carrots and funnel chanterelles into the pan and let boil for another 5 minutes. We call them trattkantareller in Swedish.
Serve with basmati (master race) rice, which has magically appeared (I hope you actually read through the recipe once before starting on this shit, otherwise, rip in lazy recipe tradition. Don’t forget to salt the water.)
Holy fuck it’s done.
Obligatory tweet of shittily lit low-res picture of result:
Hopefully you will enjoy this as much as I do, assuming you actually cook stuff random amateurs post on the interwebs.
I’ve always loved good food. It’s not too rare for the highlight of the day, in retrospect, to be dinner. Home cooking, whilst quite a bother, is something I’ve gotten more and more used to recently. Unfortunately, the more good food I cook, the more mum will want to make me cook instead of her, and the more of my time will be spent away from the keyboard. On the other hand, my chicken stew is kind of good, and I’m getting better at preparing it all, so I guess it all balances out.
Oh yeah, the stew. I did title the post after it and shit.
I based this recipe vaguely off of this one (I hope you can read Swedish lel), which actually looked a bit different back when I checked it. Among other things, it called for red wine, not white. I wasn’t too keen on the walnuts and prunes, but I figured a few substitutions were reasonable. I mean, it’s a stew. Science, it ain’t.
Unfortunately, you may have trouble getting the funnel chanterelle this recipe uses (we pick it ourselves at a certain place in the woods, then dry it.) Much like Dr. Boom in most Hearthstone decks, there’s probably no real replacement. You basically want something with a bit of spiciness and a bit of general mushroominess. Good luck.
INGREDIENTS
~500g chicken filet of some sort (~1.1 pounds)
1 red bell pepper, medium to large (this is known as red paprika in Sweden, while paprika powder refers to the powdered spice. Very confusing.)
1 yellow onion
~0.7dl of red wine (1/3 cup)
1 bouillon cube
1 tbsp wheat flour (15ml, this is apparently same as the Amurrican tablespoon)
2.5dl of cream (1 cup)
Thyme
(Dried) funnel chanterelles, reconstitute if dried
2 carrots, medium size
Salt, white pepper (Do I even need to add this?)
PREPARATION
Creamy Mix: In a convenient vessel, mix za cream with some thyme (don’t be shy), the red wine, and za flour, then crumble the bouillon cube into it. Take a moment to lament your now-crumbly hands. Lightly whisk it all together.
Cut za bell pepper into ~2cm (0.8 in.) wide, ~5cm (2 in.) long strips. Stripping own body optional but recommended (to be a naked chef).
Peel, then cut za carrot into thin rods about 5cm (2 in.) in length. Resist urge to joke about eating rods.
Chop za onion. Relish opportunity to shed manly tears by thinking about CLANNAD / listening to Close Your Eyes.
Cut the chicken meat into medium-sized pieces. If there’s a goddamn tendon in each piece like in what we use, do consider cutting that out too.
Be really annoyed that you have to wash your hands and everything in general like it has ebola or something because fuck chicken.
Time to start actually cooking. If you have a pan with a lid which you can both fry and stew in (Wikipedia makes me think this is a saute pan, but fuck terminology), use that. Otherwise you might have to put everything in a pot for the actual stewing stage (when you add the creamy mixture), which would be a huge bother.
High heat: Lightly brown the chicken in some kind of cooking fat. Salt and pepper ’em.
Medium-high heat: Sear the bell pepper, then the onion. If using a saute pan, be lazy and shove the already seared stuff to the side while searing the next item, it won’t matter really.
Medium-low heat: stir the Creamy Mixture into the pan, put the lid on. Let boil softly for 5 minutes. Don’t worry, it isn’t actually that reminiscent of semen.
Mix the carrots and funnel chanterelles into the pan and let boil for another 5 minutes. We call them trattkantareller in Swedish.
Serve with basmati (master race) rice, which has magically appeared (I hope you actually read through the recipe once before starting on this shit, otherwise, rip in lazy recipe tradition. Don’t forget to salt the water.)
Holy fuck it’s done.
Obligatory tweet of shittily lit low-res picture of result:
Hopefully you will enjoy this as much as I do, assuming you actually cook stuff random amateurs post on the interwebs.
So, a while ago one of my contacts at the mental health clinic told me it might be a good idea for me to visit a counselor at same. I did, and then eventually rather a range of things happened. They are currently still happening, albeit somewhat slowly. My problem, as I described, was mostly […] View the full article
A lot of this stuff is going to be even more outdated now considering I wrote it six days ago, but I want this up somewhere. And so, enjoy muh zakabox, divorced of vntays. We still don’t know how he died, will keep y’all updated :kappa:. Please note that while I (and thus the box) […] View the full article
I’d say the rain in France makes my donger dance, but the truth is, we’ve had fuck all on this trip. The overcast sky and tiny droplets hitting me at the moment are threatening a deluge, but they’ve barked without bite for like an hour now already. I sit here wrapped in wafts of petrichor, […] View the full article
Live in France or Germany and want to meet me in real life this summer? It’s more likely than you think. As you may or may not know, I will be going on vacation to foreign lands this month together with my parents. I’m leaving early on the 8th and will be back sometime in […] View the full article
The Intel DP67BG is somewhat of an annoying motherboard to work with when it comes to RAM on occasion, but the problems / bugs can be solved. Well, at least the one I had. This post assumes that you have some power user knowledge; the issue is unlikely to occur if you’re not using a […] View the full article
I haven’t done any blog planning in ages. I’m just going to throw this out there because well, somehow I kinda feel like I have to write more than anything else to get muh thinking out there. I’m publishing because I’m not very notable bar my fuwa involvement and this might be the only thing […] View the full article
I've decided to delete all my previous entries and just put a link to where my actual blog is here:
https://disearnestlydisearnest.wordpress.com/
Now that I've triggered you with a font and size change, I should get onto the meat of this article: It doesn't preserve formatting, especially line breaks. This is probably a symptom of how RSS feeds handle it. Since my personal writing style uses them for dramatic effect, this is unacceptable to me. It randomly decides whether to break spectacularly and show all the markup or not It's crap It's crap It's crap
Looks like I still have a ways to go before I become a professional list article writer.
The setting where the blog is just an external link on click feels really unfriendly to me. Perhaps doing it this way is exploiting the system... but I don't really care.
Believe it or not, I technically made a nanoreno VN. Technically. This was, actually, pretty much exactly what I scoped to begin with. I mean, I started actual work on the twenty-eighth, and I’m a slacker. I finished on the thirtieth, but was too lazy to build a distro (also I had to scramble to do […] View the full article
Once upon a time, Zaka was significantly more of a good productive and promising kid. While possessing immense cheek and idiosyncrasy, I still did pretty well in elementary. While in elementary school, I had this compulsion drilled into me well enough that I literally never intentionally skipped school. Sure, I was very often five minutes […] View the full article
First published on my old private blog on March 14, 2012. Perhaps even worth the repost. Hey, I have to have something to link people to, right? I have recouped this a few times, but in incomplete and perhaps diminished form, We shall now hear the tale of how and why I was unexpectedly hospitalized for […] View the full article
Did you know that when extracting the WEE assets using kikiriki, you find this lovely file? I’m not sure if it’s just generated by the program or was already there, lol. View the full article
A person I know somewhat said to me a while ago – “why don’t you write prose?”. I wasn’t that keen on the idea; I do write for the fuwazette, after all, and it’s been a while since I last picked up the proverbial pen. But hell, I’m bored tonight and feel like something a […] View the full article
better viewed at https://disearnestlydisearnest.wordpress.com/2025/03/13/the-mountain/
Step into my homeheart at a dark hour.
The curtains are drawn on imperfect midnight, all too long this season, yet never complete in its reign. Slide half the curtain open, behold a familiar nightscape, not the ink of primordial darkness. Feel the rush of cold air as the chill by the window escapes confinement; this apartment has never been the same since they changed the thermostats. The new temperature is more economical, liveable, reasonable, cold, frigid, death to the idle body. Twenty degrees. Objectively fine, but I cannot bear to be within it. Beneath the blanket lies shelter.
From flawed midnight to imperfect warmth. The cold seeps in from every opening, yet the sweat of a perfect seal warps the fabric into a source of disgust. Always the maintenance, the basic demands of the human body imposed by draconian rule, a constant interruption to freedom. Am I hungry, thirsty, cold? Is my blood sugar all right? Do I need to visit the bathroom? Is my bile rising, are my apththous ulcers or prickly teeth and gums calling for attention? Do I want to sleep? Do I want to fall asleep but stay awake? Do I want to stay awake but fall asleep? Neither will be granted me, efforts be damned. It would be time to rise and face the day, but it isn’t even day. The earliest tendrils of dawn outside the window give an imperfect answer.
The winter dawn is not a revival. In the dark blue sky hangs a sullen headiness, the dark shapes given form by its light a mundane horror all the more terrifying for their normality. Every day I wake up and have to live. What’s worse, I don’t even want to die.
My life has ground to a halt. All the dreams of the future are slipping from my grasp. Though that is the irony, of course. I had never had the strength to honestly hold them in the first place. Before me is a mountain, a dark mass that I know that I could climb if but I had the will. But the will was never there, and that is why I fumble. The mountain is a well-traveled spot, with myriad guides to its sloped that I have not read; ascending it is difficult, but also to be expected of an adult. An opportunistic manchild, of course, has other options. The part of me that cares not for the future knows that this comfortable cocoon is an objectively sweet deal. Perhaps I would live here forever, if forever was an option. But the cracks are always within sight to spoil the view. How many years until my parents die? Perhaps in the transhumanist future I will live forever, but no doubt they were born too late to reach eternity. Dad knocks on the toilet door and proclaims in comedic tones his desire for my exit. I wipe and look down at the bloodstained bowl. The hemmorhoids aren’t even particularly bad; just darkly emblematic. I am old and young but mostly old; thirty-three. But both older and younger in spirit.
I look outside again. Winter dawn has reached its steely stage, overcast sky as oppressive as a lingering deadline. The buildings look as washed out as my soul. What little blue light comes from the sky rudely kicks my corporal systems; I am out of sync, zeitgeber: the systems wake, but unevenly. I perversely want to sleep again at exactly the wrong moment. 6:42 am.
One hundred and sixty-five credits. One fifteen-point course to finish my education and fling myself into the yawning mouth of adult employment. Fifteen points take the shape of a Mountain. They are special, for to gain them I must be employed, but on condition; be academic, but at another’s behest: the final product is a report but the process to report on is a work and employer-student-university coordination and multipart deadlines and forms and uiniversity-student communication and undefined sludge not even known as I dare not ask. I dread its slopes even as I know I could climb them. I dread its slopes even though I don’t even know what they’re like. I dread its slopes without trying. I dread the plunge from its top once I’m done.
The cocoon doesn’t look so bad anymore. Funny how I’ve made it worse.
My buffoonery is fractal. Aversion coats the Mountain, but what of the contents of my cage? Every heartfelt hobby is aversive, clad in the gown of Effort. Look like you’re having real fun? Now let’s make you think it’s work! What suits you, pathetic clown, is the effortless and immediate, the instant chat, the youtube video, the blandly regarded article. You don’t doomscroll but you always blandsurf. Every moment is an escape from responsibilities you didn’t even need to put on yourself. When was the last time you finished a VN? Don’t ask. Now I even fear what might come next in my fiction. What if it’s truly sad, what if I feel something? What if I cannot maintain my carefully crafted distance? My foolishness is fractal in this sense too. I know I will be fine on every intellectual level. But every trick has failed, every stratagem that once worked run dry, every honest effort bested by my sluggish nature. Back into the comforting cloak of mediocrity I go. It’s really not that bad, once the choir of despair fades into the background. It’s really not that bad to be me. It seems every day in chat someone else’s struggles eclipse mine. So who knows. Deep down I am an optimist. Holding that hope helps me endure this prison. But it also shows me a way out.
Will I escape the cocoon? No one can tell. Soon I will be back in sunnier mood. I hope we make it, and for now, goodbye.
View the full article
I’ll be gone on a trip to germany -> mostly france -> germany the entire month of august.
I’ll try not to die and may or may not ever get nets
Farewell cruel world
If you want to contact me, hit me up on Twitter because that’s what I’ll be looking at on muh smartphone and ill only be using muh smartphone for any random wifi hotspot while we travel.
As you may or may not be aware, for a while now I have been waiting on a diagnosis, or lack of one, after a series of psychiatric evaluations. I started it due to suspicions of me having ADHD predominantly inattentive (also known as ADD). What transpired today was thus somewhat of a surprise: I did indeed receive a diagnosis – of Asperger Syndrome.
It’s not all that easy to accept because, well, I never felt all that aspbergy. I’m not the best guy ever when it comes to socializing, but I’m not really super bad at it either and I don’t like, interpret idioms literally or totally make an arse of myself all that much. Lots of things /do/ fit, however, and I think the doctors are right. Especially the typical life story outlined, with a failure in uni studies, an outgoing early life but a descent into passivity when grown up… it all fits me to a T[1].
The one thing I’m thankful for is that I performed like a normal person in the video test where I was supposed to interpret people’s motivations and feelings based on a video I was shown. Apparently this is because I use my highly developed other skills to interpret information in a logical manner, allowing me to mimic the intuitive understanding exhibited by your average joe. Also a plus: my iq-penis is apparently in the top 2% of the population, to the point where if I tried to join MENSA I might be able to pass the test. Not that I see much point in doing that. A part of me really wants to be top 1% because that’s just a much prettier number somehow, but, uhh, I guess I’ll have to deal.
Unfortunately my short-term memory and “speed”, whatever that means exactly, are significantly less above baseline than my other skills are. I can definitely agree with this assessment, and hopefully I’ll be able to learn how to compensate for this efficiently somehow.
So where does this leave me? Well, apparently I have the right to… stuff that places can provide. And things. I feel pretty weird about like, taking courses in how to handle typical aspie problems – I feel like some people I see there might be much more hindered socially than me and thus a real bother to deal with. Is this unfair? Maybe. But given that this is something I’ll be doing voluntarily, it’s something I’ll have to think over. In any case, I’m meeting the people currently coordinating my efforts to get back into some form of occupation on the 28th, so I think I’ll take it from there. I actually have something I need to think about more before that visit, and hopefully I really will get it done… if only to not feel bad. That’s a pretty bad reason, but, uhh, results are all that matter right?
…I should really try to mentally reframe it as something to benefit myself when I can.
In conclusion, how I feel like right now is kind of like when I got diabetes – I’m really annoyed with this shit and will try my best to kick its ass. As for you all – all I can really say is, I still (probably) care about you even if I might occasionally seem not to. Feel free to remind me to think about your feelings on occasion, because I don’t necessarily do it automatically😛.
The title is a lovely piece of bilingual wordplay. It may or may not make you groan if you figure it out. If you want a hint… the English word you seek is not politically correct.
[1] ↑The Grammarist claims that “to a tee” is incorrect, but it’s in the bloody Cambridge English dictionary and all with no note of it being a misspelling or anything. I still like the form I use here the most, but while it grates on me to see the more teematic version, I can’t really correct it in good conscience. Yet another little annoyance that I will have to either get used to or suffer through to the end of my days, sigh.
