Shame on you

När jag funderar på att lära känna nya människor så avskräcks jag av tanken på förbindelse. Om jag pratar med den där konsulten på jobbet som spelar rollspel så kanske vi kommer hyfsat bra överens, och jag kanske blir bjuden på någon liten sammankomst och hoppar in i en rollspelskampanj, och sen är jag fast. "Då ses vi hos Pelle imorron," kommer han att säga varje onsdag. Han kommer att vilja äta lunch tillsammans och prata om Coriolis. Han och hans kompisar kommer att insinuera sig in i min MSN-lista, och ligga där och vänta tills jag kommer online för att hoppa på mig och prata.

Det kanske inte låter så negativt, kanske rentav trevligt i dina öron. Mig stör det något fruktansvärt. Jag har svårt för folks engagemang, eftersom mitt väldigt sällan matchar deras. Alla andra verkar bry sig om och engagera sig i allt från arbetsrutiner, hobbys och träning till vänskap och relationer. Jag har inget engagemang. Inget alls. Jag tar aldrig initiativ. Jag gör som jag blir tillsagd eller ombedd, vilket ibland får mig att uppfattas som generös och hjälpsam. Grejen är att jag aldrig har något bättre för mig, så varför inte lika gärna hjälpa andra för att fylla ut tiden?

Ibland skäms jag lite när vissa så väldigt gärna verkar vilja umgås. De häver ur sig saker som "Men det är alltid så kul när du hälsar på" eller till och med "Jag saknar ju dig". Samtidigt kan jag sitta hemma helt ensam och äta lunch ensam på jobbet flera dagar i sträck -- som när brorsan och hans tjej var på semester -- och trivas. Gud vad skönt att vara helt själv. Underbart att få läsa en bok i godan ro när jag äter och på väg till och från jobbet. Allt utan en tanke på någon annan själ. Det är inte något personligt eller elitistiskt, för jag har ju inget emot de som vill umgås med mig. Dock har det umgängesbehovet aldrig känts ömsesidigt. Då blir det istället ansträngande och till slut jobbigt och skämmigt.

Faktum att jag är kattmänniska hör lite ihop med det här. Hundar ger "ovillkorlig kärlek", vilket egentligen innebär att de förväntar sig en massa kärlek och engagemang tillbaka. De är efterhängsna och har ett ohälsosamt psykiskt beroende till husse och matte. Katter skiter i allt. Ändå, när allt kommer omkring, skulle jag nog aldrig ens skaffa katt.

Thoughts, a recap

Here are a few thoughts I've had in the past, collected and summarized for your reading pleasure.

Existance

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, did it make a sound?" My interpration: The tree is a symbol of life. Someone hearing it come crashing down is proof that it was alive; it's affecting its surroundings. In other words, if you live your life without changing the world, did you ever live at all?

"Your days are numbered" supposedly means that you don't have a long time left to live, but all it actually says is that each of your days has a number associated with it. So your days are countable, but so are everyone's; simply increment an integer value by 1 for each day that passes. In theory, the days don't even have to be a finite number. So if someone tells you that your days are numbered, tell them "Gee, really? Good work discovering the almanac, bozo." On the other hand, then it might turn out that your days really were a finite number.

Finally, here's a life-related saying of my own making: "Life is like a box of shit. You always know you're gonna get shit, just not which flavour."

Co-existence

Discrimination is inherent in democracy.

Democracy = majority rules, minority loses

No matter how much the majority might mean well, it's still a fact that whenever a majority and minority disagree, the minority is discriminated against. So "working against discrimination and towards democracy" is a contradiction in terms.

Pets

What do our pets think of lamps? Even if they don't actually think actively or cognitively or whatever, they must have some concept of lamps. When I walk into a room where my cat is sitting in the dark, and I turn on the light, what has just happened in the cat's mind?

It might think that I unblocked something. Cats and dogs understand doors pretty well, and they can grasp the fact that windows are transparent hard stuff. Maybe a lamp is a window to a light source; a window that's blockable. Now, what's a good lightsource? The sun?

So, pets might think that lamps are blockable windows to the sun. In that case, they're absolutely right. It's a great way to explain what a lamp is while using really simple terms, because all energy on the Earth originally comes from the sun.

The bigger question is whether our pets have ingeniously simple concepts for all of the unnecessarily complicated facets of our lives. I'm gonna go with "yes."

More animals

No need to take a stroll in the forest to see small animals anymore; the squirrel is visiting us now.

Cats and dogs!

No, it's not raining, it's just a bunch of photos of pets that I wanted to upload. So here we go!

Cat again

Here she is again, by popular demand, now in video! It was recorded with my mobile phone, so please excuse the rather low resolution.

Autumn visit

Although I'm not particularly fond of the cold Swedish winter, I do love the season that ushers it in. I like everything about autumn, from the colours of the trees, and the fresh moist in the air, to the dark and misty evenings. It's a season that can be both relaxing and exhilirating. 'Tis the season to sit in your favourite chair, put on a Soundgarden album and read a good book.

It's also the season when small furry animals start running around in your backyard.

Can you see the squirrel? If these were mobile phone photos, this would probably have marked the end of today's squirrel hunt. Luckily I happened to be outside with our best digital camera, with optical zoom and everything.

Peekaboo! There were actually two squirrels, jumping from tree to tree, playfully hunting and chattering. This one was the more curious of the two, and actually had to come down and look at me.

After a while, it decided to observe me from a safe vantage point halfway up the tree. I guess I have the inventor of the telescope to thank for getting this shot.

It ended up calmly sitting there for quite a while, posing for a couple of more photos before it scurried back up the tree to play with its friend.

Cat!

I think these photos pretty much speak for themselves. They were taken this summer, and the cuddly model is called Märta.