Niall’s virtual diary archives – November 2004

Thursday 11th November 2004: 8.16pm. In theory this entry should appear on the new web hosting service as the previous one, supanames, implemented no server side email filtering whatsoever and to be honest it was just getting stupid with 38,760 emails awaiting me after a three day break. It's the middle of reading week right now and boy do I have a lot of stuff to do - site transfer will probably take the rest of today, then I have FreeBSD v5.3 to install, then some patches for various projects I promised, my philosophy essay, reading for management and finally tutorial preparation.

I went to visit student services about the depression I was feeling in the last entry and we came up with a plan - if I get up at 5 or 6am I get a good four hour run before lectures starting at 11am. This solves my problem - I can increase hours coding by about fifteen hours potentially with a small sacrifice of a night life which I wasn't using anyway. So all is much better, I have a solution.

Regarding the young lady of the last two posts, it unfortunately all blew very much out of proportion as I had the sinking feeling it might from the get-go. I did offer an apology as was right given my sister had said I was out of order, but absolutely nothing was forthcoming from her unfortunately and indeed she has been barely talking to me since I had to put my side of events which substantially contradicted hers, which must have been embarrassing to her. I feel bad now, like I have damaged her which I never intended to do. On the other hand, there is nothing I could do which could improve things, and plenty I could do to do more damage, so this is one I must simply let go as unsaveable. Shame, but some people doom themselves.

Ok, back to the grind. Hopefully I'll have this switched over by end of tonight! Be happy!

Monday 22nd November 2004: 9.46pm. Today marks the end of Raisin Weekend here at St. Andrews, this being an annual event where academic children are made do and wear daft things and consume a large quantity of alcohol at "academic tea parties" (academic children are students "fostered" by older students who are called academic parents). It culminates in a shaving foam fight which happened in St. Salvatore's this morning.

The mood here is interesting. People were obviously at a loss for things to do on Saturday night, obviously fretting about what their academic parents would do to them the next day - not helped by the heaps of dire warnings issued to them repeatedly by the police, fire service, university staff etc. And furthermore, since reading week there has definitely been more negativity around the place - I think this is the population's self-regulatory mechanisms kicking in as the negativity has been directed against those who the population view as being excessive. People's drug & alcohol use, intensiveness of relationship and such are all coming up for criticism. My theory is that during reading week when many went home, people twigged that they had floated off the ground somewhat and the population is trying to regulate itself back down to what it considers ground.

Of course, this will have the opposite effect on some - moral criticism will cause some overly-close couples to go even further together as they feel their support cut out from under them and they shall increasingly rely upon each other instead. Drug and alcohol usage will go up in some, people may seek out new groups as friends as they feel more ostracised from their initial ones. It all seems so clear to me despite that I am equally a part of the same population and thus equally subject to its whims and trends.

Speaking of improved levels of understanding, I recently spoke to someone who shared many of the key characteristics and background of some of my ex-girlfriends including the most recent one, the majority source of my bout of insanity. It brought back a flood of memories and detail, and last night it occurred to me after failing to sleep again after a fire alarm (handy as another one was not long in coming) that I finally understand the typing error at the core of my ex-girlfriends' broken worldview. I had always known that there was a key to the consistent self-harm which underpins their behaviour (ie; they could never let themselves be happy for long) and it was pretty obvious that they used me to increase their self-punishment (despite my hitherto belief that this was part of a cure). But what it precisely is had always escaped me until I jotted it down upon this here bit of paper.

Now I could write down precisely what that key is, and I probably would have done just that in prior times. However, if someone similarly afflicted as they were to read such an account, and they were to realise what it must mean about them, their environment and the world, then it would have a most devastating effect upon them. It would be like a sledgehammer being driven through their whole perceptual framework which in me at least caused me insanity until I pieced it back together. So therefore I cannot in good conscience write it down here, but I can say that it is comforting to know that I have emerged from all that pain with a level of understanding I simply did not have before. And while I knew this already, I now understand fully that I can never enter into a relationship with this kind of afflicted woman as she would simply use me for further self-harm. It also means that such a woman, if cured of this typing error, would perhaps now be okay to enter into a relationship with - not least because I can now see the difference between the two.

It is interesting to see how this theory relies so heavily upon complexity theory, emergent properties being equal to character traits from an underlying cognitive system, with that cognitive system being distributed fractally at multiple levels surrounding the physical body which usually assign identity with (ie; our personality, "I", is really a function of those who we choose to surround us). Once again, these theories which I am applying to computer software and thus all tools in Tn, or I intend to apply to my post-capitalist economic system - yet again they have been proven the means by which intractable problems suddenly have elegant and nearly simple answers. The power of these perceptual mechanisms is quite simply astonishing.

Which brings me back to an ethical dilemma - with all this understanding, must I not help the person who is just starting out upon her odyssey of self-actualisation? She simply could not find such a depth of understanding except in a few very rare places - but at the same time, is not my drive to improve the world, save people in general and justify the superiority of my ideas and the non-futility of all that past pain causing me to think of putting it into action in a way not in her best interests?

I also barely know the girl and while I feel an affinity to her there is no reason why she should have any preconceptual reason to trust me whatsoever. So I said to her that I felt a duty to help her but I must be very cautious of imposing in haste answers to her questions which she is not ready to answer yet. I did indicate that I could probably shortcut her journey by a number of years but it must be she who chooses this - she must always drive the process. I therefore reaffirmed to her my passiveness in this regard but that I would always be there for her if she needed me. I think that this is the right thing to do, though I know from my ex-girlfriends that there is a time limit on their journey - they usually run out of steam by twenty or twenty-one, at which stage they simply accept that they are broken and stop trying to fix themselves. This usually means an eternity of unhappiness and causing pain to anyone they enter into a relationship with which doesn't come without value judgement from someone like me, no matter how much I try to not do so.

You know, I am accumulating quite rapidly a list of young women who seek to discuss such heavyweight topics in depth with me. Maybe I'm overestimating the depth of connection they feel with me as I would tend to do as a mental counterweight to my own loneliness, but if I am not then this is a new thing. It is not without its dangers as the episode mentioned in previous posts would indicate, but it also comes with considerable benefits - increased understanding of women and thus perhaps, my future ability to successfully maintain a relationship without going mad and such. And besides, what man wouldn't like to be surrounded by lots of beautiful intelligent young women with whom he actually has a mostly non-sex based understanding?

Anyway, it's now well passed my bedtime so it's off I go - be happy!

Thursday 25th November 2004: 9.36am. I'm not a superstitious man by any means, but something had been striking me even when I wrote the last entry, especially the last paragraph. As of last night, I don't think I can deny it any more.

There appears to be a moment of confluence happening in my life - let me explain. The personality of each one of us extends beyond us - it runs through those who we choose to associate ourselves with and on to others as well as back onto ourselves. Family is the most obvious example of this - one sees a series of traits emerge partially genetically, but also partially through the distributed consciousness which makes up a lineage. These traits are the emergent properties of the underlying complexity which consists of the epigenetic network of its members, culture, society and neuronally through minds and bodies. We are both individual and part of a greater whole simultaneously. And traits are stable emergent properties which repeat time and time again, so one could view every new person encountered as a new mix of previously encountered traits. This is how I can predict how they will behave - they are not like prior incarnations, but one can consider each unique combination of traits and make stunningly accurate predictions of behaviour.

Imagine then my great surprise when I began to realise that the traits in the women with whom I have had deep conversations with are not just familiar, but also somewhat wide ranging. In fact, as of last night, I have now encountered ALL the traits of every ex-girlfriend I have ever had - and even the girl I had a one night stand with. Furthermore, I have also encountered ALL the traits of every woman in my family including my aunts, grandmothers, sister and mother.

I'll say again that I am not a superstitious man, and I am also mindful that I am probably in a psychological bubble. But if this were true, that fate has conspired to place all these traits in one single point in time and space, then that must surely mean something?

Of course, I am being highly egocentric - it is highly unlikely that there is purpose in this given my insignificance in this universe. On the other hand, it is a more remarkable confluence in my life than any other I have ever witnessed - and a massive opportunity. If I am not bringing forth an erroneous world, then I have in one single point and time the opportunity to work through all my ghosts and to seek and discover the final answers which I seek about relationships and love. This could lead to finding the one as my search spreads across such a personalised network to extend to places I could not possibly reach alone. And the one if combined with me would enable us both to achieve very remarkable things indeed.

There are also remarkable likelihoods of synergy - ideally everyone tends to be attracted to synergetic traits ie; those which combine with one's own to produce more than the sum of their parts. If however one has a collection of traits which represent all the women who have ever had an influence on me both personally and genetically, then surely the synergetic capacity of these women is extremely high?

It'll probably look totally different after Christmas when we've all been regrounded. So I'm not going to make anything of this and assume it's a temporary casuality. And even after Christmas, it's likely just a remarkable stroke of luck - pure coincidence - though what a timely one? Okay, time to prepare for lectures - be happy!