This is to give you pieces of my life like sharp shards of glass which do not fit together to give a coherent whole. I pause for thought covering possible blind alleys with '...'
Me the womaniser
Always hesitant, always slow, always just move to where I am comfortable which may be towards or away from the woman in question, always preferring her in sight though... I think myself as a slug moving up or down a heat gradient, never with big plans in mind. And when the writing is on the wall she lets me go, or maybe I treat her badly enough that she lets me go, but somehow a bit of me holds on to her memory. New years resolution look forward more than you look back.
Me the spy
Growing up in the north of Ireland, being arrested for drunk and disorderly (basically swearing at a policeman) after a drunken and frustrating (not meeting up with my date) night, receiving a reprimand, the police station being bombed, the policeman saying it will be kept off my record, but maybe that would reflect badly on him... Wheels within wheels. A friend being picked up by loyalist paramilitaries these facts are hopefully unrelated but maybe in my story they are directly related, causal even... The IRA looking for people who are uninvolved being picked up and acting on that information so that none of their people are implicated. The friend being really spooked and leaving Belfast - that effects a few people. I go to Cambridge England, where there were a few communist spies Kim Philby went to my college (whereas a hunger striker went to my school). As an engineering student the influence of the military industrial complex is everywhere with sponsored students, some of them even attractive. I actually read a fictional book 'the untouchable' about a unionist who becomes a spy; it was a strange survey of his psyche.
The star shining brightly
When was my finest hour, or is it still to come? My specialty was working out what people wanted and giving it to them so to teachers everything was written down, summarized two weeks later and archived for future review, this was largely from an English teacher telling us how it might be a good way to turn over the knowledge in out minds, my parents were kept relatively happy by studying and good grades. So basically I passed my 11 plus went to a grammar school worked at my subjects and my summaries and climbed the greasy pole all the way to... Dublin for a year when I did not excel... Then to Cambridge where I felt having taken the year off I was under internal pressure to excel so I did ... I came 16th out of 360 in the engineering year, I was good at everything, never being able to pick questions and always weary of sliding down the pole since staying at the top seemed easiest, never having to muddle through. I remember being horrified when one supervisor [not unattractive (funny how more people are unattractive when we get older)] said that people rarely get the right answers in the exams, I reckoned the only point in asking a question was if you wanted to get the right answer. I often got the right answers at the time. Another supervisor said 'you (plural) know more about this stuff than I do' which I took to mean there was little point hanging around with him expecting answers, basically I had to plumb the depths of that subject myself. The star shines and the star fades, as does the youths enthusiasm, time passes.
Me the political analyst
I do not say my analysis is correct but I would like to think it is consistent. Maybe I try to look at the world from a single viewpoint and bring each piece of knowledge like a sharpened tool to work at my view of the world. Unfortunately my view of the world is naive and has not been tested in the world of deeds in fact survives a bar room analysis largely by staying mostly hidden. I feel however it is good to think about the world, but I end up thinking about my small part of it, it has puzzles and drama enough for me. Maybe I see a consistency in my analysis for me to cling to, its insolubility a comfort to my own broken ness. Basically everybody needs to win and there may need to be ways by which the playing field is bent to allow this to happen. My own bending suggestions are available on newsnet posts on www.deja.com. Maybe it is better to think of the wanted outcomes rather than the devices. The economist would say it is all about money, allow people to make money off their own back and people will go that way. The Cultural Identity person would say everybody's flags and emblems need to be recognized. The pragmatist would say put all cultural identity issues aside and work together in a consensus government. Maybe they are all right and/or maybe the big picture is the nationalists will out breed the unionists and there will be a united Ireland, unless the Belfast parliament has proved its worth and the people prefer to keep with a functioning status quo for a while.
Identity & Affiliation
I am an outsider. I am gauche. To hide my gauchness there is the stonewalling silence that women hate in their partners, the quiet man as a social strategy. I am like a unionist who goes to England and comes back because he does not like the lack of community; I go to Dublin and pine for the shelter of extreme trust and friendship. So what am I... an Irish nationalist, under extreme introspection I decide my nationalism is not in need of protection, people are free to try and persuade my otherwise, but it is like a stain, a watermark, a birthmark. I am come from Warrenpoint and Co. Down these are uncontestable forms of identity. Identity can only really considered in comparison with some metric... I am nationalist rather than unionist I come from Warrenpoint rather than Rostrevor or Newry, I come from Down rather than Armagh, Europe rather than America. If I say I am Irish, how often is it necessary to say north or south? We slice ourselves up in so many ways, I suppose we just need in any particular situation to find our divider between us and them. It is often done with a glance or a phrase, a nod or a wink, I wonder does this simple code make British Army undercover operations difficult. Or maybe it is just to make men meeting woman more complicated! [I saw a woman looking at me and I nodded back having not noticed her boyfriend who I should have recognised... maybe I am tuned to seeing women looking at me, a rare event, and avoid mens gazes unless I feel very secure, 'the perverted fear of violence puts a smile on every face' another line ripped from a song, does not quite fit but the unfitting mimics are often better, as you should not match too closely, always leave a place for ambiguity, and a leap of cognition to see the others light.]
Communication
I liked to have considered more about knowledge and models of the brain, but I ended up considering how chunks of the brain might talk to each other and seeing this in how people talk to each other. Language and indeed body language is interesting to observe, especially if like me you are an explicit student of it rather than an implicit actor. This was brought home to me when I read some newsnet postings about thought and is seemed so convoluted. I consider communication between two people very much related to their shared experience, the more people know about each other the less needs to be said. People concentrate on the news (and sport is generated news) to see how other people react to new information, and have new information or 'secrets' to share. I was thinking of the shared knowledge effecting peoples communication and how difficult it would be for an eavesdropper to understand what was being said, maybe people are purposely ambiguous so that they get feedback from the other person requesting clarification where necessary... the eavesdropper cannot get clarification.
Ideas that ring a bell:Extreme Programming
This describes a way of organising for computer programming but two of the tenants are : programming in pairs and test often.
Programming in pairs
I remember describing particularly strong relationships with people and a woman assuming they were with women, whereas in fact they were with boys and men I was growing up with, to know someone so well is to be able to second guess there reactions and when they react differently to gain knowledge off the difference of the model in your head and the reality. I had a partner in my first year engineering class who would try to put a lab experiment together and I would then fix it, as he had done most of the work and I had just to see the difference between what he had done and the instructions. I have had very strong relationships maybe it forces each person in the pair to go further by leaning on the other, or maybe the other person is a social gateway to another group of people, without having to individually make their acquaintance, maybe it is a trust thing almost like the Mafia guys vouching for a new member!
Testing often
One of the guys I work with says that I test too much, testing relationships to destruction. He could have been talking about relationships with woman, or relationships at work. Maybe I think that some things should be on the edge, a conversation should be deep with either partner prepared to walk away, compared to Ulysses or a Becket play that there is always an edge. I have met two women with no visible edges, yet their problems and issues are the first things I try to identify.
Ideas that ring a bell: spreading a rumor in a population
How does one create myths (or stories or jokes or computer viruses) that spread around a population? I suppose the best examples are major religious but the same sort of dynamics are found in rumors in a small population like a school or a campus, or viruses or worms on the internet, or even fashion fads and sayings, what sort of social engineering can be used to analyze these things and see how they spread... I suppose I am trying to take the big picture in having avoided gossip and new information/stories that other people seem fascinated by, maybe because it is generated news and they can see how these ideas resound in other peoples heads.
Ideas that ring a bell: Trying to find the big picture
Whenever one takes up a position someone can come along and out big picture you, you talk about the world - they will talk about the universe, but they are only trying to break a communication line not build on what is being worked on. Often the big picture will give you a vocabulary to talk about many similar problems and the inability to get down to specifics can even be seen as an advantage. I can always look to a bigger picture but my training tells me to keep on a practical engineering level on what can be solved rather than dream about bigger problems. Maybe my problem is my bar talk, talks about bigger issues communism, the north of Ireland, bigger ideas that would be sculpted by a sci-fi writer in his different universe. But that's not me as the beach boys would say, I now want to corner people and think and talk about specifics which may make them uncomfortable, but its a two way conversation they can stop at any time... but maybe my interrogation is too like my brothers cross-examination and does not let the conversation breath. Maybe a conversation should be driven in random directions like twenty questions driven by the toss of a coin, where you look in control but really you are not driving the conversation anywhere.
Ideas that ring a bell: Myths
Every society has a cycle of myths to cover what it does not know, maybe it is just a way of covering what one does not know, maybe one considers the TV to have some sort of little man inside that does ones bidding rather than consider the details of the TV or the remote control. I suppose that religion may be considered like this with a bundling of all that is beyond us into the persona of God. Every culture has its own creation myth, everybody wonders where we all came from with Darwin just adding his own 'myth' or explanation that is good enough for now, good enough meaning enriches and more likely than the previous myths. Long standing myths are interesting in that there may be some value, or explanation, or empathy in them, to keep them going, a story echoing and mutating across the centuries.
Ideas that ring a bell: Mistakes freudian slips and rationalisations
There was a story I liked about people being hypnotised to do strange things. When asked about doing the strange things the person would have a rationalisation. I assumed this meant one could rationalise just about anything but someone else suggested that the person had rationalised the act before doing it and would not have done it if they could not rationalise it in their own mind. Well I am wary of freudian slips and rationalisations and I still take the 'you can rationalise just about anything' view but it is fun to look at your mistakes and rationalise why you may have made them, mistakes in typing, in using a computer etc., in choosing words for a phrase or sentence, it can tell you a lot if it is not taken too seriously. I am purposely trying to version control this text and write it without much review so that I see my odd turn of phrase when reviewing it later and maybe being able to work out why that turn of phrase was made.
Ideas that ring a bell: Picking the wrong answer
Maybe gaucheness and picking the 'wrong' answer of a set of solutions actually drives knowledge forward as the mainstream answer is an easy way out but if the oddball answer is correct there may be more knowledge there, a kind of road less traveled by, or a seam that has not been mined. Does this give a rational for 'difficult' people people always wishing to challenge rather than take the easy way forward, but maybe seeing the world as a challenging place make it hard to rise beyond what you must do.
Manic me
I suffer from severe mood swings, the upswings feel fine - but they go out of control, the downswings are longer and feel like a 6-month hang over. I have started to talk more about my ideas to try and rationalize and bring these ideas out in the open so they do not stay inside to be clung to by a desperate brain as it winds itself higher. Which, if any, would be worth sharing with other people is another question but maybe just writing them down is enough for now.
Dealing with extremes
Sometimes extremes can expose a moderate way forward, or sometimes moderation can expose an extreme way forward, but these possibilities do not naturally follow but I have always been exposed to this kind of faulty logic which is determined to push an argument along tracks that are least likely to bring enlightenment, or snap judgments that make one live in a minefield of arbitrary rules that make it impossible to move forward. Do we live in a cloud of intuitive possible solutions, or a minefield of prickly rules to traverse, or maybe I must have the courage to make my own way instead of trying to keep up with everybody. This may be another case where I will be twenty years behind the back trying to forge my own way rather than following what other people suggest, or catching a fast track train to somewhere else. Maybe my strategy is not to play in the bewildering real worlds and go and work in the more clear cut world of study and information that I can in some way tame.
I got issues
What is wrong with me? Or have I just got life's complications? Someone suggested I have Aspergers syndrome a high level form of autism which seems to match but if you look up various syndromes maybe you will always find some that will match. So basically socially I could do better, disappearing in large groups or maybe relying on my extreme programming pair to have me semi detached from the group. Work I could do better all the lose ends just seem to build up behind me and I keep working on the bits that I can, but then again lots of work seems to be like this everyone muddling through. Everything seems to be adding more complications maybe sitting at home and being a Walter Mitty like dreamer is all that is left and accommodating the news and other bits of information into my world view is all that is left. This paragraph really does not do me justice, my psychiatrists last words of wisdom is that I think too much about bigger pictures while I should be thinking about more local and immediate issues. I suppose the thing about viewing bigger pictures is it is ok not to solve them but concentrating on local issues and not being able to solve them means there are more loose ends following you. Maybe my solution is to avoid local issues and deal with things when absolutely necessary letting my intuition take over or even pick a result at random.
Networks, or me as a spy2
I work in computers and have worked a bit in networking and security, my masters was on Distributed Artificial Intelligence. I am always looking for analogies to the mind, networks and intelligence. I rang a friend of mine (who made bombs) from the center of the military industrial complex when I went there for interview (They said I should get security clearance 'as long as I did not know anyone in the South of Ireland'), I also asked the GCHQ (British intelligence) recruiter what the prospects for a job was. The NSA [American National Security Agency] even prevented my from going to California to do some security work (they wanted someone with a green card). So I sent up a post on the Internet basically asking how does one get the defense agencies interested in you, so as to waste their time. I also sent around a joke snowball email to a few people I knew. I was wondering if any security agency was interested in me, might they follow the snowballs and then by chance find something that may be enough for them to continue the search. The funny thing is if I was considered part of a network, like Jimmy Steward in 'its a wonderful life' and what would happen if I never existed? I knew people in the British ministry of defense, lots of people in Ireland north and south, and some people in U.S. and Canada, so if I refulled a few feathers bizarre things might happen e.g. to people security clearance, visa denied but I suppose they would be too annoyed to contact me back.
Also there is the idea of a pair as my father and I and using him as the relation I can test myself against though there are many differences such as the jurisdiction difference between north and south having my father as an extreme program pair to test against was one of the themes of my july 2000 breakdown. My current myth to play with is to keep communication lines open between north and south, possibly a tapped line to keep communication lines between myself and my sister, a random element, and in so doing keeping a communication between myself and my father. Local people do business in person since the telephone lines are tapped. There are many other people I might consider in the bizarre way that their deep down opinions will be reasonable sound and our differences at the deep down level would not be knowable without direct conversation, or maybe we would decide our differences in the direct conversation - sounds like an authentication mechanism to me, Jan, Eamonn, Brian, Gary, John, Kevin, there has to be a magnificent 7 samurai... no woman maybe I wish I knew them better, or maybe just one better.
The really extreme play was to seek a bizarre feedback loop, so I could think of many people attached to me, I could consider that a network that would only work for an agreed if minor goal. I had to seek a purpose a goal worthy to test run this skunk works project. So I reckoned the goal was to get an email address of an old friend as I had some idea that if someone's bona fides were checked she (being securely English establishment) might hear and may just contact me. I feel the pressure building inside me so I decide to short circuit this goal so my 'spy' network was goal less, but asking her to drop me a line directly... of course I blew it not knowing the meaning of unintense I have two modes frighteningly intense and off.
So if the network of people who know me has no pre defined goal (aside of course from world peace for all those Groundhog Day fans) what is the use? Consider a warplane that must drop its weapon before the target is in sight, the weapon must be given enough instructions to aquire its own target, maybe the network is a weapon or a son which is never told to do anything but must find its own target when the obvious target is the troubles.
Relying on what cant be known
Everyone needs their 'little red haired girl' as Charlie Brown says it a wistful grasp at something that may or may not be there, that if you force the issue by reaching for it even the possibility will vanish. (Like a quantum mechanics wave function that may just resolve to a connection but is unlikely to, by reaching for it you are breaking the one percent chance you thought you had). So in my moments of madness I have rested on the unknown ness of my little red haired girl could I know had I a one per cent chance, I rested my bargain on the 50 50 chance of whether she liked me more than other guys or not, not in any mad strange way that I might, but just a feathers weight more. I am satisfied easily in many ways I would set up a fantastic edifice depending on the toss of this coin and be prepared to junk all my twists of logic on the outcome. Maybe its my edge, my muse, it does not mean that much to me at this stage but it strikes me as a point to ponder, I know so much about her, have I no decision making capabilities to decide or even have an opinion. It is like my belief or is that lack of it in God, what is to chose the forces seem so finely balance or is it that I want a middle way down the razors edge. Like Captain Kirk I want to fabricate a way out of a no win situation. Maybe it is my way to set up a bargain between two sides and toss a coin in the air and see which way I wanted the coin to fall, but a decision does not need to be made, I do not need to decide I was just another of the boys I do not need to decide there is nothing out there that is bigger than ourselves. See I tie up my problems in a Gordian knot so that when one seems near solution I throw in another. It is like a soccer game where I keep removing players so that the game is skewed so that the side with the upper hand loses men, or do I play contrary where one person with the force being strong in them can take on the other team and perhaps the world. And lose like Cuchullan/Jesus. And win like Cuchullan/Jesus. Equivocation is all, why decide?
Indecision puts strains on the soul. It is worse than straining or annealing the mind through many changes. I was more than the other guys but more by my extreme neediness/sheepishness than anything more. On God I'm a believer. Einstein said he did not believe God plays dice, maybe we are Gods dice. Anyway there are so many leaps of faith and little myths we use every day a big be-nine belief does not seem to do any great harm, even if only by definition. Ok belief in God and deal with the consequences, the consequences is to deal with the atheists and see that they can only push you back, not off the board. Deal with the believers, there is a rational explanation for everything otherwise no belief is required, so we are open to question Mohammed, Jesus and Moses, in our endless search for their dance with divinity we shall unearth more deeper questions and some surprising answers. The surprising answers are the best.
Delusions:
I need to be in the right mood to rant about them basically
-Socialism or death (while on holiday in Cuba)
-codes and secrecy
-quantum theory/triage
-Northern Ireland politics
I was thinking maybe our delusions tell something about us and it may
help to be able to talk about them. It would also be useful to hear other
peoples delusions to see if they match up. I have heard of people thinking
of being at one with the universe, but I feel the need to nail down my
ideas before my mind is blown to pieces by the delusion of empathy with
everything... basically I look for an edge or an unknown to exploit in
my own mind to have a directed conversation with myself which is not predeterminer...
maybe I make up my beliefs as I plumb the sharpest edge. Maybe I just aim
for the hardest problem so that if I was really at one with the universe
I would solve it .
Movie Tag lines: what one empathises with
I have a fascination with movie tag-lines they seem to constrain lots of information or allude to more than they contain. So Total Recall - get ready for the ride of your life, I took to heart as I went off to see my girlfriend when I was high, or We can sell it to you wholesale, but i reckoned you would only need fractal recall as from the bizarre mosaic of what was left of your memory you could grow a reasonable facsimile of the old one back, its a bit like using fractal descriptions to compress images, if you blow up the fractals you see more fractals so you may not even know when the resolution/data ends and lower level fractals begins.
Thought
Too meta physical to an engineer like me , but I'll take a wild stab: we are simply pattern matching machines and it does not matter if the patterns match even almost random connections pin the pattern down to our consciousness. Our senses provide us with that extra level of subtle randomness to connect with prior events.
Bouncers
I would not be a bouncer but it is a strange sort of a job with an ability to display and control aggression is the main strength. I like the display of aggression I really should sit back and watch bouncers all night and see how they play the part out really. I had this delusion about setting up some sort of a card game or set of card tables and having people at the door letting in the brightest people to play cards, except understanding me was probably the trick of the game... I ended up getting carried out, but it was a neat idea to keep reacting to a lot of intelligent people to hopefully find people to come to terms with me as the random dice.
Sex and Catholic church,
Oh boy basically the Catholic church has a belief in life starting when the egg fertalises and the action of sex requiring the possibility of new life. I am very squeamish about abortion and do not want to be put or put anyone in that position. As Billy Bragg says - 'safe sex does not mean no sex it just means use your imagination'. Nothing funny about it really.
Left wing revolutionary conspiracies
Cuba (Angola and Bolivia), IRA in Columbia, actually not much to say except its nice that the IRA have something to do that does not involve bombing in Ireland or England. Maybe they have used it to track down a leak in their organisation or methods, did they pass information by the internet which could have been intercepted, or provided information by 'traffic analysis'. It is a groovy 'seeing the bigger picture play'. I wonder do they have links in Scotland and Wales so we can surround the saxon foe?
Why I change the subject too much
The links in my head fire and I follow them with little regard to whether others are following me, maybe this explains why a woman I liked did not get any of my jokes for 6 months, the joke being bizarre connections in my mind. If I was asked why the jump I would rationalise it, but I made the jump instinctively. Many of my jumps are not too illogical with intelligence networks, the brain and communications being linked. These are amateur intellectual pursuits, pursuing other things such as work and women is more instinctive and are my main purpose in many ways!
Influences
Maybe we are just a sum of our influences, I tend to take things literally
as I hear them even when I mis-hear the words, it kind of fun looking for
an unlikely meaning in things one usually ends up with the most likely
explanation and then a set of dubious unlikely explanations that can be
laughed at as puns and discarded.
Bands: The Smiths, Billy Bragg, U2, Proclaimers.
Books: Lots of sci-fi by Isacc Asimov like the foundation series, saying
there are larger forces driving history forward, Dune - are we the freemen?
Stranger in a strange land - Assimilate all information before moving forward.
TV: Star trek
Myths: Jesus Christ, Cuchullan
Training: Engineering, Computer Science
Key things strong ideas and sincerity.
I reckon we develop a new way of speaking with new or renewed ideas
when we are 15 to 20, building a communication barrier with the next and
previous generation so that we can renew or build differently everything
including our turn of phrase.
A great escape
I remember the ghost story of a man who is chased down a cave by a lion, the cave getting smaller and smaller as the guy tries to escape in deeper and tighter recesses, the story is laboured until the listeners finally ask how did one escape from this inescapable predicament. The answer was I did not, I am a ghost. I had this vision of a play in which the main player initially finds an avenue to work in and could not think of doing anything else, and was good (he thought brilliant) at what he did, as time went on certain tasks came up that were more troublesome, it was like there was a line in the sand he had to keep adjusting, ok I may not be able to do this but I can still do so many other things. Time passes and the lines in the sand move closer and closer to his core competencies. He can still not think of doing anything else but his chosen avenue is now not so great, he is only treading water ... but time moves and the situation gets worse and worse with no way out, except of course self actualising by writing a play about his predicament, or even a short collection of thoughts. Maybe it is normal for a man to retreat back into his cave but there must be a time what he does not feel chased to perform at his best in the open, or maybe in the open the lions will find me of little interest, or in my avenue of work to relax and that I am not expected to have all the answers (though it would be nice to have some of the answers and not have loose ends follow one around like so many frayed knots [Are you a piece of old rope - I'm afraid not]).
Pushing the envelope
Our reality is shaped by our senses past and present, yet our body has many tricks to massage these inputs. If our eyes are left to drift, what might they see? I close my eyes and watch the faint patterns play on my mind - often its a skull but then we are used to looking at faces so a false image of a face seems reasonable - but why does it have to look like the turin shroud image? As I consider what the image might be it changes before (within) my very eyes, that is what my mind as a pattern match is missing - dynamism and while to link link link to disparate patterns may be useful it does not have the flow and grace of a dancer - maybe we are jumpy people living in a smooth world. I have watched cats when they are on the edge and with a sound they move from their graceful selves into a bag of nerves defying the world of momentum with their extreme plays. I feel the breath touch my face and think of reynolds number and how the air rolls over my face and breaks away, and think of the computers required to model air flow. It is a wonderful world where anything can happen since prediction relies so much on probability.
Point Missed
Reacting to death. This topic seems to be one I am emphasising or running away from by its omission so far. My brother committed suicide having coped with manic depression for fourteen years. The CD he had on top of his PC was an old leftfield CD who's first words are 'We've got to stand and fight in this creation' he was worn down by the effort of life. I chastise him not because he was weak but because he was strong. I let lifes waves pass over me and the illness and its 'cure' a thing for the Doctors where I was guilt free as long as I kept taking the tablets. Why should I let them force their way into my mind. The image that comes to me after my brothers death is of the native American in schwartzenigers predator who give up on the waiting game and cuts himself to prepare himself for the task of taking the predator face on. A very Irish response, to die fighting against enormous odds - there is honor in that. My brother goes down a path four years before me - are we both in the same minefield with me now exposed with him not finding a way through, I hope he made the wrong move at the last moment and that so much of what he did was right. So this is it a stand to plague other people with my concerns which will make it harder for them to say when I am sane and when I am mad. The conversation is the key, but I need to hold several conversations to keep anchored in a shared reality, and to gauge each conversation as a stone age man would consider his spear, this is my weapon, my anchor in a brain storm. Maybe I over play my point as every man has their own concerns and muddling by seems to be a skill I should acquire.
World Trade Center and Manned Cruise Missiles
This is not the place for condolences this note is a reflection of how I feel. I feel like being asked a question What is your take on the northern Ireland situation by an attractive young British woman in her room, and having paused long enough for her to withdraw the question, a sportsman thrown the ball in the end-zone and fumbles it under no pressure. The answer is I do not want to reinforce stereotypes or leave the persons convictions unchallenged. I should have said to her whatever belief or angle she has I will challenge, only challenged beliefs are valuable and only by challenging them are they illuminated. I could have said it is about dividing between us and them and I will always be them to illuminate the point, unless the groundwork of the argument is laid carefully. I could have argued what outcome can come of this? You can be convinced that it is all right for the British Army to shoot IRA men, you could be convinced that Britain should withdraw unilaterally. What I wanted to convey was the complexities and it is all about mind-share and propaganda, that one has to talk the killing to death. There is a simple, obvious answer to most things - that is incorrect. Maybe even my response was too simple and too obvious. That is really an old response reflected in the current setup. I feel like Alister Cooks letter from America, or Sting from the police - There is no Military [or Technological] Solution. Maybe a new all embracing world religion would do it, call it Islam. [Only joking]. Now study of religion is a seam or edge I think I could work with for a long time, all one needs is a knowledgible believer from different religions and an atheist and there would be lots of scope for arguing. Why would I like that? I like sincere discussion of what people believe in, maybe because I belief in so little, I was hanging on to the doubting Thomas persona hoping to see more than I thought possible. Why the talking around peoples edges why set up a mini war to have an interesting discussion, because we are mosaics and I can steal from the next guys picture in the next argument, a jackdaw that gathers all that glitters yet not able to put together anything that is truly his own. Is this my problem, is this my fathers problem? If it is a flaw it is obviously not terminal, one can go through life as a smattering of other peoples views, maybe that is even how most people get by. I would want for more, I would want all my knowledge to line up and come together in some work, if it most be a mosaic then make it a diverse one, bundling in knowledge from different fields to mean what. I don't know - world peace ? Love one another as I have loved you? I know it can't be done but man needs to dream. Maybe the Open Source vs Microsoft suggests you may be able to have open government and even open intelligence agencies and as Scott McNealy said 'Secrecy is finished - get over it' but maybe that can be turned on its head and be a good thing.
I wonder will the crisis in America effect the way people think in a big way, not just the torrent of journalism but will people look at novels and consider them obviously before or after the World Trade Center fell. I have got this preoccupation with the mind and thought, actually I have a good white paper on it which drags in stuff from different disciplines, which I have read the intro and the conclusion - the core being a bit too heavy going for me now. I used to be quite sharp when I was young. I'm 93 you know.
Place in society
My main consideration is my place in society, maybe work and play are separate, unless I can bundle up my knowledge in one great alignment of the planets, coincidence or theory. There is a vision that breaks my vision in this way it is the vision of a technological robocop turning to the mirror like De Nero in 'Taxi Driver' and says 'Are you looking at me?' and then a bit falls off - robocop with lepracy, my grand invention will have at least one obvious flaw that I am blinded to.
I was talking to a guy about shared delusions and view of the world and I suggested that these only helped if you could predict the future... he seemed to come around after a while to this litmus test. Now I begin to doubt my own judgment, maybe it is enough to have a flexible enough view of the world to come to terms with what life throws at you.
Family
At the risk of character assassination it was suggested I mention my family to try and get my place in a dysfunctional family, but then most families have their quirks. My father is a strong figure but seems to be unable to provide me with any answers when I assumed he knew them all, maybe he just talked subjects to death, until you did not care what the answer was. He denies emotion. My mother gives all that she can and empathises with any family problems. My sister 'would do anything for you as long as she got exactly what she wanted' [quote from my brother Cormac]. Cormac was the sociable one four years older than me but we became closer towards the end. Eamonn appears to have all the answers or maybe just diverts you from your answers to hide his own, in truth he prefers his conversations fairly fully formed, whereas I am happier with conversation where my own odd leaps of cognition, or cloaked by the other speakers similar leaps and loose ends... I am the youngest. I have this idea that I was never listened to, being the youngest by a fair bit, so never learned to speak without a reason, except for one liners. One of my main themes is trying to do stuff whereas I have not done much. Maybe tomorrow ...
An opportunity
This is just the frame with the picture removed, no subtlety just a view of the world in black and white, with the mearest shade of gray to be attacked, lest someone else attacks first. Such is the life of this bipolar clinging to the definite lest all my circuits float high, maybe this is a window of opportunity to bring my inquisitive child out into the open and play with the sand and rocks of more literate disciplines. There is a big wide world out there full of discourse, I feel like a child raised on black and white 60s programmes, with the moon shot in progress, maybe my moon shot is world peace, well the north of Ireland is going that way so there is hope for anywhere [where the powerless become the empowered...]. My search for meaning and grand themes becomes a search for dialog and pretty stones stones on the beach. Is that postmodernism, finding localised meaning amidst the whirl of pastiche and posibilities, the mind splashing around with new forms escaping its utilitarian roots? But thats not me as the beach boys would say, maybe it is something I could become as my grip on the black and white world of programming becomes more desperate, as the vertical rock ahead becomes an overhang. I see myself at the end of 2001 with all the colours and shapes and posibilities around me. My play with non sense could go so much farther, [I only looked up postmodern yesterday], but I would be stealing time from the reader. Would you like that? I suppose the code phrase for the intended reader is sand and pretty stones on the beach. That would be a good friend, who made a study of local stones, there I make a code and break it. Its a long story, hopefully one involving ongoing dialog and appreciation of pretty things, as they say in the north: it is a process, not an event. This is not being cryptic, the layers of a meandering text, give rise to more meandering text, like picking threads from a woolly jumper, I can pick until I am naked, or my nose bleeds! Not a pretty sight.
Review
Too much about the north, use it or lose it. The use is its something to think about like the eldorado the native Americans pushed the Spanish Conquistadors towards. People and communications putting tactics into effect is where I should push my knowledge and focus, the north is just a familiar cave I can regress into. Talking of finding answers to questions, what sort of questions do I want answered, and stay clear of Somebody Elses Problem or Not My Problem sort of questions.
Conclusion
Those were my chapters and verse try your super glue magic but my guess is some bits are missing and some bits have been added. What does that say about anything... maybe do not go around breaking stuff you ever want to see working again, maybe I could have been talked down rather than burnt out, maybe the answer is to be flexible and talk away to nothing the strong ideas that might build up inside.