Tinkering

Me tonight.

Journey

Walking across a platform, carefully avoid the lines.  Step, tile after tile, placing each foot carefully, squarely, in the middle of each grimy rectangle.  Faster, faster, the challenge is to keep it up, without mistakes.  The lighting is too harsh here, and the eyes, they implore me to keep my gaze on my worn shoes, and the grid of lines sliding by beneath me.  Stop.  This is where the third door of the conductor's car will stop.  I like to guess correctly.  But the day has been long, though they should say, heavy.  The day has been heavy and weighs down on my back and on my shoulders, but especially on my eyes.  And my feet are antsy, antsy to walk and walk, step and step, try to run away.  Try to run away and step just so, directly into a somewhere else the day can't follow.  But the fluorescent lighting is too harsh, the lines of the grid too solid, the edges are all too crisp and sharp, and the tired, dull faces staring back from the platform across the tracks all know it can't be done.

Metallic rails converge and fade into the black tunnel at the platform's end.  An empty gaping maw of darkness bored directly through the underbelly of the city.  And I gaze off at the points of black where the rails shed their light and join the pitch dark, waiting for the amber glow of headlights feeling their way through the tunnel, illuminating the tracks golden to herald its arrival.  I watch, waiting for those silver lines to blaze into a firy gold, waiting for the illuminated "D" set centered in the middle of a glowing pool of orange.

Run

Some days I would just like to pick a direction and keep running as fast as possible.  Just to feel the muscles strain, just to feel the air rushing past me, listen to my heaving breath as my lungs strain to expand and gather enough of the air I need to keep propelling myself forward.  Keep running until I'm too exhausted, just to feel alive.  It's better than living in this constant fatigue, better than the constant daze of day after day, compressed by the smothering efficiency of the machine and the clanging drone of the city turning it's wheels, moving it's gears, the noxious weight settling into the joints and creases of my mind, where it slows everything down.

I move between sections of this enormous system, struggling to fill in my role, overwhelmed by the neon brilliance of all that must be filtered through me, the eye of the needle.  I grow tired of the innate weakness of my mind and body, creaking and cracking under the bone-crushing weight of task after task.  Each one harboring some n-dimensional complexity, a world of its own pressed into the space of a capsule for me to swallow, and then deconstruct into its elements as it unfurls it's full volume in the ill-suited caverns of my brain.  And all of this further complicated by the necessity of physical existence, the logistics of moving the particular parcel of tissue, blood and bones that are wired to interface me with the universe, from one point to another.  A parcel so inadequate that it grows exhausted by the simple exertion of sitting for hours at a time on a train, hurtling through the veins of the city in a metal box.

We are just so many heavy particles drifting through time with the speed of pebbles sinking in a bottomless ocean. I can feel myself eroding, I can feel time sliding by with increasing speed, leading me eagerly forward into decrepitude and senility. All the while I'm weighed down by the limits of existing.  I have long since tired of barriers, I have long since tired of these forces exerting themselves on me, the net result being equivalent to a sort of stagnation.  My own weakness holds me still on a dull plateau devoid of liveliness.  The liveliness, the necessity of forward propulsion that results from growing, from creating things that are meaningful, from overcoming the very inertia that attracts us towards the easier path, of simply lying back and decaying. But I am so easily lured into a stupor, hypnotized by the electric radiance shining down on me from higher planes.

Wall Panel

I am so used to being a passive observer, a bystander even in my own life. When I get the rare moment to just sit back and watch, it's not hard for me to forget that I physically exist.

Sitting on a bench  waiting for my order in a Chinese restaurant this past week, I disappeared. A Chinese man and women bravely manned the counter, fumbling over three phones ringing non-stop, pausing for a breath only to look up at the next customer waiting to order takeout. A conveyor belt of people, filtering in through the door empty handed and leaving with bags full of the promise of food and a little respite from the weight of the world. Here were children getting off from school, tired college students, apprehensive workers picking up food for their bosses, the occasional little old lady, out of place in the fast churning vortex of the takeout counter corner of a Chinese restaurant at lunch time. In a few minutes I learned quite a bit about the neighborhood. The Chinese man spoke in perfect English, and as much of an efficient machine he was in those first few moments switching from phone to phone to customer to phone to delivery man, he greeted his regular customers warmly. Somehow I was astounded by how he managed to find a single spare moment's breath to ask about anyone's life, to remember about any one out of a sea of endless faces and orders. As time passed he and the restaurant were taking on more dimension and complexity before my own eyes. When my order was called it took me a few nanoseconds to step into myself and realize I was not in fact the wood-paneling of a Chinese restaurant wall. When I'm caught off guard at these times, the journey back to the reality feels distant and long, as if I'm approaching and stepping into my shell again from a vast distance. It takes a moment to remember how to reuse the controls, and I always feel that fleeting moment of surprise as I realize people are expected to speak, slowly the signals are sent from my brain, to my jaw muscles, to my mouth: form the words, use your vocal chords, listen to the sounds.

Even in less obviously passive situations it takes me a moment to get used to being so present, it still catches me off guard when I realize suddenly that people can see me perfectly, and that they might have the silly notion that I too am just as much an actor in the scene they're playing. It's been especially challenging lately stepping into the role of a teacher-figure. It's easy for me to walk into a room full of people and assume that I have a certain level of invisibility. But as a teacher-figure I've had more than one awkward moment when I've realized the spotlight's been on me all along and an eager group of children are waiting patiently for my words. I do have some knowledge to impart to such a young group of children, but it has been quite a new experience not only being in the role of an imparter of knowledge, but of stepping into a role that requires a certain level of presence. I have always suppressed myself, relegated all the portions that compromise a decently structured human being to some other private sub-layer. Only recently, and not without effort, I've tried to express myself more fully. But on those tired days when I don't have the effort left in me there's not much I can do to stop myself from falling back on the default systems.

As I put more effort into being present I do sometimes worry about exposing too much. I am so eager sometimes, my emotions are raw and strong. They prickle at the back of my skin to be let loose, to be expressed loudly. But I'm not good at toning them down or filtering them properly all the time yet. Sometimes it's all or nothing. And I do worry about hurting people with my blunt honesty, repelling people with my unhidden admiration, offending others with my unfiltered distaste, the list goes on. Some days are easier than others, and I love those rare moments when I can just be myself without the effort, without the care or worries, and without all the locks and bolts and unnecessary layers of obfuscation. Those days when I can just be me, like a boss.

HOLY SHIT, MUSIC!

I love hearing music again after days deprived of it.  Usually days spent being stressed and weighed, quite a few leagues down, by the little mechanical details that are needed to keep the cogs of the machine moving along.

Focus

I lack focus.

My mind wanders from one thought to the next, switching quickly through all the threads running in parallel.  It's somehow never enough to think about one thing at a time.  Instead the focus switches, bringing a different thought, one that was already meandering along slowly and quietly in the background, to the forefront as soon as my attention wanes from whatever I was formerly attempting to focus on.  It's a big problem when I'm trying to get any work done, and it's a big problem with me in general.  My interests and knowledge lacks depth, though their breadth is extensive.  I am so eager sometimes to take in everything that I fail to be an adequate source on any one subject.  It's something I've come to despise.  I'm shallow and hollow in a sense.  I am envious of those others who can justify their passions with the knowledge to match, those who truly are pursuing a greater depth of insight into a single or select few things.  Against these people I feel inadequate, a lesser person who has failed in a sense to live up to my goal of aiming to the best version of myself I can create.  And I feel exposed when I find myself interacting with these people.  I feel that my lack of depth is obvious, it must be immediately clear I think, how much I am something of a sham.  Here is someone who is not worth talking to, after all, enthusiasm and knowledge that extends only so far as to scrape the surface of things is cheap and abundant.  Compared to these people who carry a truly deep and complex network of knowledge in their minds, I am little better than a hollow mannequin.  A shell, simply painted to reflect the little that anyone can come to learn from glancing at the surface of a body of knowledge.

What I lack is devotion.  A large part of the identity of those who are truly great at something is defined by their work.  They are their work, their work is them.  Not entirely, but enough that it matters, enough that it becomes a valuable thing and raises the value of their own identity.  I have always been intrigued by too many things, and I spent far too much of my younger life being frustrated by the fact that I would not live long enough to be able to learn everything.  Still, in a sense, I've rebelled against this notion, and have come to sample a bit of everything, and it hasn't helped me.  Sometimes I wonder also what would've happened if I'd simply rolled with my natural inclination towards art and writing.  But these are things people sometimes told me I had a talent for, and so it was not mysterious or fascinating enough.  I wanted to learn everything, and I wonder if I maybe migrated towards those things I knew would be most difficult for me, those things I knew I would have to spend more time learning.  But they were also the things that required me to focus outside of myself, whereas art and writing is often about introspection.  There is a whole universe of things out there, and I gravitated towards that which was farther away, though introspection comes more naturally, unavoidably even.  I don't regret choosing the path that I have, I would choose it again given the choice.  I do regret how bad I am at following it.

At this point, I can't say that I am my work, it exists outside of me, something I must pursue. One thing, amongst a whole slew of other things competing for space in my mind.  I think I've inadvertently aspired to become a lense that captures every detail of the world I'm in.  An impossible task that I am bound to fail at again and again and do a poor job of.  I hope someday I can train myself to find the subset of things that it would be best for me to focus on.  The set of things such that in producing my work I would be happy to have define me in part and define in part.

Wanderer

I like to wander. To walk for no other purpose than to walk, feeling the muscles of the legs stretch and contract, pulling bones and body along through space, and each step, hitting and pushing off the Earth, processing the texture and composition of the ground beneath my feet as it does so. I am a sensor, taking readings as I move along. The tiny points of pressure pushing up are little rocks. The grainy texture sliding against the bottoms of my shoes are little motes of dust and sand. The wet soil sinks with my weight. And better yet, is the feeling of the sun, warm against my face and skin, I register its life-giving force and I too give off warmth in response, "Yes, I am still a part of this universe also." And while my body writes and sends this message off in all directions where it dissipates and fades with distance and with time, it is still busy sensing.

Sensing, every minute change, as the air pressure rises and sinks, each strand of hair floating and waving, sending information via movement down to the roots where each push and pull is processed until I know, the direction of every breeze and gust of wind pushing past me on its way to become a part of other pressure systems, pushing and pulling across the Earth, directing oceans and carving mountains.

Light bounces off the objects all around me where my eyes process them into shapes and colors so that the world comes into existence in my minds eye. A world that extends in all directions, full of the unsensed, unprocessed, more data for me to collect so long as I am willing to push forward. A world that I process innately and automatically as my eyes reveal it, my findings stored away in memory.


But perhaps, most selfishly, its what all my findings confirm that makes me especially fond of wandering, the simple proof that I exist.

Infinity

It always amazes me how much complexity exists at every level, on every scale, and from every vantage point. How much we know depends merely on the resolution of the camera and the angle at which we place it. Point the right equipment at an empty spot in the night sky and it reveals a multitude of galaxies, the size and complexity of each absolutely beyond our comprehension. A blank surface under a fine microscope reveals a thriving society of microbes. Poke a needle through the fabric of time, and the history of human life ceases to exist. Find the right lens and the infinite realm of intangible thoughts and feelings contained in a single person becomes as astounding to discover. And what else is out there, that our constrained, little but gigantic minds, fixed by time, position, and so many other things, are too timid to be capable of imagining?

Things I Don't Know

So begins the torturous process of research, torturous not because it's boring or lengthy but rather because I find myself smacked in the face at every turn with terminology or concepts I simply do not know. Now this in itself is not entirely frustrating just a bit depressing at times because it makes me feel, rather, KNOW that I'm under prepared for this. That I am perhaps significantly less suited to this than so many others. No, it's frustrating because of how hard it is to actually learn the things I don't know. The material is lacking, and hopefully only because I don't know how to properly look for it, but the most frustrating thing is when it appears there's a large pool of information other computer scientists learned at birth by osmosis as their squishy bodies, specially attuned to being computer scientists, sucked the knowledge straight out of the mother grub they clung to. While I, a hulking inefficient alien stumbled into this all with wide-eyed primitive fascination and everyone has secretly been laughing at me all along. When this happens it feels utterly impossible to find out anything about the process of HOW did anyone come to learn this or that, rather the terms are sprinkled around in papers as if they should be common knowledge and that definitely doesn't help me feel more suited to this either....

I initially thought maybe it'd be a good thing for me to try to document what I don't know, and write out how I did come to know it eventually. But the task seems so daunting, there's simply far more I don't know than what I know. Maybe this is the stage at which everyone decides its easier to simply pretend they knew these things all along, but if I never get around to it, let this stand as a message to my fellow primitives:

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Chameleon

One thing I've noticed about myself is that I'm a bit of a social chameleon. Without meaning to I immediately adopt some of the mannerisms, accent, posture and facial expressions of whoever I'm talking to. I often find myself mimicking and simply reflecting back whatever mood is being shown to me as well. The sudden change and hypocrisy that results when I need to switch conversations and speak with someone entirely different makes me cringe inside every time.

Despite my perfect English I also find myself speaking with a bit of an accent if whoever I'm speaking to has one. It is a broken thing, an amalgamation of the way I actually talk and the way whoever I'm speaking to talks and the way I'm trying to speak to counter this horrible mess. I suppose it is an evolutionary adaptation of some sort, even though I feel like kicking myself in the face whenever I notice, which is usually immediately. But it's very hard, near impossible to stop even though I'm probably trying to the whole time. Even for those without accents I find myself adopting some of the tone and style of speech that makes one person's way of talking uniquely theirs. I even adopt the way people stand, and the gestures or expressions they make regularly. These things I adopt as my own at least for the duration of time that someone is speaking to me, not purposefully but I suppose instinctively. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't usually feel ridiculous, especially if the person has some kind of expression they often make. Not because they look stupid but because I'm not them and so I most certainly do look strange.

It's not hard to imagine then why I have such a hard time sharing anything about myself or managing to pull off showing people who I am rather than who they are. It's easy to be a reflection. My surface identity is entirely malleable from person to person and situation to situation, I have no solidly constructed model of the person within myself that I so intimately and innately know. I exist abstractly, theoretically, a web of electrical impulses firing across the solid surface of my brain. I suppose that for too long I have had no real interest in constructing an accurate outward representation of myself. Even as I type this I can't help but think: Why should I care? I've always been more interested in data collection rather than transmission. And I suppose this is written also somewhere within the long lines of my DNA, and so I've been programmed to collect data fabulously. It doesn't seem too farfetched that merely reflecting a person makes it far easier for me to collect information about them in particular without clouding the data stream with pieces of myself. After all, real interactions that involve two people are more complicated.

So perhaps unquestioningly, and because it was so convenient and perfectly in line with my own interests I have been happy to run along smoothly, collecting information and transmitting very little. But I can't help but think my somewhat lonely situation is a result of functioning so "well". After all, how long can anyone really be interested with a person who appears to be just a crude approximation of everyone they meet, and especially of yourself?

An Ending, A Beginning

Things are looking up, me of just a year ago would be surprised at the new opportunities springing up everywhere. A new chapter has truly begun, I am just grateful it is turning out so well and completely unlike the start of the last one. The little measly efforts I put in, spread out over years, and pathetic though they were has paid off far more than I deserve. My greatest fear now is that I will blow it. I know myself too well, I know my limitations, I know my faults, and I know exactly how much easier it is to fail. New hope rests on me, new responsibilities, a chance to be somebody else, a chance to be closer to the person I want to be. It is certainly refreshing to be free of the burden, even if superficially, even if only on the surface, even if only in the eyes of others who can see no further than what I now choose to show them, of all those past short-comings of all those reminders of how much less I am than who I wish I had the strength to be. Still, below the surface, I am painfully aware of it still there. It pokes and prods and pushes to the surface of my consciousness as I take on each new challenge, fully aware of how far I am from being able to accomplish them and glide through each day with the easy carelessness that so many do. I fear the day that I will slip, that I will fail again, and everyone will see me for how little I am. But for now, it is a new beginning, and though it takes every conscious effort to try my best, I hope to do it.

I'm at a crossroads once again. Time, as always, is determined to move on far faster than I am. I grow comfortable wherever I am, or perhaps more accurately, too scared to move on. My personality has probably been stagnant ever since some time in highschool. I'm an adolescent at heart and it's not a compliment. My outlook, actions, my outward personality is the result of an unstable balance between a clusterfuck of compulsions and attitudes. My inner voice is as chaotic and unpredictable as anything natural left to its own devices, that is, its determined by whichever dispositions are naturally inclined to win in a heartless struggle akin to the biologically motivated one of survival. I vacilate between wanting to give in to my natural tendency to fall into a pattern of laziness and a far weaker urge to become "something more" and escape the constrained life I currently lead. Constrained by myself, by parents, by societal expectations. At heart I'd like to extend a big FUCK YOU to all those things, in reality I'm a far weaker person than I want to be.

Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

With time comes the satisfaction of carrying a more defined identity, a masterwork chiseled slowly by each passing life moment and the constant traffic of thoughts; whole sections demolished, restructured, and rebuilt at the whim of a changed opinion, a faltering conviction, a new revelation. From a blank wilderness, the face of a city emerges. A conglomeration of opinions, beliefs, tastes, held together by a subtle undefinable quality, the surface proof of which we call a personality. Yet no matter the strength of the foundation or the apparent aesthetic quality of the skyline from a distance, it remains a malleable quality, shaped by so many prodding moods and memories leaving their damage behind, the way so many footsteps erode a city along well-traveled paths. They provide the undertones and peculiarities we call a character, the leaking tunnels, the pot-hole ridden streets, the chatter and the smells that define a neighborhood. They are the subtle imperfections tucked behind the shimmering glass surfaces of a courteous smile that really make one person different from the rest. Like so many languages cluttering the air, communicating and confusing...

Well-known moods afflict a person as surely as the tides of an undulating crowd afflict certain sections of a town.