Saturday 22 April 2000

Pic of the day: Never alone when I have my computer with me...

It has been a wonderful few days, though I have not slept as much as I intended. There are just too many interesting things going on, not least among them computer games. If I were a Sim, I'd have a "playful" rating of ca 9 or 10, I think, and "outgoing" of 0. :) Even the least outgoing Sims start to go into the red after three days of isolation. But I, like an energized easter bunny, just keep going and going and going...

Today, for instance, I went to work. There was one coworker there, but she was just going. So I was free to whistle as much as I wanted for two and a half hour, while I wrote a stack of letters all undisturbed. Working alone seems quite attractive. Not that I dislike my coworkers or anything. But I still miss the last summer on the farm, where I could sing and whistle all day while I worked. It bites to have to keep the music inside all the time. Normally I have to turn on the radio or the CD player, otherwise I'll quickly forget myself and start singing.

Generally, I don't consider myself a misanthrope. I don't hate or even dislike people on principle. I did lean that way for a while in my youth, after I had been bullied by schoolmates for years. (Even then, it only extended to males. I have loved girls since before I can remember.) Anyway, back to the bullies, that is, the males. Yes, I still know when I meet a man of my own generation: He may be nice enough, but if we had gone to the same school he would probably have scorned me, threatened me, spit on me, taken my stuff, beaten and kicked me. So yes, there is always that. But it does not matter like it did. Because I know now that they all did what they had to do, helpless in their larval ignorance, as was I at the time. I'm afraid I came across like a character from my latest book attempt: "I'm the only intelligent life on earth; the rest of you are just walking bags of chemicals." Not the ideal way to win friends and influence people.

Childhood was not a good time. The confusion, the ignorance, the overwhelming emotions coming out of nowhere. Like being a Normal, only worse. I cannot help but think of it as a larval stage; I find it hard to really identify with that person, even though I have some memories from the time. Yes, parts of me obviously remain from then. My lazyness and playfulness are virtually unchanged from early childhood, I would think. Likewise the tendency to retreat to solitude, and to make stories, always make new stories. But I was also much more social than today. That really says a lot about today, since I did spend more time alone than most. But I also had a need of company that has gradually dwindled with each passing year.

It's been over half my life now that I've lived completely alone. And the funny thing is, the less I have to do with people, the less I think about them. For many of those years, I would spend much of my time with the Christian congregation who I agreed with. (And still do, in the larger matters.) Not only would I go to meetings like three times a week, I would also go visit families. You may say I had a kind of social life, back then. But not one that could continue.

In my late twenties, I had a minor breakdown. It's not like I was trying to kill myself or others, or hearing voices or anything. I was just scared for no good reason. My friends, being the good people that they are, tried to help me by keeping me company at all times. They would even invite me to stay over with them at night. That was nice, but it made it worse. Eventually I took some days off from work and thought it all through. I found out that it got worse whenever I tried to pretend that I was like others and would have a normal life really soon now ... wife, kids, house; stuff like that. I scrapped it all in my mind, and felt better immediately.

My life since has been a gradual process of withdrawal. Even when I no longer had much social contact in the flesh, I would play intensely social online games like MUDs. In fact, I spent more than I could afford sometimes just staying online like that. I was also very active on newsgroups. But all of it has gradually faded. The last thing was the IRC (chat). I eventually stopped staying up late to chat on the Net. Now there is this diary and the occasional e-mail.

I've recently read quite a bit of popular science pointing out that a social life is very important for almost all aspects of your health. It helps from common cold to heart infarct, and blah blah. Personally I suspect the correlation trap again ... confusing cause and effect. Sick people tend to be hampered in their social life, after all. But there may still be something in it. Humans are social animals, after all. Then again, last season it was pets who protected us from heart infarct, and the year before it was sex. Or was that before or after the red wine, the garlic and the ginseng?

One thing is for sure, garlic and a social life is hard to combine.