The new year is about to begin. Now if only I could remember the old one.

This was the year Netflix came to Norway. Actually, that happened in the fall. Things must have happened before that too. I think I read books. I am not sure how many, but a number of them. Most of the books I bought, however, I did not read out. I read part of them and then decided to read the rest someday. Unfortunately there are only seven days in the week, and none of them is Someday. I think Someday should be between Saturday and Sunday, judging from its name. That would solve a lot of problems, but only if it really was an extra day and not taken from our limited number of other days.

Anyway, with Netflix offering free gawking for the rest of the year to its early adopters in Norway, I finally got to see Groundhog Day again. It is one of the few movies that I could see over and over. But unfortunately I don’t have time to do that, and with Netflix I have even less time than before. I definitely wish Groundhog Day was an on/off feature in my life. I would go to bed with my Groundhog Day switch in the “on” position 99 days out of 100. I really love my days, but they are so few and short. If I could go through them 99 times each, I am sure I could solve more cases at work, and read more books, and learn to play Go reasonably well, and learn thousands of Japanese words, and watch every Doctor Who episode on Netflix, and find out to every feature on my Galaxy Note 2.

Right! I bought a Galaxy Note 2 this year. It is an amazing little thing, indistinguishable from magic. It has a lot of features that I haven’t taken the time to find out, but those that I have found out are easy and fun to use. Basically it is… Shiny. It radiates a small amount of happiness which kind of seeps into you simply by holding it in your warm little hands. Something like that. I guess I can sympathize more with the brainwashed iPhone users now. Except they are deluded fools, mistaking a false shiny for the True Shiny…

(Please do not take this too seriously. It is bad enough when the Apple worshipers do. ^_^)

Now I remember something from earlier in this year: I bought a Galaxy Tab 7.7 tablet as well. It was Shiny, but not nearly as Shiny as the new Note. Well, the hardware is extremely Shiny, but the operating system is much too old. I think it is called Honeycomb or something, actually it is so old that I don’t remember what it’s called. It’s a version of Android at least. In most of the world it has been upgraded to Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. But here in Norway I have never had the option to upgrade. Because of this I am probably not going to buy a tablet or cell phone that is not a Nexus ever again, unless it is incredibly Shiny. (Nexus devices are automatically upgraded when a new version of the operating system is available.)

Another Shiny thing that arrived this year was Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12. Actually the last three or so versions of Dragon have been certified Shiny, as far as I am concerned. But this speech recognition system is growing steadily more Shiny with each new version (although version 11 was mostly an improvement in the user interface rather than the speech recognition engine itself, in my experience at least.) I love the things that make me feel that I am living in the future, and this is one such thing. I physically cannot speak much, because I have spent so many years in silence. But on my days off I can dictate several paragraphs, and I rather enjoy doing so. For ordinary humans who speak incessantly anyway, this must be a godsend.

I mentioned learning to play Go, further up in the text. Yes. This fall was my longest and most serious attempt to learn the ancient Asian strategy game, which takes five minutes to learn but centuries to perfect. I watched the 75-episode anime Hikaru no Go and even read the manga to find out what happened after the anime ended, immersing myself in the serious Go-study atmosphere. For many weeks I watched other people’s games on Pandanet IGS (Internet Go Server), mostly high-ranking players so I could absorb their style, but also some low-level players (by IGS standards, at least) so I could learn from their mistakes. This was a part of my daily routine for weeks. I printed out game record forms (which are not called Kifu Paper, but this is the best phrase to use to search for them on the Net) and recorded some of the high-ranking games or at least the first part of them. I bought a physical Go board (goban) so I could replay those recorded games with actual Go stones (although they turned out to be plastic, not stone) and learn with more of my senses. I studied web sites with advice and strategies for beginners. Week after week I kept it up. And now and then I would play a game against my Galaxy Tab on the lowest difficulty setting. And it would crush me mercilessly, every time.

I  continued until November, when I wrote the first draft of a novel about Go, Happy Science and the Japan that only exists in our hearts. And since then I have practically not touched the game. Or the novel.

***

I probably did something in summer, and spring, and last winter. But I have no idea what. Even without Groundhog Days, time flows differently for me, thank the Light. Half a year is like an ocean of time to me. Wait … I remember now. I was walking and jogging all over the town and surrounding countryside! And there was May 2nd.

On that day I had an appointment with a heart specialist in the city where I work. For some months before, I had an increasing number of tachycardia attacks, where my heart raced at double speed for no discernible reason for a quarter or two or three, before gradually slowing down over a number of hours. I never found out what the reason was. During the weeks before the appointment, I lost a few more pounds due to broad-spectrum antibiotics which did unspeakable things to my digestion. It has not quite recovered yet, but almost. Anyway, I walked with a device that measured my pulse and my blood pressure day and night, and had my heart and arteries scanned with ultrasound, and was tested on an exercise bike.

The doctor was, like all health personnel who have had anything to do with my heart, of the opinion that I was super healthy, like a high-level athlete. Not world level obviously, but enough to take part in national competitions. Obviously I don’t do that because of my asthma, but I decided to exercise as hard as my asthma allowed for an hour or more each day. And mostly I did so until November, when it rained almost every day, and December, when snow and ice settled on the roads.

Since I could not do physical exercise when I was a child (because of the asthma), I have assumed all my life that my heart never developed to its full strength either, and that it would probably stop working if I ran more than a few steps or walked up a long hill without stopping now and then. Sporadic tachycardia attacks and the occasional fainting confirmed my theory. So the notion that I have some kind of hidden superpower is kind of hard to get used to.

Speaking of superpowers, the superhero MMORPG City of Heroes was closed down on December 1st after over 8 years. I played it pretty much every week from the closed beta until last year, when I slowed down a bit. But I was still playing it off and on until the end. It was a game that attracted particularly noble souls, it seems to me. It even spawned its own charity. I have met some of them again in the other superhero MMORPG, Champions Online, but it is not really the same atmosphere. Well, perhaps it is … if not a hint, at least an opportunity to prune that particular part of my life. Perhaps. Someday.

But for now, I have Japanese vocabulary to Memrise. You have to have superpowers of the brain to learn an unspeakably alien language like that, it seems to me. But then, that fits my self-image after all (although I may be the only one having that image of me!)

“Everyone has eight-grade syndrome all their lives.” Well, I certainly have. The fact that I roleplay a superhero online pretty much every week is proof enough of that. I wish I could grow up soon though.

I turned 54 today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!  I find that I am still in many ways young at heart. I really want to change that, but I am not sure how. I have tried so many things. There is a saying here in Norway that “youth is not a big drawback, you outgrow it”, but this seems to take its sweet time for me.

We live in a society that sees youth as a good thing, and for the body that is certainly true. It reaches its peak shortly after 20, and by my age it is already declining fairly rapidly. (Although some people take up long distance running in old age, most other physical feats are getting rapidly harder after 50.)

When it comes to the mind and personality, though, I agree with the ancients: While old age does not always bring wisdom, youth is almost always foolish. The current flood of education does not really change that. There is a fundamental difference in how the young and the old brain process information. As children we start with no insight and no connections, but a sponge-like ability to absorb random data we come across. As we grow up, we gradually lose the ability to learn random unrelated things simply by stumbling across them, but instead we develop our ability to learn by association, like filling in the missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Now that I am in my mid-fifties, the images of the jigsaw puzzles should be what I see, not a jumble of pieces. To some degree that has happened, yes, but the picture is still so flat, it has not really become the real thing. It has not come alive. I learned, now I understand, but I don’t really understand, for I am not changed, I am not transformed. How long will that take? How long before I become wisdom lived rather than wisdom perceived? I could write books, innumerable books of timeless wisdom. Except I am not that wisdom, it is not really mine and certainly not me. So it is not finished, and will be destroyed if poured at this stage. One should be the wisdom before sharing it. Like valuable beverages that need years of processing alone in the dark, wisdom needs to be kept under lid to transform into its final and valuable stage.  Will I even live to see that happen? What can I do to move on, except shut up? That would probably be for the best, but it makes for a lousy journal…

I don’t want the impatient heart of the young. At least I have shed the seeking of popularity and even attention. I don’t write this journal to impress or be looked up to; Light save me from that for as long as possible. I write it for those who travel the same path as me, for friends known and unknown, and for the future yet to be seen. I write it because I don’t have children that can bring a part of me into that future. At this age I often think of the words of wisdom I heard from my father and my mother, but for many reasons I am not going to bring that wisdom into the future the same way they did. Luckily I have my brothers for that. The world is teeming with small Itlands, so that is good. But I shall have to bring my memes into the future without my genes. (Although they are mostly very good genes; I really undervalued them when I was younger. Oh well, a bit late now.)

I was never cut out to be a parent, but I think I would have made a decent grandparent. Well, that is not how the world works. But I look forward to becoming old at heart. I’ve been young long enough, I think.

“It is fine. I am a solo player.” But is that really fine in itself? Isn’t that the problem? Is it OK to be happy alone and tell the world: Come as you are and become like me?

I have given a good deal of thought to the Llama’s outburst. A Norwegian proverb says that one should listen to children and drunk people, they tell it as they see it. And I think he may be more right than he knows, or perhaps rather, he may be right in other ways than he knows.

There is no denying that playing City of Heroes relates to actual heroism much like masturbation relates to lovemaking. Nobody else benefits from it in any way. (Of course, the benefits of lovemaking are also somewhat exaggerated in contemporary culture. Still, the comparison is apt.) The same may be said for the rest of my benevolent gaming: Helping small neighborhoods of Sims living happy and fulfilling lives is just smoke on the wind, although I am kind of happy that I’m not among the simmers who remove the door and set the house on fire, or remove the ladder while their sims are swimming. I have this vague idea, to treat my Sims the way I want to be treated by my own higher-dimensional overseer. But it doesn’t really bring a lot of happiness to the world, which needs it.

Generally it is through my work and through my journal that I try to make the world a better place, each in its own way. Like most people, I have a job that basically consists of helping people. After I reflected on this a couple years ago, I now consciously go to work with the intention to help people and give back to society in this way. But in practice I am not very good at it. And probably not at journaling either: After all these many years, I don’t see a lot of people having become happy and healthy and wise by learning from my writing. A phrase comes to mind by my great hero Jesus Christ: “If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they are not going to listen even if someone returns from the dead.” Why do I think I can make a difference?

Still, I have at least tried, some of the time. I don’t really know what was the secret ingredient, so I have tried to cover most of the bases. But it became too much, I guess. Nobody these days has time to read through the story of a life. It is the age of soundbites, of slogans and aphorisms. Jesus was actually good at those too. But if we look at Christianity today, it is disheartening how little has come of it. And if we look at me today, it is also disheartening how little has come of it.

And yet, I am not packing until I see the ferryman coming, or that is my resolution.

“I didn’t change at all” says Tsubaki, the guy driving the bike. Hikaru, in the back, learned something from every win and every loss. That was the difference between them.

I have been … boasting, or something close to it, about my super happiness for a long time, haven’t I? Recently, I have gradually come to notice that I am not so happy anymore. The intense pangs of joy that seemed inexplicable, they have pretty much stopped. And I don’t feel so upbeat in my day to day life either. Not the constant euphoria.

That is not to say that I am unhappy, or sad, or lonely, or depressed. Far from it. I just feel more… human. I am not sure I can achieve anything more. I am not sure I can make progress. When I look at my recent history, it seems like I am standing still, at best. Or going forward and then back again. I am pacing back and forth in a nice spot, I guess, but it was not quite this I hoped for.

I wanted to get better at my job. Actually, I wanted to get really good at my job. Not to get more pay or a finer title or any of that, but simply to be able to solve more problems for people. I am happy to say that I got an opportunity early this month, when I got to assist the other team for some days when they were swamped because of an external problem. That was nice. But overall, looking back over the last couple years, there is very little progress. I have not really become much better at solving problems in my work. A little, I would say, but it is at a snail’s pace at best. It was not this I hoped for, or intended.

When I look at my personal life, it is much the same. I had hoped to be a better person by now. A purer, less selfish person. Someone able to bless other people rather than thinking about my own wants and wishes. Someone taking up less and giving more. I had hoped to be someone who had the wisdom to help others. But very little has happened. I am not really active in goodness.

I’d like to think it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m no longer living in a small house in the countryside but in an apartment right under asylum seekers or some such which shout and play weird music, sometimes till 2AM on weekday nights. According to my understanding of how the world works, such things should not influence one’s happiness at all. It all depends on the way one reacts. What is a challenge to the worldly person should be an opportunity to refine the soul for those who seek the things above. I just don’t have quite the heart for soul refinery that I thought I had before it was put to the test, I guess!

I mean, a gospel that brings happiness to the rich and those who have good neighbors is not much to write about, is it? The apostles of Jesus Christ sang praises from prison. Socrates and the Buddha used their last minutes to comfort their friends. I just don’t see myself in their place.

That said, to repeat myself, I am not depressed here. Just not ecstatically joyful, see? When I look at the writings of my online friends, or talk with people at work, I realize that I am blessed indeed. I wish I could reduce their unnecessary suffering and turn it to joy. But this is exactly what I cannot do. And so I become like stagnant water, I think. Surely there must be ways to bless others without sharing heavenly secrets that are above my pray grade. Well, I suppose my plan for that was to increase my pray grade, but it is easier said than done… Then again, it was always very easily said, wasn’t it?