Wednesday 25 May 2005

Pic of the day: "Though it might not be the normal world." From the anime Hikaru no Go, where Hikaru's teacher talks with his mother about the boy's career as a professional Go player. I suspect there are a lot of us who don't exactly live in the normal world.

Still 24 hours a day

I would like to follow up my thoughts from yesterday and the day before. It seems that when I try to define what is special about me, what is worth noticing, I mostly end up with negations or absences: Man without TV, without car, without house, without vacation, without romance. All this is true and remarkable, as these are things that usually only abject poverty would deny a man. And people who are that poor are not on the Net. But obviously these absences cannot be the whole story. My day is still 24 hours (well, 18 if you don't count sleep) and certainly there must be something else to fill it then?

Yet the things I do are not remarkable or extreme. I play computer games, but lots of people play computer games. Lots of people play more computer games than I do, I am sure, even without being paid for it. Of course, many of these people are students from well-off families (or living in countries that subsidize education) so they don't have to work to put food and clothes on their table. But the guy who works in the Shop of Angels has played World of Warcraft for 29 days a 24 hours each on the same server since the game was released in Europe in February, and still keeps quite well informed on other games as well. And keeps his job. (Actually it may be useful in his job, but I get the impression that he can't play during work hours. Then again, neither can I.)

I watch anime, Japanese cartoons, but millions of people watch cartoons. Admittedly in Europe and the USA cartoons are most popular among children, who again have quite a bit of free time and certainly no pressure towards property investment and romance. But in Japan itself, cartoons are made for adults as well (and not only "adult" content either) and people there tend to work longer hour than most folks here, not to mention me with my 90% job.

***

So do I just sit and stare at the wall? Actually, there is way too little of that. I feel vaguely guilty for not setting aside more time to meditation. Everyone should take time to defragment their mind from time to time. But to be honest, it does not take up a noticeable part of my day. It goes in there with personal hygiene I guess – mental hygiene in this case. Note to self: Stare at wall more.

A viable alternative to staring at the wall is staring at the road. Not having a car means that I have 12 minutes to walk to the bus (and back) each day, as well as a similar distance from the bus station to work. If I go to the local shop, that's another 25 minutes each way, where with a car I would have made the trip in a couple minutes. I suppose it does add up, 1-2 hours extra on my feet each day. On the other hand though, I don't need to work overtime to pay for the car I don't have. In fact, I work 10% undertime. That only adds up to 45 minutes a day, but as I said, no overtime ever, that's almost strange in itself in today's society. The rule these days is that fewer and fewer people work more and more, while more and more people don't work at all.

***

I guess I do spend some time writing this journal and also a little bit on my LiveJournal, where I also follow my "friends" page and comment as appropriate. I also am active on a couple Usenet groups, and usually a web forum of some sort or two. And occasionally I will write a little fiction. I don't post most of that to my web site ... not that it is inappropriate usually, but I know from experience that I tend to stop writing before it has developed so far that it is worth reading. Cluttering my site with a lot of first chapters is over the top even for me. So, when my hand or throat allows, I am likely to spend some time writing. I guess that is unique and precious like a snowflake too. ^_^ Though you would certainly not think so if you visit NaNoWriMo.org...

Whatever it is I do, it certainly fills my time. I guess the best way to get the details of what it is, would be to read my green archive. There are enough entries there, and they're long enough, that you would risk wasting precious days of your own life simply trying to read up on all those years. But you are welcome to them if you want. I don't write just to satisfy myself. No, really. Like Absalom, the ill-fated son of King David, as is written in 2 Samuel 18, 18: "Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a monument, which is in the king's dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance." As it turned out, he ended up being remembered for something else. But this journal is my monument, for I say: I have no son to keep my name in remembrance. And precious little else, either.