Freeday 22 October 1999
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Pic of the day: Architect dreams-in-a-box. Architects of Dreams There is a fantasy novel called Architects of sleep. It is about some guy who gets lost in a cave and finally comes out ... to find that he is in a parallel world ruled by intelligent raccoons. I liked the concept, and the irony in it. I did not like that the raccoons had a civilization that was strikingly similar to America during its war of Independence or thereabouts. It should have been even stranger. But I guess we all have to take shortcuts. Anyway, the book hinted at some mysterious raccoons with psychic powers, called the Architects of Dreams. Unlike some diarists, I do not claim any such powers. And anyway, my sleep is slightly limited these days due to my troubled breathing. I guess if I don't pick up the slack, my cold sores (oral herpes) will unfold again. Herpes sucks. I'm still lucky that it's only the oral type and not the genital. I wouldn't like to have cold sores in my boxers! Anyway, the sores retreat quickly when I get enough sleep, and stay dormant until next period of stress. Herpes (both kinds) can be treated by antiviral drugs (such as acyclovir, if memory serves) but this is not used for small cold sores, at least here in Norway. ... The sleep part out of the way, it is time to wonder about the nature of the architect. According to the cool personality test I found on the Keirsey site, I am an Architect (INTP) type person. I found this disturbing at first, but with time I have to conclude that this is probably a good word. Note though that I am not formally an architect, and would probably fail miserably if I even tried. For reasons yet beyond my comprehension, I lack even the normal human talent in freehand drawing, and when visualizing I do not use naturalistic images but a sketchy or schematic thought that is on the border between visual and tactile/ kinetic. But I am a constructor. Even as a boy I loved to build things up, and was disgusted by the other boys' desire to tear down and destroy. When I was just a little one, I would make dams across small streams, and try to subtly alter the course of the small rivers that ran across our farm. I spent an unreasonable amount of time with this, and it pleased me more than most other pleasures that life gave me. To notice the forces at work and try to direct them according to my own will, this must have somehow touched a core of my soul or even my spirit.As a young man I learned to program computers, and would spend time building gradually more complex pieces of software. The mastery of various tools (assemblers, programming languages) was part of the fun; but the gradual construction of something larger out of small components was what pleased me the most. For this reason I was one of the people who loved the programming language Forth. Now almost extinct, it was based on the idea that you built vocabularies. Each function was a word, and you defined words from simpler words until you had a word that did everything you wanted. The arrival of computer games opened up a way for me to easily satisfy myself in the construction department. There were the more literal construction games like Castles and Settlers, in which small model people ran around building things. And there were constructive strategy games like Railroad Tycoon, one of my all time favorites. I tend to play Civilization II even more these days, but my play style is centered on growth and building. Wars happen only when someone try to destroy what I build ... much like in real life!It could be argued that even my fiction writing is part of the same. I love world building: Fiddling with the properties of other planets and their ecosystems (I see I forgot to mention Sim Earth), fiddling with the magic systems in the fantasy stories. One of my main projects of late was a grand unified theory of fantasy book magic. Even when writing about persons, I like to see them grow and develop. Which is what I look for in role playing games too. The killing is optional: My favorite characters typically concentrate on building their skills, such as my "famous" Linguist class for Daggerfall. Again, I guess this reflects my view in real life, only I am too lazy to do it all in real life. :) I hope this made it easier to understand me. I am not a collector (I just neglect to throw away). I am not a commander, though I will take charge occasionally to get something done. I hate it though, and will shrink back as soon as possible. I am partly an explorer, but not so much for the excitement of the exploration; rather for the potential of what I can find. I love to learn about the laws of the universe. I love to see things grow, be they living things or the works of human hands. I can hardly help it: I am a dreamer of architecture, architect of dreams. |
Sorry Sharon, this entry wasn't about you after all! :) |