9.28.2007

Time for a change

This summer, I was a different person - I was the other me that doesn't get to show itself much. Now, it's time for a change. That version of me is fun for a while, and gets to express himself in a way that relates to a particular kind of person, but it also prevents the other me from totally expressing myself.

This summer, I learned to take photos, I explored writing and photography and artsy stuff, effectively leeching off someone else's personality while they leeched off mine. I learned the arts from them while they learned the teck from me. Now it is time for a forced reversal.

There are various things I need to do to get my life back on track, and going in a particular direction that seems to be a couple stones over from where I'm currently standing.

- No more emo Neo...back to Teck Neo...back to [[Neo]] and [[Oracle]] and [[Trinity]]
- Photography is cool, it can stay - it's a different kind of technology that I can use to make money.
- Writing will slow again, and go back to technology oriented writing - stuff I'm good at: facts, data, experiments...stuff that doesn't step on people's toes or hurt their feelings, because it itself is emotionless - like me, generally. People usually like my writing, and it's always about someone. It's when something that sounds like their situation starts appearing in my writing that they get upset - but don't mind when it's about someone else. Oh well, that's human nature I guess. It happens all the time...I view it as constructive criticism when I see myself in someone else's parable.

I have an online store that I was working on before the summer started, but I haven't been able to do anything with it because of my internet connection at the house. I've had a bad IP address I guess, because it ends in 0 and my web server apparently won't let me access it because of my IP. So I'm going off the grid, at least at the house, for a little bit, to try and get that thing fixed. I hope it works...there has to be a way to get a new IP for my modem without being offline for too long.

I haven't paid much attention to my website this summer, because I haven't wanted to touch a computer very much at all. I've been doing social things lately, and apparently me being social is a painful experience for people that aren't used to me. So I'll scale that down a bit, and people will either accept me or not, and if not, that's their problem. I've been fine for the last 4 years keeping myself company, and I can do it for a while longer if necessary. I can adapt to fit people's needs for a time, but I cannot change my inherent behavior - no one can...and if they say they can, they're lying right to your face. I'm interested in turning all my knowledge into some kind of business venture, and finding someone that I can share my life with at the same time. My only requirement from her: to ask how I'm doing sometime during the day - show a little bit of interest (even if it's just a habitual question) will keep me sane and focused. A perceived loss of interest will cause me to lose interest. That's just how I'm wired from birth, there's nothing I can do about it, and that's how I treat others - a daily show of some kind of affection to let them know I'm still interested - whether they need it or not.

I don't know what I'm going to do with my website, it's pretty self-sustaining right now, and folks are posting away...I've got another one out there already but getting one to the other is a bitch because of the changes in the database, and the way the pages are created by the code. If I had kept with the move all this time, I would have been working on it for a year, and probably would have had another version up by now. But I'm not really interested in getting another version up at the moment. I'm interested in progressing in life.

I'm 24 years old, and this was the year that I was supposed to have everything in order for my life. But here we are, with 3 months left in the year, and I'm aimlessly wandering around my own fate with no real purpose or direction that has any real meaning - at least to me and what I'm about.

So here we go...are you ready for the change? Can you hold on when I take everything in my life and flip it upside down and go in a completely opposite direction? It's what I do every so often...I require change and something new and exciting. I approach the new direction (which is usually one I've already traveled before) with the new knowledge that I've gained from the previous episode of my life, and cycle through all this over and over.

That that don't kill me, can only make me stronger
everything I've been through has it's own song ta'
remind me that I gotta hold on ta'
the lessons learned,
times I was burned,
the good times that we had. And now I got ta'
take a step in the other way
hold out my hands, and grab a brand new day.
One like the past
but with lessons that
I picked up along the hard & rocky way.
I used it all to write a brand new plan,
with out-stretched arms...will you take my hand?

And there you have it.

9.11.2007

[[Neo]] 112

We know what is in our heart by the things that we think and the words that come out our mouth. "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer." (Psalms 19:14)

But what if the things that come out of your mouth do not reflect the things that are actually in your heart? What if the things that come out of your mouth are only fragments of incomplete sentences, that get spewed out from your mouth out of order?

What if what is actually on your mind are simple facts and data, that when put into sentence form get spit out as a rather direct sentence, with no sugar-coating or political finesse, in such a way that they are taken wrongly and hurt people's perception of you?

Or of me?

Back when I started college, all I did was sit in my dorm room on a computer, looking at HTML and JavaScript trying to hack it up and learn how everything worked. I saw inputs, variables, and outputs. I saw how one thing changed another, and how one change screwed up everything. I learned how to see the world from a perspective of a programmer - everything was a variable, except those things that were constant. Every person an Object, in a programming language (object-oriented programming) that had it's own functions, own variables, own types of data they can output, and own ways to process the data they receive.

So I took a communication class...how to communicate with the opposite sex. I learned not to be the one that has to have something to say all the time, but rather how to be a listener and process what was being said to me, so that I could maintain a conversation. That was 6 years ago. That was when I was surrounded by the opposite sex, and had to communicate with them constantly.

However, as of the last 4 years, I have not had to do that. In 2003, I was forcibly relocated back home with my mom and step dad. Then I was forcibly relocated to Arlington to live with my dad. Then in 2005 I moved out on my own and have lived by myself for the last 2 years.

During those times, I did not have anyone to communicate with, and had only myself to keep me entertained. And being myself, I know how I inherently think - and that is logically and based on facts/data. When it's just me talking to myself, I don't care about the details of the situation that don't have anything to do with the result . I see things as they are, and extract the necessary information from the situation and use that to make my decision. The rest of the information is discarded.

Unfortunately, during those 4 years, I have forgotten how to use tact, and also have a certain disdain for people who are political. I work in a place now, and in every previous corporate position that the people have to behave with a certain air and respect to the politics of their superiors. I, however, believe one thing - you are no more important than any one else. The president of a company is no more important than the coworker or customer I'm helping out. This view does not jive well with the people that get caught up in the political game, and that's an on-going struggle I have with them.

What also sucks is that now that I have grown tired of living alone and working by myself, I have started to try and create a social life for myself. However, my communication skills that I have formed when speaking with myself in my head are not transfered well with the people that I meet.

For example, someone mentions that they like cookouts. The have friends that like cookouts too. An opportunity has also come up in the past to meet their friends, but I had to decline. And then it's mentioned that there will be some free time coming up in the near future. I keep track of those bits of information in my head, and when they come together, and form a thought, I end up saying "Why don't you get your friends together for a cookout at the lake, and I can meet them."

Now, in my head, that sentence contains all the necessary information about who, what, where, when, and why. However, that's all they see is a request for that one thing to happen. But that is not what I was trying to convey - instead, what I wanted to convey was "Would you please see if your friends are interested/available in having a cookout that weekend at the lake? I am interested in meeting them if would be possible, and that would be a good opportunity to do so." There are a lot of words in there that cushion the request and idea from sounding direct and demanding. It's the same idea in my head, but it conveys a different meaning in the other person's head when they hear them.

That is what I have lost - the ability to cushion the request with added words to help soften the idea and request. Those added words are not inherently part of my thought process. They take additional time, processing, and end up lagging the response time - when normally I have already made my decision 2-3 seconds after hearing the idea presented to me.

But I am going to work on fixing that. I have come across a couple people recently that have mis-taken my statements for frustration, demands, being cross, or some other negative form of communication - when really it's none of that. It's simply fact-based processing that yields fact-based answers. But not everyone works with that kind of communication style. Now that it has been made known to me (as I did not really notice a shift in style, since it was me that gradually changed over time), I can fix it, and help to prevent hurting people in the future.

So in the meantime, if you hear something that sounds direct, blunt, demanding - please know that is not the intended meaning of the phrase. Instead, try to find out what it is I'm requesting, put a positive light to it, and assume that it's a flexible request - because it is. I'm a flexible and accommodating person when it comes to working with other people. Who am I to tell you to do something and require it of you? I am no one, and I do not wish to do that.

9.10.2007

[[Neo]] 111

"If one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects. Not just the dogmatic, narrow view of the Jedi." - Senator Palpatine

This is pretty much true about everything that has to do with life...even life itself.

Growing up, I was overprotected, even sheltered from experiencing anything that would be detremental to my development as a human being in the real world.

When my parents were married, I was too young to remember much. But I do recall spending a lot of my time at the Boys and Girls Club in Arlington. There I hung out with the wrong group of kids, and was exposed to all kinds of stuff: disobeying authority, theft, pornography, and financial ingenuity. I can't say that I didn't enjoy those time as a kid, because they were fun - rebellious, creative, and they allowed me to use my imagination. But I also can't say they didn't help me become a more developed person.

When my parents split, and my mom was single, I was exposed to having different people in her life, and meeting new figures of psuedo-authority. Eventually she married one of them, and he became my stepdad. At that point, things changed, drastically. There was no more exposure to the things that were not healthy for me, instead it was all mental tricks.

My stepdad had come from a previous marriage to a woman who used to manipulate him, and control everything that he did. I wish I could say that he didn't do the same thing to us, and learned his lesson. But since he was exposed to it for so long, I can't help but think that it had become part of his method for managing his life as well...simply out of habbit, and that being all he knew.

To get along with him, and not long after, with my mom, I had to learn how his mind worked and how he viewed our actions and accomplishments/failures. If it was not done perfectly, then it was not done, and it warranted doing again, at least once more - maybe twice.

There would be no questioning of his authority - and if one did not like what was going on, the door was presented to them, with bags for them to pack - we were in our teenage years, how absurd is that? So I had to learn how to accept what he said as fact/truth/law, and do without questioning him. Eventually my communication and political skills lead me to be able to question in an educational manner while making my point or disagreeing. I would state his method first, and say "but then why does this happen." I'd give him a chance to backpedal without calling him out on his misinformation.

Our social lives were restricted to church, school, work, home. There would be no friends coming over, there would be no social activities, no parties, no dances, no school functions. There would be no sleep-overs for disciple now at church, there would be no girls in our life, no relationships, no opportunity to make our mistakes with the opposite sex. There would only be church to hear about God, school to learn about books, work to make money we couldn't spend, and home to sit and reflect - use our imagination and study and work.

So when I left for college after I graduated high school - that methodology carried over into my first semester of school. I was in a new place, and nothing was consistent with my daily routine I had lived in for years except reading my bible and studying outside of class. So I made a 4.0 my first semester. After that though, I began to get bored of sitting in my dorm. I did my homework for the entire week on the weekend before, and I had 5 days after class to hang out with people. But there was no one available because they had not been raised with that kind of discipline.

The next semester, I had enjoyed so much the thrill of craming for an exam I had forgotten about, that I decided I would use the weekend to hang out with my friends who were available then, and use the week to study for class. That lead to me forming a social life with some of the nicest people on campus. I got to learn how to meet with new people, and work on my communication skills, and even try to get dates with girls (but that only worked a very few times, because I had no clue what I was doing).

I ended up getting a 3.0 for that semester, averaging out to 3.5 for the year. My parents saw this, and threatened not to let me return the next semester...but I insisted. The summer could not pass quick enough for me, because my new-found freedom from my life being surpressed by protective and controlling parents was eating away at my self-control for following their instructions. I started using my communication skills on my parents (the good communications skills that I found I had a knack for, like holding conversation, asking questions instead of giving answers, and sharing my experiences in a way they could relate to). My stepdad did not like the fact that I was making my own decisions about my life that were not congruent with his decisions for my life.

I left for college again in the fall, and continued with my social expansion, and plotting a course for my life. Even forming romantic relationships with a couple girls that semester, and experiencing new things in that area. On my return home at the end of the semester it was too much for my stepdad to handle, and after 3 months of arguing about plans for MY life between HIS ideas about it and MINE, I was kicked out on my own. I had the option of joining the army or moving to my dad's.

Fast forward to now, and having failed at a lot of the things that I thought I was going to do in my life, a lot of the people I thought I was going to be around, and a lot of the places I thought I would be by now. I've learned all kinds of lessons about life, and one of them is the reason for writing this post.

Having had to deal with my stepdad and his methods for managing people, I learned how to be flexible with people's attitudes. I can mock and mimic their methods for handeling people, and flip them back at them. There are people that like to micromanage others, and when they decide to micromanage me, I (as "Neo" would) raise my hand in the air, say "No." and put it back on them. If people try to degrade me with words, I let them speak, and smile. And when they say something that can be turned back against them, I take the opportunity to show them the same curteousy they showed me, and make them appear foolish in front of all their friends that were laughing with them earlier.

I'm more than happy to be flexible and manageable, and work with people that provide me enough information and respect to do what I do for them. There is nothing I enjoy more than to make other people happy, and to get to see that in their face. But when they try to take advantage of it, start to expect it, or start to disrespect me for being so compassionate towards them, the other me comes out, and they get a taste of their own attitude.

I don't do it often, and don't like doing it. And I haven't had to do it for such a long while, that it's kinda rusty for me to pick back up. But to be able to handle all kinds of people, to know the great mystery of life (which would be something like how to interact with everyone and everything to everyone's mutual advantage), I had to learn the "dark side" of life. But I don't use it, I choose not to. If it is required to be used, then it's because I have tried everything else to get the other person to see what's going on here, but they have not taken any action to correct it. I use my abilities for good, not evil - to teach a lesson, not be an ass.

Unfortunately, there is a downside to it...people can try to hurt me all they want, and it will just roll off my mind like butter on teflon. But when I end up doing it to people, it sticks with me for a long time. Even moreso if I did not do it to someone, but they thought I did. It's hard for me to get past my mistakes, because I'm too concerned with seeing them happy - that if I become a source of grief or stress for them, even briefly, I feel terrible.

So, if that's happened to you, I'm sorry. I really am. And I'll feel it for a while until I see that everything is better.

9.08.2007

[[Neo]] 110

Sometimes I wish that I could go back in time and take something back. That I could fix whatever "buck-up" I just made to make things right again, at least right in the eyes of 5-minute-ago-[[Neo]].

But to what avail? What purpose? Why go back in time to erase a mistake and a lesson learned just to have to repeat it at a later date? Why put myself through the torture of another mistake, loss, and heartache in the future, to recover the expense of the past?

It's a good thing we can't go back and redo everything again...unfortunately though we CAN travel back in time to relive them over and over again. How? It's easy...we do it all the time. Some of us even travel FORWARD in time to prelive our mistakes in the future...and we do it without even realizing what we're doing.

Consider this...you say something hurtful and ugly to someone you care about. Once you say it, you can't take it back...words are a double edged sword. They cut to defend, and they cut to offend. But when you make the mistake, and then sit there and relive it by thinking about it over and over, you have effectively traveled back into the past via your MIND and are reliving the same mistake over and over. There's nothing you can do about it, but yet people are drawn to reliving their misery ad nauseum until they have stressed themselves about it so much that they can't take it anymore.

But while they're in the past reliving their mistakes, they're missing out on the present that they're going through, wasting those moments traveling through the past.

The same thing is true for the worriers. People that sit there and think about all the scary things that could happen to them in the future, and the outcomes of those situations, and the consequences of everything that could possibly happen because they decided to wear a blue shirt today instead of the green one. The people that can't make a decision because they are afraid of what could happen.

So they spend their present time traveling to the future to see what could happen to them, and all the horrific things they play over and over in their mind.

We've only got one straight line of time, with a finite amount of time to experience it. Should you really be wasting the time you've been given to live in on situations you've already lived? Or wasting it on situations that you're going to end up living twice by worrying about them? I don't think so.

Of course, I'm an advocate of reflecting on the past to gain experience for the future. And an advocate of preflecting on the future to make the proper decisions in the present. But as I have mentioned before, acknowledge your mistakes of the past, and grasp the lesson. Acknowledge the consequences of the future, and grasp the decision. Then live your life with that information right now.

Dr. Emmett Brown from Back To The Future III said it best, when he said "I wish I'd never invented that infernal time machine. It's caused nothing but disaster." If you go back in time to fix one mistake, you risk making another in your present by not paying attention. If you go forward in time to prevent a mistake, you risk making another in your present as well.

In H.G. Wells' book "Time Machine" the inventor of the time machine tries to go back in time to save his fiance from death. But every time he prevents one manifestation of the disaster, the same result is decided via a different avenue. He may prevent her from being shot by a robber, but she gets run over by a carriage.

So my point: go with the flow of time. You're going to screw up in the past, in the future, and hell, even right now. Mistakes are going to be made no matter when you make them or how. If not by one event, then by another - because there is a lesson you must learn, and you will experience it. So when it happens, take note, and move on. Eventually your time will run out, and what will you have to show for it if you've spent all your time traveling, and never actually lived?