Splish Splash

Looking through old files and found this. Damn I was smart back then - I wonder what happened..

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Earth. The blue planet. Third rock from the sun. Our home. A speck of dust in an unfathomable universe. And yet, to us, the Earth is an area far too vast and intricate to ever fully comprehend. And beyond that still, the borders of our lands and towns and villages. People live out their entire lives, rarely straying from their familiar territory. Many seem afraid of what may lie out there. Out beyond the Starbucks and McDonald's, the pubs and clubs, the corner off licenses and greasy fish and chip shops, past the parks and playing fields, the hedges and the streams, beyond the hills, valleys, and lakes, mountains, deserts, forests, oceans. Past the limits of our small and humble homeworld and into the infinity of the unknown.

The sheer size, scale and grandeur of the universe is awe-inspiring, the rugged and untamed beauty of our planet is breathtaking, the ingenuity and splendour of nature itself incomprehensibly spectacular. And yet, how many people stop and look and listen? And realise the beauty of existence? The preferibility of presence as opposed to absence? The magic of light, dark, empty, full, good and bad?

Life, examined closely, is a fine-tuned ballet of super complex mathematical precision and programming. It can be explained quite simply. You would, probably, associate biology with life. Right? A living being can be described as a biological entity of some kind, be it animal, plant or microbe. But what is biology? Merely a fine balance of chemicals, reacting in a manner which metabolises and generates electrical energy in such an intricate fashion that it forms self-aware, self-replicating units of life. And if we examine that chemistry under the microscope, we see that each atom is comprised of energy, manifested in condensed form. Chemistry is, to all intents, a means of describing the physical behaviour of matter. Chemistry is a level above physics. And physics, of course, is maths. Quantities changing, shifting and altering according to algorithms. Life is bound by mathematical precision. Matter behaves according to fundamental universal principles in the real world, much as it does in that of a computer game. But what is outside our box? How did the laws that we take for granted come to pass?

As human beings, we are all wrapped up in our own tailor-made universes. Too busy to sit and contemplate the obsurdity of the cosmos, to indulge in unadulterated thought and speculation. I wonder why we're here. All cogs spinning in a universal machine. But to any higher purpose? Surely this race of bizarre creatures serves no useful function? Are we here just for the hell of it?

I wonder if I'll ever get the answers I seek to my questions. But I say this now. I am very much afraid of death. And am dreading the day that I draw my last breath. Consciousness is the single most fascinating thing I know and I cannot comprehend the lack of comprehension that the lack of life and consciousness would bring.

But my end looms, many many horizons away. I try not to think about the end but it often returns to plague my thoughts. Death is inevitable. My memories and awareness seemed to fade in as I aged from birth to my present age of 18. Will my thoughts fade out similarly until I'm completely mentally deconstructed? Or is there a robust fundamental element comprising my being which exists in an untangible format long after the death and decomposition of my body?

I will probably never know... And so I believe I should live out each day of my life, doing my best to absorb all I can from this world before the timer runs out. To experience as much of life as possible before it's too late. To take more risks and have more fun, to live life in happiness, laughing and smiling, singing and dancing, running and jumping. A brilliant bouncing ball of appreciation, love, compassion and happiness.

For a very long time, I considered myself a deep and thoughtful person. I relished meaningful conversation and sought out people I could chat to about philosophy, politics, sociology - anything that asked probing questions about the nature of existence, humanity and the state of the world. I looked for meaning and integrity in every human relationship and took a dim view of those who didn't do likewise.

As I grow up, I'm becoming more convinced that this attitude is unhealthy, unrealistic and ultimately a way of compensating for the fact that I'm ridiculously bad at talking to strangers. Beeing "deep" was just a way to make myself feel important and justify the poor quality of social contact in my life. Not that meaningful relationships are bad, of course. But superficial ones needn't be scoffed at. It's an incredibly difficult thing to construe depth and meaning in every little interaction. Life is far too short to craft substance into each word, each glance, each smile, each kiss.

So I'm making an effort to catch up on the shallow world I've segregated myself from for so long. I'm brushing up on my small talk, watching "meaningless" TV shows, practicing the art of flirting, learning to accept that I can be judgemental and mean and that that's allowed. I'm hitting the gym, wearing more designer clothes and enjoying the glow of narcissism. I'm exploring a more relaxed approach to my love life and reducing my emotional expectations of others.

These changes are liberating. I feel I've been living my life in a way that felt right for the wrong reasons. It's true that there's no silver bullet when it comes to wellbeing and happiness but it's important to realise when a balance needs to be restored. I have a deeper side to me but I don't want it to become me. I felt comfortable in that niche for a long time - like it made me better than these shallow guys on the pull every weekend. But that's bollocks, really.

It took a reasonable amount of personal suffering to come to these conclusions but being plucked from an old comfort zone has brought about some changes I think needed to be made. Personal realisations which were obvious all along, once I stopped hiding from them.

I suppose the real difficulty in all of this is being sure of who you are and what you want out of life. And, at the age of 22, I feel like I still have some way to go before I'll be secure in my identity. All of this life-changes stuff could just be a coping mechanism for dealing with rejection. It's true that rejection triggered these changes so it might well be the case. But a little experimentation isn't such a bad thing. We'll see..!

Well done to anyone who's managed to read so far through so much self-indulgant deliberation. I've posted this psycho rant in a bid to encourage people to scrutinise themselves and work out what they really want from life. Give shallowness a try. Live for today and balls to tomorrow :-)

Happiness is an odd concept. I suppose it can come about as a result of many circumstances but it seems clear that a loose definition would describe it as reaching a mutually agreeable state of affairs, for whatever reason. Happiness is about finding that sweet spot. That's the easy part. Staying in the sweet spot, rather like keeping your balance on a skateboard, can be very tricky. I shan't labour the metaphor any further because it puts a rather frivolous face upon the deepest of human needs.

I was always raised to believe that the ultimate goal in life is happiness. Money, position, power and prosperity are all rather nice luxuries, but the real target should be an inner peace and sense of wellbeing. At a time in my life when the overpowering directive is very much based on very singular ends, I can't help but be drawn to consider the means themselves. A degree and a career seem rather like holy grails which, until recently, seemed very far away on the horizon. But, as Lennon put it, "life is what happens while you're busy making plans."

All these cerebral motives, derived from higher thought, make a lot of sense on paper. We put aside our instinctive ideas of happiness in favour of long term plans because the short term satisfaction gain from those instincts don't add up to much in the long run in our society. I think this may be the root of a lot of unhappiness. We know why we need the routine, the qualifications, the career and the money. We know that long term security matters. But there's still that deep seated desire to live for the moment and the deep satisfaction that only a primitive brain is capable of appreciating.

Such matters have been on my mind very much of late. There's a monkey in my brain and he's not going anywhere. He wants to play when I need to work. He won't sleep when I do. He inteferes with my plans and wrenches the controls from my hands with every oppurtunity he gets. And the trouble is - in the style of a particular green, muscular man - when the monkey takes control... I like it.

But back to original notion of happiness being a sweet spot. Recently, I've been removed from a warm comfort zone and placed into unfamiliar territory. I don't think I even realised how comfortable I was until I was uprooted. And, suddenly, the world was cold and alien and I hadn't a clue where to put myself. My security was compromised and it opened my eyes to some truths I was unprepared to face.

Change can be very stressful, but it's a relentless force of nature that can't be avoided. Sooner or later, you'll have to fight to hang on to your sweet spot. And, sometimes, you will lose. But, then again, it's not about the destination. It's the journey. Life is full of abstract goals that will always dance upon the horizon, forever out of reach.

I don't know if I'll ever get where I'm meant to be going. I don't know if I'm supposed to know. But it's evidently time to pack up and move on to another sweet spot. Like a nomad, in search of a new home, the horizon beckons me.

I'll be sure to let you know what I find when I get there.

Now and then, usually when there's nothing worth watching on TV (or, since I don't own a TV, the wall), my mind wanders into a twilight realm where the paths I've walked are traced back and I'm reminded why I'm here and how things came to be so.

When you're in deep with a field like computer science, it can be hard to remember what it was that first brought you here and where you imagined it might take you.

The more my mind wandered, the more apparent the truth became.

When I was young, I loved my magic set. I had cards, dice, mirrors, boxes, handkerchiefs and a black plastic magic wand with two white ends. A fairly meagre array of disappointing stocking fillers when taken on face value.

But the real pleasure came from the power these simple objects allowed me to wield. I suddenly had the ability to change perception and convince the unenlightened that I could take shortcuts through reality and conjure up the impossible.

I acknowledge I'm being somewhat over-enthusiastic here, but this is what happens when one drinks rather too much coffee and spends too much time staring at the wall.

A computer gives that same rush of excitement. Whenever something flits across the screen in a computer game or a message from a friend on the other side of the world appears on screen in pseudo-realtime, we gasp in amazement that the impossible has been tamed.

But I was never content with being a member of the unenlightened audience, fickle and ignorant of the secrets hidden in the staggering complexity contained within the beautiful simplicity of an innocuous beige box. I wanted to be the magician, pulling the strings, and controlling the magic.

And so, as I sat on the brink of defeating the wall in a stare-out competition, the truth became clear.

Control.

That's what it was. A computer provides me with a universe in which I am God and everything (in theory) is under my complete control. If something is out of place, I have the power to put it right. If there is a void, I can conjure up something which fills it.

So there we are. Being a computer programmer is like being a Master of the Universe. (I don't know what a psychologist would have to say about that but the perspective definitely boosts my ego.)