Wanderings of the Open Mind (or I Don't Have Any Good Tags For This)

Weak understanding is a poisonous thing.

Whenever I try to discuss a subject with somebody of a different mindset, I come away feeling defeated. Not because I lost or was proven wrong, but because I know I inadequately argued my views, which led to an anticlimactic end to the topic as a mutual act of leaving the tug-of-war rope draped haphazardly over the mud pit.

I often find myself musing over the matter for ages afterward, trying to understand both the argument and the truth of the subject in question. On one hand, there's the constant obstacle of articulation, a shortcoming of my mind to give form to a complex issue outside of my head, no matter how thoroughly understood it may be (or have been thought out in the past) on the inside. But there's more than that. The other hand holds my stripping the issue down, trying to probe it from an assumptionless angle to find why what I always held as true is really the truth and how it might be recognized from the opposing side. Eventually I question the truth of my own beliefs, because I look so long and hard through the other person's lens.

I've always come back to my knowledge of the truth, usually through the help of discussion with peers such as S.Cobbler. When my own grappling with a question leads to uncertainty, a sure course of action is to pose it bluntly to another and get a lecture. I then return to the understanding I had beforehand, reassured and affirmed in my knowledge, which may be deeper or stronger than before.

This path has struck me as somewhat dangerous, perhaps humiliating or revelatory of my own intellectual instability. Any way I cut it, it has a bothersome element to it. But when I look at my comebacks, my ability to perceive the truth in the end when it is re-presented to me, I know the problem isn't my smarts. In fact, I credit no deficiency for my forays into confusion and uncertainty; rather, I blame what is most properly a virtue on my part. In a natural effort to avoid dismissal of the other side, I try to understand why they don't see my point. Empathetically, you could say, I put myself in their shoes because I want them to fit mine.

Virtues can be excessive, and I don't doubt that is to fault when I lose my way in these situations. I become like my opponents, to a point, rejecting what they would reject, following their prerogatives for finding the truth. Yet I know something inside that screams I---they---are missing a key point, but it often takes a friend to uncover it for me at that stage. I never truly stop believing what I held true, but I can't figure it out from the perspective of the other person. That, of course, is why they hold a different opinion, why they fail to grasp my argument, why I cannot make my belief acceptable to them.

I have felt, in a childlike foolishness, that the truth should be visible---to the point of being obvious---to everyone. The fact that one man can see it means others should be just as capable. If the truth is there, logical and understandable, one should recognize it as the truth, right? And yet some people can have the truth staring them in the face and they completely disregard it. Maddening as this is, I must realize it is not my fault. Yes, I could do a better job of explaining things at times, but ultimately the choice is theirs, whether or not to believe anything. It would be machinelike to always follow the path of the most truth. It would mean no free will.

Granted, it stings to find good arguments after the discussion is over. That fuller, renewed grasp of the subject makes me wish I could challenge my opponent anew, to start the debate from the beginning. Whatever tools I was missing before would at the very least let my points be complete and well-defended, so I would not feel that defeat of inadequacy when they remained unconvinced. At most, I could say what I should have said before had my approach or articulation not failed me, squashing the rebuttals that are obviously flawed, putting them down as easily as I should have. Alas, my best arguments are not won in the presence of others, for better or worse.

I'm not dumb. I just tend to lose my grip on my sword because I face my opponents without gloves. Sure, it's a lack of armor; but with gloves I couldn't feel the warmth of their hands when I shake them. The cons: I am more vulnerable and less effective in my duels. The pros: I can be certain that I'm not the "closed-minded" party; I can honestly say "yes" to those who ask if I've ever really stepped back and thought about my beliefs. I have more than they could realize.

Why I'm going to get a PS3

I decided a while back that I wanted my own game console to play if I go live with my brother in Indiana to go to college or anything. I compared the Xbox 360 and the PS3 along with their game libraries and decided the PS3 had more that I'd want, including:

• Current-gen games


• Free internet


• Previous-gen games

The last one, of course, recently changed. I checked out everything I would want on a backwards compatibility list and they were all covered--then realized the list was moot with the new PS3 Slim. That's okay, actually, because buying a PS2 Slim for $100 would guarantee previous-gen playability and ultimately cost less than keeping an Xbox Live subscription anyway.

Now, I've always been a Nintendo fanboy; and like most Nintendo fanboys, I hated when others favored Sony because they had "real games" that weren't just "for kids." The trouble is, those age-old accusations are gaining more and more truth as time wears on. I'm not saying Nintendo needs to make more M-rated games or anything like that, but they're trying a little too hard to assume that there are new gamers whose only way to get into their franchises is through increasingly dumbed-down everything. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't buy into the philosophy that novelty, real or faked, makes games automatically worthwhile by way of graphics (no-brainer), storyline (Spirit Tracks comes to mind) or gameplay (gimmickry comes to mind).

To spare you from my potential to write a thorough analysis of this issue as a ten-page essay (a "proof," as I would say in logic or philosophy), let me use the following videos to point out a simple fact: Sony is on Nintendo's turf, and darn it, they're doing a better job.



Those are two of the games I intend to get. I may get LittleBig Planet while I wait for LBP2. Then there's Joe Danger, the enhanced Exitebike that Nintendo never made, and a nifty action-puzzle game called echochrome. Final Fantasy XIII is obvious, and after SC played and liked the unique RPG Star Ocean (thanks to emulation and translation patching) I figured I'd go for the whole series. I also became attracted to stealth series Metal Gear Solid when I learned about its storyline and had conversations with SC about its drawing on American culture in the reconnaissance war zone. I recently got my hands on the Metal Gear Solid: Essential Collection (containing the series through the PS2) just as the prices for it began the "rare and out of print" ascent, snagging it for $40 instead of the base $30--still a good deal. For the sake of the old Metal Gears 1 & 2 I purchased the special edition of MGS3 from the nerd-run small business at nintendosforsale.com, which was the best bargain I could find at the time. I also possess copies of Chrono Cross and Mega Man Legends, the latter of which I got years ago since my eldest brother left his PS1 and I happened to see the game at GameStop for nine bucks back when they carried PS1 games at all. As per my standards of reliability vs. practicality, the only items above that I own used copies of are MML and the expanded MGS3.

Needless to say, I'm getting a head start on securing the games I want. They don't stick around as long as the systems; although I ought to get my PS2 as soon as I can. So goodbye, Nintendo; you no longer provide what I look for in games with enough consistency for me to stick with you after I move and leave behind the family Nintendo merchandise.

Plays of Plays

Last week I had a creative writing assignment for American literature class. I had to write a short story, a poem, or a play about something American. My mind remained blank up through the deadline for formulating a basic idea; then when my teacher asked us to hand in our concepts I ripped out a sheet of paper and wrote, "Play about a student having to do this assignment. Dialogue about American stuff."

I successfully wrote the play from that single premise. The student struggles to write something with meaning while meeting the assigned requirements, commenting on the general mind of society when it comes to producing individual works.

My classmates thought it was ingenius, mostly because the kid writes a play about a kid who writes a play about a kid writing a play to infinity.

The old computer is back up.

And now it's running Windows XP, which I don't like as well as 2000, with the exception of a handful of programs running inherently faster. At any rate, I now have access to my ideas and ambitions of old, though they are amidst virtual cobwebs now.

***FLASH***
The computer just hallucinated that the shift key was being held constantly. Then it deleted everything I was typing and tried to navigate away from this web page. After logging out, logging back on was impossible. A reboot was necessary to neutralize the threat.


Sooooooooo. This kind of stuff is why I'm going to buy a Macbook. Plus, by the time I get stuff sorted out from the long period of downtime and the randomly corrupting transition to XP, I might as well have waited to get my own computer and hand-pick the stuff I want to transfer, enabling a fresh and uncluttered start. Such would also make it simpler to deal with the programs, etc. I have that are now a version or two behind.

Anyway, it's now at least possible for me to blog should I have the time and mind to, but I can't promise anything as my personal projects are still going to be on hold for the most part. I also apologize for all the stuff that I would have blogged when I couldn't. Some great (and original) material, from jokes to serious rationalizations, never made it here, but the moments have past and the most practical thing I can do now is just let the missed be missed.

On a personal note, my life in general has been in a rut for some time, but there are signs of it finally getting better. I mention this in part because one's psychological state has almost as much affect on blogging as computer issues do. To be honest, I envy the first months of my blog. I desire the state of life I was in then, with freedom and creativity flowing betwixt the banks of responsibility and well-being. I hope to arrive at that stream once more, but the mist from the mountains of college and adulthood change obscures my vision. A lamp dances through the fog, but I never find myself catching its guiding ray. The most solid object is that of a side-road that would bear me off to the detour of a fifth year in high school; and though I choose to walk it, I cannot now discern what the road is made of. It seems to shift as a gaze upon it, and at times I wonder if the distortion results from heat waves that would burn my feet. I'll take the burns if I must, trusting that a cool pond lies somewhere along the path.

(I am sick of American literature.)

Computers are even less predictable than my life.

So, I haven't been able to do ANYTHING blog-wise because the computer inexplicably ceased to connect to any secure sites. Now, all of a sudden, I can access any https AND the parental controls seem to have ceased restricting my browsing (if altogether I dare not explore, but I can get to some sites that aren't really bad but have been blocked for one reason or another -- like brawlsnapshots.com, for one).

Given that my life is too hectic to do any more than write up this little complaint and disprove rumors of my death, I am actually annoyed that it's now even possible to get on with organizing my list of "to-blogs." It's just another distraction at the moment!

Childhood Games

My dad was talking the other day about growing up in his family, and how he sort of gave his older brother a run for his money regarding being the top boy. "However," he said, "when we'd play Batman and Robin, he was always Batman and I was always Robin."

Interesting comparison. When SC and I were kids we'd play spoken text-adventure games, and he was always the narrator and I the player. Forget who knows how to use the Batarang, I had to deal with reverse- deus ex machina.

Dad should have known how nerdy we were back then.

I don't need coffee. I need an elixir.

Most people can jump-start their day with a hot cup of bad-tasting caffeine. If drowsiness were my only problem, I might too.

I only got half a night's sleep in all because of my diabetes. First, my blood sugar was low, then it shot high for no reason, and then it was a bit low and wouldn't come up. On top of that, my continuous glucose monitor started acting up, waking me up every hour for, if not my low sugar, a sensor error.

This morning I got up (late) and was 72. I had some carbs and took a shower. When I got out, I was 201.

So here I am, with a big day of homework ahead of me, tired and with high blood sugar. The most annoying thing right now is that I'm hungry. With high sugar, there is little I can eat without making it worse; I really have to wait for it to come down first.

Coffee? Heck, if being alert would solve everything else, I'd go for it. I don't know how many carbs coffee has, but I doubt it would help my 201. This kind of situation reveals how overrated that black stuff is. I'll drink coffee regularly when someone invents a panacea creamer.

Life Update

I really don't know how to go about this, so I'll just list two major points:

• School
• Main computer is busted

That pretty much sums up why I haven't been able to do a lot lately, which is a leading factor in my lack of blogging. No e-mail, no ROM hacking, no access to my idea files, etc. I'll try to suppress the idealist in me and just start posting as if I didn't have some dozens of things I would like to remember and organize first.

So without further ado....

"The Real Me"

I recently observed an IM conversation my elder brother was having with one of his friends. They were discussing temperaments and which they were. I had never really taken much interest before then in what temperament I was, and I began to get curious. However, my road has since been becoming rather bumpy, and I've had the tendency to get pretty down about life. I realized that it would be unwise to bother looking into my personality and give it a tag, as I'd likely come out with an incorrect, not to mention undesirable, conclusion. That reminded me of what my brother's friend wrote: her secondary temperament was one thing, but she wished it was another. It only now strikes me that, outside of the temperamental study, I have been making the mistake of viewing myself in that manner: "I wish I was."

The bumps in my road have really been my own unwillingness to accept myself. I've always been a bit insecure about my reputation, but for the most part that was the post-relational doubts on behavior and how I came across. My parents have repeatedly assured me throughout life that my friends probably wonder the same things about themselves and not to worry about it. Then, over the past few months, I became aware of the fact that, in my eyes, I'd been letting my life play it's usual routines without bothering to think about a bigger picture and exercise control over where I wanted to go in the long run. From there I fell into a mess of anxiety and depression and began wishing things were different.

Mind you, nothing had really changed; I was just discontented with how things were, how they had become without my paying attention. My temperament, though I didn't think about it in such a specific way, was not ideal. I wanted to be a different person. Not that I disliked my good points, when I looked at them; but it seemed I'd let myself develop without some awareness or drive that I wanted. I think what triggered these pessimistic realizations was meeting someone who made me look at my future, the rest of my life as an adult, which I suddenly could see was approaching way too fast. I must admit, I'm scared of what the future holds, and I don't know where to go. All I know is I can't hide. And I've questioned my ability to go anywhere as who I am. My struggles and faults have hung in front of my face in a paralyzing fashion.

I think back to my philosophy teacher distinguishing between reputation and character: reputation is what people think of you, while character is who you are. And he commented that his reputation is likely much better than his character. I can hear him saying, "If people knew who I really am, they wouldn't stick around me." I'm sure he was referring, in all seriousness, to whatever private issues he has as a fallen human. But I let that thought go too far in relation to myself. Honestly, who would want to have anything to do with me? I doubt anyone who knows me thinks ill of me: I'm always complimented on my smarts and sense of humor; I have a definite gift for making people laugh. Even my recent hardships have not had much bearing on how I relate to other people. Yet my insecurity when I'm alone has increased. "If they only knew the real me..."

But is that actually a truthful assessment? A spy's secret activities are opposite to the appearance he upholds; one life is a complete fake, a cover-up for his true self. That's not how I am. The very fact that I am distressed is an indication that I know what's right and care about it being that way. To judge my private imperfections as my true character would be as foolish as to mistake a current downswing in my outlook on life for my true temperament. My friends probably know a great deal of the real me.

Unfortunately, I expect too much of myself, staking too much on the idea that I can change; then, when things don't improve, I get down on myself. My dad summed up this problem quite well one time when we were talking: he said, "You want to be a saint now." I do, and yet I haven't had enough faith in myself to get anywhere. The best relief I get tends to be not thinking about anything, escaping the world and myself by wasting the days playing video games, working on piano compositions when I know they're going nowhere, or else doing nothing at all. But life won't stay on hold for me like that. I'm growing up, even though I'd really like to do as Hobbes does when life seems too complicated: take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner.

I hope I haven't come off as stewing in self-pity or anything. I've needed to look at myself as I would if I were someone else. I have a rather compassionate and understanding attitude toward others, and provide encouragement where they'll accept it. For some reason, this doesn't hold true for myself, as I'm almost predisposed to blame myself and get depressed. In order to believe in the great possibilities the future holds, I have to run a logical analysis of my situation from an slightly third-person view. I believe things are getting better, but I need to remain optimistic and give my wholehearted trust to God that everything will work out. While it has bothered me that I've seemingly been short-sighted about life, I think it would be best for me right now to not try to look at a much bigger picture.

So I conclude these thoughts. I write them not for your sympathy, but in case you can get something out of them for your own sake in life. May your road's bumps be manageable with God's grace.

Driver's Ed is Psychologically Unhealthy

I'm finally taking a driving course, but so far there have been more horror stories than educational material. I know things really have to be pounded through the skulls of most careless teens, but I'm coming to class to learn how to drive. I've got the proper mindset and logical thinking pattern, so I want to get straight to the instruction part. The teacher, a former fireman, has already given us a number of life-saving tips for various scenarios, many of which aren't taught in the books; he really cares about his students and has repeatedly mentioned that other schools don't really make sure you learn anything. But the advice given thus far has been through recountings of the accidents he dealt with in his previous career. The gruesome consequences of mistakes on the road, the sad reality of everyday crime, etc. It's not like I'm hypersensitive, but I care, and I really don't think it's good for the other facets of my life. I haven't been scared, but sleep comes with difficulty. My schoolwork has repeatedly escaped my concentration. And I've just not felt particularly happy most of the time. Call me a sissy if you want, but I'm more mature than the average teen, and such an overall interference is not how I want to prepare for getting my licence.

OverClocked Remixes

Here I am, sitting at the computer, trying to write a lab report that's due for chemistry class on Tuesday, watching my blood sugar go back up to the high numbers that make it hard to concentrate on anything, lamenting being sick for the past two-thirds of the week, and praying that the stoichiometry stuff I still need to do will be quick and easy since I have driving class for over four hours tomorrow. It's one of those weekends that would be making me panic if it all weren't so dreary and depressing.

To provide a muffler for the noises and distractions all around me, I am listening to a bunch of fan-made remixes of video game music. And when I say "remix" I'm not talking about just rock'n'roll, techno type stuff. I'm referring to amazing arrangements of one or many VG tunes using a variety of instruments and covering a multitude of styles. Piano, trumpets, strings, some spunky stuff... Adventure, peace, fun, sadness... All made by people who do it because they can. The site (and community) that hosts them is OCRemix.org and they are called OC Remixes (big surprise). Many are synthesized; after all, how many people have a real orchestra at their command? The big deal is the quality, so unless you live by yourself and have a very good microphone, you might as well synthesize your piano pieces as well. That way all you require is the good equipment; no need to worry about keeping your breath out of the recording or anything.

So anyway, on top of everything else, I'm again experiencing the desire to make some of my own. Actually, those that I mentioned four posts ago are some. The problem is, I've needed a good program or mixer to produce them. Well, my dad found a certain Magix Music Studio at Half-Price Books for about $25, less than half of the retail $80. It looks like it could do what I need it to, but it doesn't run smoothly on our computers. Wanting to get a laptop anyway, I figured maybe the way to go would be to get a Macbook and run Windows XP on it. Time to get a job, right? But whenever that looked like a good idea, I had too much else I wanted to do.

On the other hand, since I'm making so little progress as a ROM hacker (that SMW site tells hackers all there is to know about SMW, not how to be a SMW hacker), I'm revisiting the possibility. The sooner I start, the sooner I can work my way towards something. I've realized that, while I spend so much time on various interests, there is often a lack of actual productivity in them. The way I see it, if I want to really get into these things, I need to do it with determination, with a passion. As long as I'm only exploring in such areas, I should make sure something else gets some real attention and effort.


By the way, for a good taste of the variety OCRemix has to offer, try searching for "Predetermination," "The Place We Knew," "Flight of Destiny," "Timeless," "Odyssey Beyond the Falls," "Jamming Loneliness," "Darkworld Jazz," and "A Day in the Life of a Gambler." .....Just to name a few ; ) --though if you're into rock/metal stuff, just click on anything and sooner or later you'll find what you want.

Unintended Birthday Gift

My birthday was two days ago, and it wasn't a big event. I turned old enough to do nonexistent magic outside of the nonexistent wizarding school, and I got an electric razor. Not much to write about. But then there was something that just happened to arrive that day, making it a sort of birthday treat: the continuous blood glucose monitoring system that we've been trying to get for such a long time!

It occurs to me now that I've never brought up my diabetic condition before. So, to provide the necessary information: I was diagnosed with "type 1" diabetes (otherwise known as "juvenile" diabetes, although adults can develop it as well) in 2005, and have since been checking my blood's sugar levels by stabbing my fingers at least six times a day.

The continuous monitor, the Navigator, has a sensor that remains in my flesh and constantly keeps track of my sugar levels, forming line graphs, showing change rates, and alarming when there's too much or too little sugar. This will be great for analyzing trends and making insulin ratio adjustments, as it fills in all of the gaps left when just testing as the need arises. For now, though, I'm happy to be free of so many finger sticks, especially at night when my parents check on me.

Being such new technology, getting insurance to approve of it took a long time, and we lucked out that they consented before the new year. It also seems like a special blessing that this device came on my birthday, and I'm very grateful for it.