The coming storm.

As it turns out, I have behaved admirably since my last blog. I have been writing well, I have kept to a workout schedule, I have remained positive, and I have continued to accomplish what I want in my life. New plans are blossoming, which will soon come to fruit.

The first is my adherence to my plan to take a month long vow of silence. I have planned to take it next Monday, a week from today, on the thirteenth. It will then end on the thirteenth of May. During this time, I have concluded, I will attempt to do nothing except that which furthers my plans. I will work out, eat, write, read, do my assigned schoolwork, and sleep. I will attempt to keep play to a minimum. I am not certain how much of this I can do, but without the influence of the outside world, it will be much easier. I am also allowing myself to speak for purely non-social purposes: participation in classes, basic, necessary communication, and the like. I will still permit myself to use Facebook and the like, but I will not actively work to be social on it.

I have to do this. I am uncertain of why I must do something so extreme, but all that I know is that I have to. Tomorrow, I will be creating a letter to the rest of the world, to be placed on Facebook, to alert them to my intentions. I must attempt to be basic, not flashy, not presumptuous. I will try to tell them what it is that I stand for, what I wish to accomplish. I will try to make them see what it is that I mean.

Recently, my girlfriend called me with a panicked tone. She wished to talk to me, right away. I told her to come down, and she relayed to me that a friend of hers had recently scared her, had revealed that she held depressive thoughts, and my girlfriend was afraid that she might consider killing herself. As she shook, I held her in my arms, and had her tell me about it.

There were many great moments in this conversation, because it was deep and meant, and that is where I excel. I put on a great show, but I consider myself far better when concerned with the real than with the fake. The first moment occurred when I attempted to bring myself into the conversation.

Leaning on each others noses, I told her what it was all about. I told her, that the reason I do everything, that the reason that I write, I live, I exist, is to prevent this. As I told it to her, I cried, because I could not do anything else. This was my statement of purpose, I made it clear to her. The only reason I lived, the only reason I existed, was because I wanted to help people. It was perhaps the strongest moment in my life. Crying as well, she looked up, and told me that I would achieve this, that I would do it. That was pure faith, stronger than any religion, stronger than anything on this earth. This is the stuff that moves planets.

Another moment occurred when I related a story of something that had happened earlier that day. My friends had wanted to play a game of Risk, which I had never played. They set up the board, and I studied the rules. At the end of the game, I won, controlling the entire world. However, I could only complete this victory because of a critical decision I had made, in the middle. I had made truces with many of my friends, around the table, especially one with the player who controlled America, and thus was my choice for strongest, in which I would leave him Asia if I pushed down from Europe, my continent, into Africa. At a critical point, one player controlled part of Africa, but was very weak and ready to be defeated. I had a truce with this player, but I broke it, and killed the player in that turn, taking all of Africa in the process. I honored the deal I had made with America, at the cost of the wrath of the other player. In the next turn, I took South America, and Australia. In the turn after that, I won.

I did what I had to do. I had no regrets, although the player I had betrayed was somewhat angered with me. In the end, because of that decision, I won. If I had not made the decision, I would likely have lost, and if I had made the decision but still lost, then I would have had regrets, and apologized. As it is, I did what I had to do.

I relayed this story to my girlfriend, and then told her, that this was me. In the end, I will always do, exactly what I have to do. I will reach my goals, that is all.

I will be the most famous man in the world.

Later today, I will post the letter, and next week I will say farewell. Then, I will be gone for an entire month.

The storm clouds gather, preparing to strike. The lightning is restless.

Unexpected progress.

I have been the glad bearer of unexpected progress in my life. In my last blog, I mentioned my uncertainty about the status of my girlfriend, and what type of person she was. I was finishing my finals, and I was about to have spring break. I planned to tell the girl my true feelings over this break, and intimate my idea of taking a vow of silence next quarter in order to make more progress in my self perfection.

I am pleased to say that the girl passed the test with flying colors. She is not a mover, but she is perhaps on her way. She understands me, and what I want, in the very least, and she is supportive. This was profound to me, more moving than it should have been. I could barely speak when I made this revelation to her, my heart pounding so much in my chest, and my words quavering when they left my mouth, and tears ready to form. When she told me that she understood, I was struck with a happiness so profound and strong that it should never have happened. Whatever else, I have certainly picked a good woman to serve as my girl.

Also, this break has proven to be especially fruitful in every other way. I got to see old friends, particularly my best friend and fellow mover, and I made great progress in everything. I caught up in television, reading, and other social things, and made it halfway through a re-reading of the berserk manga, which is an excellent work with a great influence on me. Also, I have dedicated much time to writing, and I have maintained a tough work out schedule. Essentially, everything is going right.

That only leaves the future, or the possible vow of silence. The vow, if I do take it, will not be easy. It will be terribly difficult on me, but I will do it because I have to. I need to do it, in order to help recreate the same environment there that I have here.

The problem is people. So many people go through their lives simply wasting time, simply waiting. When you step into a theater, or other crowded area, and you watch the people during a show, there is no emotion on their faces. They are not enjoying the show, they are waiting for a time when they will enjoy it. Thousands of faces, packed into a theater, waiting. It's a strange sight. But then, the same thing happens everyday, to so many people. People move through their lives, simply choosing to be happy, rather than being good. The movers, the people like me and the friends that I appreciate, these are the people that do not enjoy enjoyment for its sake, but rather enjoy the good for enjoyment's sake.

And when you put me in a group of people that are simply waiting, it's easy to join them. The power of the mob is not to be overlooked. All the friends, all the people that I know, all these people help slow me down, by making me enjoy life. But happiness is not everything. I don't need to be happy. Happy is not enough.

This is why I want to take the vow. By severing my connection with these people, communication, I can retain my identity and go back to doing what makes me fulfilled rather than happy. It will be hard, because I want to be like these people, and I enjoy being like them, even though I know that it is pitiful and weak.

Very shortly, I will be returning to school for the new semester. New classes, new people, and everything in between. More things to avoid when I take the vow. But I'm going to do it, because I have to, because there are better things in the world than what we already have.

However, there is another thing on my mind. When I look back at all the things that have happened, I am surprised by the progress I have already made, despite all my failures. I have failed to do many a thing, failed to uphold convictions, aced just as weak as others, and enjoyed it every bit as much, but despite all this, I am far better than many of the people that I know. It is strange, when I hear that ordinary people, people that I know and consider decent people, do such stupid things as drop out of college, as decide to flip burgers rather than continue their education. This scares me, but also reminds me of my superiority. I would enjoy this, except that it is undeserved praise.

I would enjoy my success if it was deserved. I am scared by the world out there, so weak and strange. I do not know how it functions.

Acceleration.

Things have taken their natural course. The good friend who I became intimate with is now my girlfriend. How do I feel about it? Well, somewhat more sure than last time.

Since we have officially started this relationship, true to my word, I have been pushing things, testing her. I have been trying to find her limits. She is not the most attractive woman in the world, if she has an excellent personality. However, there are still limits to how awesome her personality truly is. When I imply that I like another girl that she knows more than her, she becomes somewhat angry and very jealous, and while this is the only limit I have found so far, I am certain that there are others.

Of course, there is much that is right with her as well. She and I enjoy similar sexual antics, and when we are in public we both enjoy playfully insulting each other. She is also somewhat open about the power in the relationship, she understands that there must be give and take, and allows me many liberties in exchange for the freedom I give her. All in all, there is one bottom line. She makes me extremely happy. That is the most important part.

But it's also a problem. I can't afford to be happy. I do not mean to claim to be a depressed man, or anyone else who has mysteriously reversed their ideas of pleasure and pain, but I simply do not perform well when happy. When I become happy, I assume everything is right with the world, and do not strive for higher things. When I am dissatisfied with my life, then I can make actions to improve myself. However, improvement is a constant thing, and therefore I can hardly afford to allow myself to have any free time in there, much like what I am doing now.

I'm not sure what to do. On one hand, I am happy, but on the other I am doing what is best for myself in the long run. And to add more weight to the decision, choosing the long run may alienate this girl, preventing her from wanting to return to me later on when I may truly want her.

One of the big problems is something that I have been planning for some time now, that is, to take a month long vow of silence in the next quarter, so as to have time for introspection and much more work on self-improvement. This would be a great wedge in the relationship, no matter how I look at it. Even if we agreed to postpone our relationship for a month, there is no guarantee that I would return as the same person that she likes.

As I consider this, the winter quarter here is coming to a close. As I look back, I didn't get much done this quarter. I didn't produce anything, didn't make anything worth any value. Even now, when I am busy with finals and final papers, there is so much more time I could be using for writing, that I am wasting on video games and excessive napping.

Whatever I choose, it is going to go down very soon, after my spring break. It is then that I will have to decide how to proceed, and will have to find out how reality reacts to my decisions. It will be tough.

Spin.

The world moves faster and faster.

One of the new friends that I have recently made has become very close to me. This weekend, the two of us became very intimate one night. I greatly enjoyed it. The only real question is, how do I feel about it? I'm not sure.

When I think about it, she is an attractive girl. A bit ordinary in her beauty, but with an excellent personality and attractive nonetheless. By all accounts, I should be fully enjoying this. The only damper to that would probably be the girl that I fell in love with first, who is not in my life at all right now. The thing is that the first is rarely in my life anymore, and it is hard to love someone who is not in your life, and that even then, I am a being perfectly capable of understanding that I can love multiple people at once, there is no barrier. I would be perfectly capable of loving both of these women at once. The only problem is, I'm not sure if I love either.

Sex is a wondrous thing. It brings pleasure, and it unites people. It is perhaps the most profound physical action that we have. Yet, for all that it is, physical action is not tantamount, is not important, so by a strange extension, neither really is sex. I believe that I'm coming to realize that sex means very little to me.

I think I am an asexual being. I am not sure how I have come to this, but it is the only thing that seems right. Sex has never meant much to me, and now that I grow ever closer to it, I don't think it will when I get it. I think that there are many more things out there in the world than simply sex, and I have very little time for the little things of the world. Where then, does that leave me in my new relationship?

Physical intimacy is nothing to me. I've had it with many people. Mental intimacy, on the other hand, is much harder for me to ever give up. I've done it with a total of three people in my life. One was much like me, but did not seem to realize it. Another was much like me, and has become my best friend. The third was not like me at all, and when I betrayed myself to her she did not understand what it was, and to this day I believe that she is frightened of me. I do not have a very good track record. Usually when I do these kinds of things, I end up hurt. But I think that I will do it again.

I think that I will try to go further, I will try to push this further, I will try to push my limits. I will let this girl see me for who I am, and if it tears us apart then so be it. Maybe I have something, but it certainly isn't simply sex. We shall see.

Impasse.

I have reached an interesting point in my life.

When you go to a theater, or a crowded area, or some sort of show, you should take a look around you while the performance is going on. Every person in the audience has the same look, a blank stare, as if they are waiting for something, passing their time. I despise this look. This look contains no intellect, no idea. This look is the look of the herd, of the sheep, of the cows led to the slaughter. This is the look of abject and pure selflessness, to be totally absorbed in another. This should not exist.

But worse is when this look does not simply stay in the theater. Worse are the people who look like this and act like this all the time. They wander aimlessly, waiting to be led. It is subtle, and harder to notice, but the same look can be seen. These people have no concept of self, no will to be. Naturally then, I do not like to interact with these people. It is like the way noblemen would not look upon their servants and peasants. In some ways, they were justified, because no peasant picked up a knife and stabbed his nobleman for not looking at him. The peasant made no effort to change things. He may have claimed to reject it, but he enjoyed being exploited and led.

You can imagine my disappointment to discover this look in several of my friends. I knew it already, although I could not put my finger on it. Of my seven friends, only roughly three ever propose things for us to do. The rest simply follow aimlessly, not bothering to think for themselves. I do not like this. But I am glad, because something special has happened.

I have made another set of friends. This is not a set of friends to be led, but a set to lead. These friends are active, rather than passive, and they are the kind of people I enjoy being around. In the short time that I have been friends with these people, I have opened up more to them than to the rest of my friends combined. This is a wonderful development. My life is taking turns upwards.

Other than this, my life has been much the same as it always has. I have endured the usual amount of stupidity and arrogance, and everything in between. The only thing that is missing is the girl that I am enamored of. Because of my close relation to my new friends, I have had little time to think of her, and that does not really please me. I must make some effort to reconnect with her, sometime soon. Until then, I am not able to achieve the things I want to achieve.

Until then, I have reached an impasse.

Depression.

My work has slowed down, I cannot write. I am not sure why, but I am taking a break regardless. The ideas still flow, somewhat, but they do not connect. I can't work like this, so I am playing like this. School has gotten a bit tougher for the moment as well. Recently my work load has been much higher, and with keeping fit, reading, and typing papers, mandatory things with my friends, and the like, I have had little time.

One thing that has annoyed me recently is my philosophy class. While anyone who has read any of this before will know that I have a dislike for my philosophy teacher, I really cannot stress enough that she is rather unintelligent, and terrible at teaching. She praises idiocy and intelligence alike, because she cannot tell the difference, and her style of teaching is generally more harmful to learning than it is helpful.

One problem that she has brought up often, is that of the experience machine. The experience machine is a hypothetical version of our favorite sci-fi movie, The Matrix, in which we are allowed to enter a virtual reality of our choosing. We are supposed to determine whether or not we would go in, and if we do, what we would make our new reality like, if we are free to do anything.

Now, of course this is an interesting idea. However, the responses I have heard are hideous. People have said that they will not go in for the most part, although everyone has their own reasons, and they have demonstrated varying degrees of intelligence. However, my problem is in the hypothetical situation in which you do go in, in which you are supposed to choose how you would change your world.

Before I criticize, let me put forth my views. Firstly, it does not matter whether or not I go into the experience machine or not. I have talked about this in a previous blog, but the reasoning for this is that humanity exists in the brain somewhat A priori, that is, that each person exists in their own mind, and changing their circumstances will hardly change their life. To put yourself into a machine that only changes circumstances, then, is useless. Whether or not I go into the machine, my level of happiness will remain somewhat unchanged, when I adapt to my new conditions. If I was unhappy as a poor man, and went in and became a rich man, I would find that I would be no more happy than before. The want of money I had as a poor man could not be satisfied by money, it was a character defect that meant that I was incomplete, and would thus be happy regardless of whether I had the money or not, and I only blamed it on the money because I would be afraid to change.

When asked about what I would change if I was going in, I said "nothing." Nothing I can change by instantly remaking the world would be a change for the better. Therefore, this life is somewhat perfect. Why would I want to change? I was shocked by the response that my philosophy teacher gave. "That's so deep!" Deep? Deep means not that something is intelligent, but that you don't understand it, and therefore you are not. There is nothing deep about thinking that this is a wonderful world, and not wanting to leave it, it's as simple as the sun rising. I wanted to choke.

Worse is what some of the "brightest" philosophers in the class, the ones who are majoring in philosophy, have said. There are only a few of them, and they go on and on about how smart that they think themselves to be. However, when asked what one would change if he went in, he simply said a lot of money. What? Even the most base of true philosophers can see that money means nothing for happiness. The responses from the others were equally sickening. A man who cannot read is no different from the man who reads and does not understand.

Another problem in my current life, is that I have become somewhat displeased with my current friends. I wish them no disrespect, but I am different from them, and in many obvious ways. In order to better myself, I must find a way to cast them off, at least partially. I do not wish them harm, I simply wish to improve my life, and I cannot do that with them. They are a simply ordinary group.

Then again, I am hardly extraordinary at the moment. I have no contacts, no way to impress the woman I love, and nothing to my name.

I need to get over this slump, and soon.

I shed this pitiful shell.

Over the past few weeks, I have made marvelous strides in my work. Much less of my time do I spend wasted, and much more of it do I spend working. Sometimes, this is on my novels. Other times, this is on my school work and the like. I do not regret it, there is only one thing I miss.

I have fallen in love, and it is painful, because she is the kind of girl who is not easily caught. She is like a firefly in the night, only beautiful because she is so difficult to catch. And you know, that if you were to put this firefly in a jar, it would die out and its light would vanish. But so beautiful she is! I lay awake at night thinking about her, and it is becoming a problem.

But right now, there is only my work, and that is a problem as well. Perhaps this will be resolved, sooner or later, perhaps I will work up the courage to tell her how I feel, but I do not think it will come soon. Until then, I must keep writing.

I dedicate it all to her. I dedicate all I do to the best in people, the beauty and the power. Hopefully, when judgment day comes, that will be enough. Until then, I must work. I don't even have time to write more here. So I must go.

Goodbye, all.