Author Topic: Just Give Up?  (Read 2142 times)

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Nation of One

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Re: Just Give Up?
« on: September 15, 2015, 06:35:44 pm »
I read them both right away.  Thanks.  For whatever reason, I do trust your taste.

I'm kind of in Limbo these days.  I guess I am appreciating having access to computers and literature (and coffee and tobacco and fish).  I even just plugged in a ten dollar keyboard into the small notebook pc and have it hooked HDMI adapter to old VGA monitor on the wall to have more of a "desktop" interface.  These are the little things that are actually rather huge things.  I have a deep appreciation for being able to transform the little "book reading device" into a full-fledged dual-booting system that I can spend hours on.

When I use it to read books, I just unplug everything.  Lately the books I have been going through are the kind I read while taking notes and even typing directly (sage or just python code).... but, you know, when I do get around to reading different kinds of literature, like what you suggested above, well, then I just disconnect keyboard, monitor, and mouse, and lay down somewhere.  These machines are my life now.   I have set up a great learning environment.  It's just a matter of remaining interested enough to continue learning at this point.

I know it is a terribly sad world, a swamp of misery in fact.  Do we laugh or cry?  Trust me, this is a rare moment in my life where I am calm and coherent enough to find satisfaction in just trying to go over things I was exposed to 15 years ago.  It never had to be about rising from a maintenance worker to a scientist.  We are human creatures, and it is a shame one would feel that learning for learning's sake is simply "laziness" or "misguided goofing off" just because one is not serving some company or society in general.


I went down to the ocean today.  I have to say, I am relieved to be back in front of the keyboard.  Maybe so much time to myself - computers, math, and literature - makes me more irritable when I am out there "in society".

I can really understand how one would become Hikikomori.  There is so much to study. 

Does studying mathematics offer you any relief to your sorrow?  I know that it actually has a depressing effect if one looks into areas that have absolutely no interest.  It may be quite a rebellious act to study for the sake of studying, learning and deepening understanding as an end in itself rather than as a career-advancing project.

I guess when you are feeling that way, the last thing you want to do is laugh or hear anyone else laughing.  Hmmm ... and yet I heard somewhere that most comedians and comics are deep thinking and basically sad people.

One of the best paragraphs in literature is from Catcher in the Rye.  I must have mentioned it before.

“You’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many men [and women] have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.” ~ Salinger




By the way, is Srinivasa Ramanujan at all celebrated in India?  I find his life to be inspiring since he was so autodidactic.  Is it true that malnutrition contributed to his demise?  I was warned a long time ago by someone not to become too engrossed in higher mathematics since it could lead to starvation, and that I best learn a trade.   Oh well, it looks like I'm destined for the madhouse! 

Tonight the irony is thick.  I picked up the keyboard to make typing code more relaxing, and I have been going through the basic and simple PA=LDU decomposition with pencil and paper just to go over the concepts in my mind before coding for higher dimensional matrices.  This has been my pattern for years, that I so much want to understand that I don't care how slowly I have to go over each little step of the process ... and over and over and over again. 

Maybe some more ambitious youth would rather commit suicide than end up enduring an existence such as mine, but once I gave up and pretty much "dropped out of the race", I figure I am still free to go about learning at my own pace.  I don't have to justify it.  In a society such as ours, when so many seem mesmerized by television shows such as "Dancing with the stars"  or other goofy crap where the TV personalities are all worked up over some meaningless bullShit, it feels radically subversive to be hiding away in a little corner studying math and computing for no particular reason whatsoever.

What is it most of all that makes you very sad? 

I myself am extremely moody.  I don't even really talk to anyone on the telephone anymore.  I have lost the ability to just shoot the ****.  People aren't really interested in what I think.  Who are old friends anyway?  Do they really know us or do they only know their opinion of us?   I don't want to keep things light and positive!

If I were drinking alcohol, I imagine I would frequently be in bad temper like the Steppenwolf.  Circumstances have forced me to abstain, and I am taking advantage of the clear mind by trying to get my brain to work a little bit.

In the mean time, please do continue to express your honest gripes.  I like to hear your complaints.  I want to know what has you so upset.  I can understand if it is work-related.  The journals i wish to burn are filled with acrimony and resentment against those I had to knock heads with in the work-force.  It's no wonder so many drop out.

Peace.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2015, 11:28:43 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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