Cold, he said, is only the absence of the power of heat, and the active power of expansion in freezing water is an incidental and not an essential part of the nature of cold. The fact is, that the power of expansion in freezing water is really an increase of repulsion amongst its molecules.You are saying that the power of expansion is an essential part of the nature of cold and not merely "an incidental". It makes sense to me. I don't know what I could add to that.
I will have to think about it.
In the meantime, I opened up the Kindle DX and was able to remove the old micro usb port with the desoldering wick and a soldering iron, but there did not seem to be any holes, not even tiny ones, where I could secure the new usb port into. While trying to solder the port to the board, a little solder got into the front of the usb port.
While I am ordering another usb port (they are only nine dollars), I do not think I will be able to repair this. Even when I had gotten it into place, I was not certain it was going to "make a connection" to the board. The only videos on ZooTube are for the Kindle Fire, which shows clearly there are holes where the usb port fits into.
I will have to get my mother another Kindle, this time a newer model (which is actually half of what the old DX model cost.
The only bright side of this technological annoyance is that I am relieved that I am not depending on an eReader for my library. All the books I need for my private studies are hard copies. When the print is small, I use a magnifying glass. I am more determined than ever to never invest in an eReader for myself. I don't have faith in it. What a grand illusion!
That an expensive device is so vulnerable to becoming useless is more than a little disheartening.
I almost think that it cannot be repaired, but I will try one more time.
It is all I can do not to condemn myself as an idiot. I will try not to let this get me too depressed.
I don't think I have the patience required. I might have even had it secured at one point, but it is delicate work. I felt like a baboon.
In fact, in order to make the most of this frustrating encounter with the world of circuit boards, soldering irons, and disposable equipment designed to be replaced rather than repaired and maintained by the user, I am hoping to experience a mental shift where I allow myself to be dumb or confused without becoming too goddamned depressed about it. I don't want to see myself as "smart". That's a fictional narrative that nobody can really live up to.
If I am going to continue to exist, I prefer to exist with no pressure to live up to any ideal image of who I am. I don't care about any self-image. I am a character in a Dostoyevsky novel ... neurotic to the core! The underground man ...
... if only I had a better sense of humor ...
I'd request you to consider the part having to do with freezing water.
To be perfectly honest, Holden, I don't really want to think about it. I'm feeling kind of frustrated just being in my own skin at the moment. I'm going to consider some trigonometric identities and see if I can make some kind of psychological breakthrough where I become more comfortable with the idea of not being a genius. I am not Arthur Schopenhauer. I am a frustrated man pecking away at some basic trigonometry, calculus, and physics.
I get frustrated setting up environments for programming. It is satisfying on some level, but it can also be discouraging at times.
There is a part of me deep down inside that is screaming in a rage. Maybe I am too honest.
The best thing I can do right now is to celebrate the enjoyment I get in taking notes from math textbooks in pencil, writing in script as large as I want to with no dependency on batteries, micro usb charging ports, or expensive universities. I will pretend that I have gone insane ... and that this is the only thing that satisfies this brain in my head.
I do not care about leaving any profound book for the future victims of birth. If they find some notes on foundation mathematics helpful (written in cursive and in pencil), that will be fine, but I do not care about humanity the way Schopenhauer did. He cared about us. He wanted to give us a heads up. If I can offer anything to humanity, all I can give the future is my sympathy and compassion, and an honest record of my daily thoughts about the petty frustrations and anxieties I myself encountered on my trip through.
There is no need for us to act as though we have a handle on our internal wiring.
It is difficult to make any sense of anything. Maybe that's why I take refuge in math or programming books ... so that I can try to use my mental energies to focus on one little thing at a time.
What I experience is most clearly the "sickness" the Underground Man described in Dostoyevsky's tale. Excuse my spelling. I spell the name that way. It's how I pronounce it.
If I could use the term "mental illness" without all the "medicalized baggage" attached to the term, I would. The reason I choose not to use the term mental illness is because, if I were to use that term to describe the discomfort anxiety I feel, that would be like saying there was something particularly "unstable" about me, when, in fact, I know that these feelings must be universal and that every human creature on this planet experiences "mental illness", distress, anxiety, nine out of every ten minutes of their lives, whether they are wide awake or sound asleep. This is the case whether they are a prisoner in a state corrections facility or the warden of that facility, whether they are the gardener at the palace or the "Lord" of the palace.
Mental illness is the norm. What Schopenhauer called "salvation" was simply, in plain honest language, resignation. We resign ourselves to the absurdity of existence and try to get through it as gracefully as we can without going off the deep end. You see, Holden, such honesty is discouraged. Of course, even as I concede that being alive causes mental distress, I have no faith in psychiatry or psychoanalysis to come up with a cure. Alcohol and television for the masses ... religion, sports, entertainment ... and for a smaller segment, a library of textbooks to give the illusion of "making some progress" ...
I am in one of those moods where I want to feel stupid, and in my stupidity I want to become incrementally wiser by small degrees. It is best that I remain isolated. I am fairly calm and laid back when alone. I am far too honest for polite society or gainful employment.