Incredible as it may seem, the lack of updates on this blog has caused a modest air of discontent among those many, many readers. ;) So I graciously thank you for your interest and hope to entertain you for some time still. :)

Have you ever thought about how bits and pieces of your personality are stacked together involuntarily and just as often incoherently to combine into the person that you are? I'm taking a simplistic approach and attempting to look at the situation in terms of cause and effect. And I limit these considerations to that binary set of operations, taking it to be the full truth with whatever consequences follow. Don't ask yourself why you are who you are, instead examine a specific side of yourself and ask "why is it like this?". I have come to believe that specific personality traits can be simplified into effects of a cause.

I have no illusions nor have I ever had any about being having a competitive drive. And I'm starting to suspect that there is a precise cause for this. Because being competitive, wanting to compete, implies that you believe you can win the competition and become the best. If you continually compete and lose, you will soon realize that there is no good coming from this drive to compete and I think you'll abandon it. But if you win, it encourages you to keep winning. But winning is not empty, winning is very empowering. In fact, winning means different things to different people. If you feel you need to win, then you will take great satisfaction in winning, whereas if you don't need it, you will soon disregard it. Having said that, what does it mean to "need the win"? Although I find it increasingly difficult to argue for it on a logical level, I have a deep conviction that the desire to win is rooted in losing. The more you lose, the more you want to win, need to win.

Winning and losing are simplified concepts which model human behavior, much like a blueprint for a building models the building itself. Through my conditioning, I have been made to believe that time and time again I fail to excel in some things. Over time, failure and success constructs a perception of what we are good at and what we aren't good at. I was made to believe that certainly many things I am not good at. And undeniably "not good" at something implies "not as good as someone else" because that is all it can possibly mean. So the perception of being worse than someone else is, combined with the conviction that the situation is no exception, indeed it's a trend, I think constructs an unfavorable view of the world, ultimately an inferiority complex. What is a complex really? It's a deep rooted conviction that I am not as good as another person or a group of people and no matter what I do, I could never change that. And here I think lies the craving for winning. Having _admitted_ defeat, I yearn for the win in a different arena, one more favorable to me, one where the odds aren't against me. Every loss gives way to a craving for another win.

Now, the problem of an inferiority complex is a dual thing. Because inferiority gives way to superiority. Feeling inferior causes a feeling of superiority in whatever other context you feel comfortable. If you've ever said to yourself "I'll show them", then you know what I mean. As this is so closely tied to a person's self esteem, I can honestly say that I really feel good about myself when I feel superior. That is the only time I am truly in my element. A conviction of superiority need not be ugly, there is a fine line between the lack of confidence and feeling over confident. Superiority does not exclusively (or overwhelmingly for that matter) manifest itself through arrogance and disrespect. It can just as well be maintained quite successfully as a hidden attribute.

But I seem to be losing track of where I'm going with this. The point is that you cannot win without playing. You cannot possibly convince yourself (however much you wish to do so) that you have won when you have not competed. Keep in mind that the question of competition is one lacking concrete criteria. This is your mind, you decide what it takes to win or lose. But you can't possibly cheat yourself, you will always be fair. So wherever I go in life, essentially I compete. It is not a formal contest, the competition is present in my mind only. But whenever I win, I feel good and I feel I can use that win to make up for a loss.

There is another aspect to this. Let's run through the chain. Through winning, I make up for losing. So winning makes me feel good. But losing is still negative so having won sometimes I feel confident enough to admit to a loss, not just to myself but to people. Losing is not embarassing anymore because I still know that I'm really a winner. If you only lose you think of nothing else but if you win, you can stand to lose as well. So essentially, a person who admits defeat is a winner, isn't that something?

Ok, so on Dec 29 I spent about 5h in the "place to be" in Lodz, the new mall going by the name of "Galeria Lodzka" and its almost immediately neighboring movie theatre complex. Not because I'm crazy about shopping or I love malls, but we were bored and there was nothing else to do. Do not go see "Wimbledon" out of boredom either, it stinks. Anyhow, on the following afternoon I'm in a car heading for the opposite side of town as we encountered a giant traffic jam. It turns out a couple of the main arteries in the center of town were blocked by the cops, the whole thing stalled traffic for hours. I heard through word of mouth that it was due to a bomb threat in the abovementioned mall, apparently they had evacuated the place and shut down the immediate neighborhood.

Uhm, guess again. Indeed the streets were blocked but the mall was never evacuated. There was a sizeable police force inside but there was no word of any threat and as much as it was impossible to cross any of the main streets, it was entirely possible to enter the mall and stay there. No word of evacuation, no blocking the exits for people trying to enter, nothing. The cops even shut down the parking lots so the people inside the mall trying to get home had to idle.

As it turned out, the bomb threat was phony, someone inadvertently or perhaps maliciously mistook some pipe for a bomb. The cops even called in a bomb squad for the occasion. It seems the whole caramba lasted a few good hours, from 3pm when the prank was called in, well into the evening at 9 or so. In the meantime, no official announcements were made, no information to the public and the people were largely going on speculation. Even now, a week later, it's still very sketchy and the only story I found on it is but a short paragraph.

http://miasta.gazeta.pl/lodz/1,35153,2471488.html?v=0&f=63

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Btw, why is the vast majority of blogs are kept by "a working single mom of 2"? :wth: Not gonna get politically incorrect on your ass but why *that* demographic? Is it because everyone else has better shit to do? I guess so.. :wallbang:

I had my driving exam today and I knew that with a little luck I could pass it. But I didn't get the best start this morning.. on account of my bio clock being all screwed up, I went to bed early last night, at around midnight. I knew I had to be up at 8 so I was hoping to fall asleep right away but of course that didn't work. :rolleyes: At around 2am, I turn off the computer to try to get some sleep again and maybe at 3-4 I actually did fall asleep. Well at least I won't oversleep cause I got my alarm clock, right? Wrong. It did wake me up at 7.45 but that doesn't help when the alarm clock is in a timezone of its own.. :wallbang: It was actually almost 8.30 and at 8.45 I was supposed to meet my driving instructor to take it for a spin before my test at 9.30. So, of course, no time for breakfast and I get there at around 9.

Slight mishap, all is well, right? Wrong. I just get in the car with my instructor and after 4 minutes I change lanes right before a traffic light. "Okay, good thing you did that now, cause now you're done with that. Everyone should make a mistake right before the test, that way they won't make the same mistake at the test." So we get there and he informs me that I have to go pay a fee to do the test. Thanks for telling me in advance :rolleyes:, I don't carry that kind of cash around and didn't have enough funds in my account to cover it with my credit card. So I look like a dumbass when my instructor covers the fee for me, well no big deal, moving on.

Then comes the exam. Why is it that all these state officials always look roughly the same? Older men, 50ish, black, ragged clothes, compulsive coffee drinkers, a moustache and talk in a way that makes them hard to understand.. Well my guy was quite okay, took an hour's ride with him heading for the airport outside of town. It wasn't too bad, I was in good shape and I thought I did pretty well. Today is cold so I had to keep the ventilation on otherwise the windows would get foggy. Didn't give it much thought so I almost suffocated us when I drove through a long tunnel and forgot to turn the damn thing off.. it didn't seem to bother the guy in the least.. :D Finally I'm right at the end of the hour and I get to an intersection with a car on the right, same exact situation that I messed up on my mock exam earlier this week. So I brake a little late but I stop this time. So after it's over he asks me how I thought it went, not too bad, guess again kiddo, apparently I drove waaaay too far on the left, especially at high speeds, said he was nervous from time to time.. but apart from that it was fine, weee..

So I go back to the place to get the licence and again they want me to pay up. Well I'm still broke so again my instructor covers it, now I look twice as dumb. I *was* gonna transfers some money into my account this morning but since I was so late I never go around to it.

Funny how that happens. All day it seems the universe conspired against me but when it mattered most, I was lucky. I didn't do any howlers on the exam, I did fine (apart from the driving on the left but I would have done that anyway). So when you really need to be lucky, maybe you should wish for bad luck the day before..

5 regular driving lessons, a day and a half of compulsory driving excercise and about 8000 kr later, I'm licenced to kill.. erm.. drive. :party:

Note: I suppose it's about weekly that I feel I'm on the verge of an epiphany and this week is no exception. Here's some more alleged wisdom coming your way.

It dawned on me just now that what everyone wants is for life to be simple. I think all relationships that fail do so because things became or always were too complicated. And isn't that how it goes, when you meet someone and you hit it off, there is something unique about that situation, you're on the same wavelength, you're getting each other, that's simplicity at play.

But then time passes, new things come up and just maybe do you not always see eye to eye. Behavior is not understood, "I can't believe he did that", things are misinterpreted, signals are misunderstood, it gets too complicated. So you wanna straighten it out, get the cards on the table, map out the problem areas and make sure you get what's at stake. You think once you know what the problems are, you can fix them. Maybe so but sometimes you never get there, things are too complicated to be mapped out. The human mind is very complicated, especially so compared to the mind's comparatively modest ability to process information. Things have to be simple, otherwise the mind does not follow. And if there are too many complications, I just want to cut through it and start over. Sometimes there is no way to "talk it through" and map it out because there was never enough understanding to unite on the differences no matter the effort applied. One gets to a point where no matter what you know the person will never understand what you're saying. And probably vice versa, so what's the point of living like this? It's more harm than good.

Such is life..

Ps. Norway's leading paper (a tabloid) runs a story on how IE is insecure (big news :rolleyes: ). What they neglect to mention is any alternative browser. There is a reference in the article to a past story about computer security, where they among a plethora of references mention Opera (and predictably mention that it's Norwegian). But no mention of the leading browser these days or any mention of Mozilla whatsoever. Yet again, brilliant work, VG.. :wallbang: