Hm, that sounds like a line out of a psychology book, now you have the impression that I know what I'm talking about, how about "the child in you"?

Well, the premise of this theme is that growing up is a very split and incoherent process. In fact, I would say that there is probably noone alive fully "grown up", we all mature in certain aspects, while we remain child-like in others. But today I'm not out to establish some grand theorem, this is a simple and possibly identifiable entry. The essay question follows. In what way(s) are you still a child? The answer is probably in more ways than I realize.

But to start off with something that [literally] craves attention.. I don't know if this is true for everyone, but when I was a kid, I was really desperate for attention. "Look mom, I can climb this tree." "Look mom, I can do a trick." And so on and so forth, it would never end. Parents are not easily impressed by what kids do, anything else would be strange. But kids look up to parents and they want to establish some authority of their own, they want recognition. Most of all, I wanted someone to willingly watch stuff that I did that I thought was really impressive. :D Well, times have changed a bit, I no longer try to impress all the time, but I do still have that instinct of seeking attention for something that to me merits attention. If something happens to me, good or bad, I want to tell someone about it. If I hear a good story, I want to repeat it to someone. I don't like repeating myself, so I would like to tell one person and that's it, but I enjoy the notion of having something exciting to tell. It often just gets piled on whomever is in the line of fire, whether I'm with someone or I meet someone.. then there's always im/email to fall back on. :D It isn't just telling stories though, I'm the same way with sharing something I think is really cool, be it a book, music, comedy, software, whatever. I get excited about introducing someone to something new, something really great.

I got my first bike when I was six and I adored riding my bike. For many years after that I was still very excited about having a bike, using it all the time. It was pretty much around the time when I realized I had seen just about every inch of Trondheim that I lost interest in my bike. There was nothing else to see, it was all the same. But when I do ride my bike, I ride in pretty much the same way I did when I was 10 or 12. Well, the last 10 years or so I used to be more reckless, I rode down steep hills with unreliable brakes, I rode in traffic without thinking twice about it and so on. Then a few years ago I had an accident, slid on ice and hit my head on the ground, and that made me slow down a bit ever since. There's no way I could have seen it coming though, I thought all the ice had melted, it was under a layer of sand. So I'm excitable, but a bit cautious now. The contrast in Utrecht is noticeable, here *everyone* is on a bike, you have streams of bikes where in Norway you would have a couple of them. But just as I would back home, I stick out when I ride here. I ride over bumps, onto the sidewalk, off the sidewalk, I ride on the pedestrian sidewalk, on the roadway, I ignore traffic lights (but I do pay close attention to traffic), I constantly overtake people, I ride with enthusiasm. It's about having some fun, not merely logistics.

That's two I can think of, what are yours?

I was thinking "how can I visualize my emotional condition over the last month or so". My level of happiness is roughly the inverse of that graph. It's so much easier to be happy about simple things, about the status quo, because life is not bad at all. It's when you start looking ahead to something you would like to achieve that the feelings of anxiety, fear and depression hit you. Me anyway. Wanting more is a calculated risk, if I forget all about what more I could do in life, then I'm safe in my environment. If I start wanting, then inevitably I face the fear of failure. And fearing failure can actually be worse than failing itself, because failing immediately puts it in the past, whereas fear is anxiously expecting the future to unfold in your disfavor, it saps your strength.

It's a Saturday morning. I woke up at 9, it's now 13 and so far today I've done...nothing. Nothing good, nothing bad, I'm not happy, I'm not sad, I don't have to be anywhere, I don't intend on going anywhere, I didn't plan anything for today, it's entirely my "free time". How I loved free time in the past, free time meant doing everything I wanted to do when I couldn't. Nowadays, free time has become polarized. When I don't have free time, I wish I had free time, I have ideas about what I could do with it. When I do have free time, I have no ideas and I basically waste it on nothing. And nothing illustrates that outcome better than the summer. If I do have something planned for the summer, I end up doing that. Otherwise I end up doing nothing. And it's much the same kind of feeling that has filled many summers as I have right now, a feeling of nothing at all.

What happens is that I methodically reject every option open to me. I try to get some work done, half an hour into it I'm bored with it, I have no drive to work. I start a book, I get sick of the book. I watch some tv, I get sick of tv. I run through the bookmarks in my browser, exhaust everything of interest there in 40 minutes. I check my email, nothing new there. I start randomly clicking through my filesystem, hoping to find something interesting, but of course I've seen it all before. And so on and so forth. Instead, I wish there were *something* meaningful that I would like to do right now. It doesn't mean there isn't anything worthwhile to do, there just doesn't *seem* to be anything. It's a problem of being entrenched in my own world, people try to help and suggest things to do, but of course those suggestions sound no more interesting to me than the things I've already conceived and rejected myself. And someone trying hard to sell an idea that isn't actually very good, piling on false enthusiasm, just makes me want to ignore them.

When I was a kid and I got in this situation, sometimes I would ask people for suggestions. Invariably, those suggestions rarely opened my eyes to anything I hadn't thought about before, or they would be variations and combinations of my own ideas, things that were already painfully obvious. What I'm really looking for is new impulses, distractions maybe, to guide me in a direction I hadn't seen before, that I didn't know existed. That's the only way I get interested in doing something.

Is it a necessary part of life to feel emptiness ever so often?

Well, trying to understand the mind is a oxymoron in the first place, granted. But do we ever let that stop us from trying understand ourselves, at least the general patterns which guide us? What seems to be self-contradictory from our point of reference may as well turn out to be perfectly logical from a higher perspective. With that limitation stated up front, the scene is set for this entry.

Do you ever find yourself thinking at opposite ends of the spectrum in cases which really do not seem very different? Most of the time, when facing a significant problem, I don't buy into quick solutions, easy fixes, tweaks. I analyze the situation and draw conclusions which factor in a range of small things that affect it, knowing that no one little thing can tip the scales in the long run. When I'm stuck and I present my reasoning to someone who's eager to help, they will almost always pinpoint the small, simple steps that I could take immediately to lighten the load a little for the time being. Well, I know about them, they are already part of my analysis, I know that they solve nothing in the long term. It's like if you struggle to motivate yourself for a test in high school, it does little good to come up with some solution to get past that one test if you recognize that you still have several years of college ahead and you need some more reliable method of motivation for that. Now you're thinking long term strategy, looking for solutions which will stand the test of time. And most of the time, I do just this, I'm skeptical to solutions which only work this one time. Cynical if you like.

But then the opposite happens sometimes. It is rare, but in some cases I do see a facet of life in terms of one single problem. And for some reason I think if I can get past this issue, if I can conquer this obstacle, suddenly everything will be within reach. As if to say that the first step is the hardest one, then gradually everything becomes easier. And that's completely unrealistic, it's completely incoherent with reality. Whenever I do solve that first problem, inevitably I face the next problem, which is just as challenging. And once that happens once or twice, I do begin to see that my view on this was all wrong. But why do I believe that in the first place? Why do I stray from my realistic approach and buy into a fairy tale? I don't understand why this happens.

Is this some kind of fantasy we have that we want to believe in a fairy tale until reality puts a stop to it and we can no longer convince ourselves that it's true?

• suffering a temporary loss of hearing
• taken hostage for a day with 3 other people whose language you don't speak
• moments before your imminent execution

Perhaps you could help me think of more scenarios in which a game of cards sounds like a wonderful idea? Seriously, in our generation, which grew up with computer games, how could you possibly sell card games to a person? Yeah, I know what you're saying, you spend half the day playing solitaire at work, but that's because you have few [no?] options. I'm not talking about dead time you *have to* kill anyway, I'm talking about free time. Who the hell would play cards in their free time, my god how dull! Invariably, from time to time we are trapped in a situation where there's nothing happening, let's say a rainy night in a tent [/caravan/hotel room/whatever], and playing cards seems to be the only option. But why would you then ignore the sparkling imagination and intellect of the mind as a means to a fulfilling conversation in favor of switching to a mechanical, sleep inducing process? It's like trying to convince people that hand sewn clothes are much better than factory made clothing, and we should thus all sew our own clothes. I'm sure you'll find some romantics even in that area who'll be happy to rain some of their gospel onto you, but would you really take to that approach? I think not.

To top it off, they recently introduced poker on tv as a means of entertainment. As if playing poker yourself wasn't boring enough, now you can relax from all the stress and just sit and watch as someone is doing it for you. Clearly a sign that your bed time is overdue.

Ps. I will give an allowance for bridge. I don't know anything about bridge, I've never played bridge and so it may just be an exception.