Posts in category "Thoughts"

Pressure

I just found out that I failed my last algo­rithms mid-term. It just seems like no mat­ter how hard I try, I always end up fail­ing. It seems so worth­less, all the effort I put into my school­work. Even all my study­ing for my cryp­tog­ra­phy exam will all be for naught.

It piss­es me the fuck off. I feel so angry just think­ing about it. This is my worst term to date. I have a good chance of fail­ing three of my five finals.

Sometimes I feel like I need this. I need to fail com­plete­ly, so I can learn to not do it again. Normally, I need to fail my midterms so that I don’t fail my finals. It cre­ates a pres­sure on me to do well, and the pres­sure works. But this is pres­sure on a much larg­er scale, because it could get me kicked out of the pro­gram.

It feels as if I need this big­ger pres­sure to get on with my life. I real­ly need some kind of change, some kind of inci­dent to hap­pen that can gal­va­nize the sta­t­ic that seems to be con­trol­ling my life.

Oddly enough, I seem to have a back-up plan for every fail­ure pos­si­ble; I can take anoth­er course to make up for fail­ing cryp­tog­ra­phy, I can take algo­rithms at Carleton if I fail it this term, and I can appeal my sec­ond fail­ure of net­work­ing to the dean.

And yet, every­thing feels so hope­less. I think I just need it to hap­pen. So that I can move on. So that there can be change.

So that I can get bet­ter.

Relationships As A Nash Equilbrium

A sub­ject I find dif­fi­cult to express myself about is that of free­dom.

Freedom is a dif­fi­cult thing to under­stand. In a rela­tion­ship, free­dom is always bound­ed by some con­straint imposed when the rela­tion­ship is first made. Yet free­dom is a very gen­er­al state­ment, even if nar­rowed down to the sit­u­a­tion with­in a rela­tion­ship.

The free­dom I wish to speak about is that of depen­dence with­in a rela­tion­ship. Freedom in this case is relat­ed to a sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty.

As a per­son, I find respon­si­bil­i­ties to be detestable. I have always tried to avoid respon­si­bil­i­ties in my life, and I do it well. The only thing that I am respon­si­ble for is myself, a fact that I’ve very will­ing­ly accept­ed, unlike oth­ers that I know.

However, in a rela­tion­ship, I’ve always felt that one should be respon­si­ble for his or her bet­ter half. I’ve always believed that it should be a com­mit­ment when enter­ing such a bond. Yet there is always the sep­a­ra­tion between being respon­si­ble for some­one, and being forced to be with some­one to serve their whim.

As a respon­si­ble per­son, it is one’s job to make sure that one is there if the oth­er needs it. However, this oth­er per­son must under­stand that when­ev­er he or she feels this “need”, he or she should not inter­fere with the free­dom allowed with­in the bound­aries of the rela­tion­ship.

A gener­ic exam­ple may make things clear­er. If a boyfriend want­ed to spend some time at home on the week­end with his girl­friend, but his girl­friend want­ed to go ski­ing for the week­end with her friends, then the male should not hin­der the activ­i­ties of the female, unless he was in dis­tress, or in great need of com­pa­ny. If his demand for her time is too great and con­stant­ly smoth­er­ing oth­er activ­i­ties she wish­es to do, then he is not being a respon­si­ble per­son and respect­ing his part­ners’ wish­es.

It has always seemed like such a self­ish thing to me, to be inor­di­nate­ly demand­ing, or unsat­is­fi­ably clingy. It begins as a form of flat­tery, to be sure, but exces­sive con­straints become a bur­den or strain on the rela­tion­ship. One finds one­self con­stant­ly try­ing to please the oth­er, with­out pre­vail.

I believe that such greed­i­ness stems from inse­cu­ri­ty. When some­one is inse­cure, he or she is scared that his or her part­ner is hav­ing too good a time, and will hence for­get about the rela­tion­ship. Perhaps jeal­ous­ly plays a part in such a vague sub­ject, and serves as a more con­scious man­i­fes­ta­tion of a sub­con­scious feel­ing.

Of course, I am guilty of such self­ish­ness myself at times, though I wish I was­n’t. I feel that I’ve improved, that I can respect the desires of oth­er peo­ple, so that they may be free to do what they wish. Perhaps this is a sign of increased con­fi­dence in my rela­tion­ships, that all I wish is for oth­ers to be hap­py.

A Nash equi­lib­ri­um is a ter­ri­ble thing.

Dynamic

I’ve nev­er shak­en while watch­ing TV before. Yet today I shook, I trem­bled, I bit my nails. A spe­cial was on 31 today called Bushido: The Way of the Warrior. I’ve nev­er been much of a fight­ing fan. Boxing has always bor­ing, pro-wrest­ing isn’t fight­ing at all, and UFC just nev­er appealed to me. For some rea­son though, watch­ing Bushido sucked me in. They had the best match­es I’ve ever seen before, real or fake.

The final title was fought between two large Japanese war­riors, and it was the one that real­ly knocked the wind out of me. The match was extreme­ly close, with one fight­er being small­er than the oth­er. The small­er one took a lot of leg hits in the begin­ning so was injured from the start. This dis­ad­van­tage, as well as his size dif­fer­ence, cost him the match, but not before he pulled off a scream­ing, adren­a­lin rush­ing, sit­ting-on-the-guy’s-ass boston crab and injur­ing him. There was one point where he had the larg­er fight­er by the feet when the larg­er fight­er was bel­ly up on the mat. They were both try­ing to feel each oth­er out, the small­er one look­ing for a sub­mis­sion open­ing, and the larg­er one try­ing to antic­i­pate the direc­tion of the move. The hands of the small­er one were tied up with the leg hold­ing, so his entire head was open to attack from his oppo­nent, which he did. Every time the larg­er guy punched his face, he got psy­ched, and kept shout­ing for more. He man­aged to pull the sub­mis­sion off, but it was reversed and he even­tu­al­ly lost the match.

I always find it inter­est­ing to know that I can feel some­thing dif­fer­ent, that I can react in a way that I haven’t been known to before, that I can shake from a tele­vi­sion pro­gramme. There are always things that I enjoy find­ing out about myself, because it feels like I’m not a sta­t­ic per­son, that there is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of change in me. Sometimes I’m sur­prised at my own con­fi­dence, or even stunned at the cere­bral­i­ty I’ve been able to gain.

If only my heart could change as well.

Stay Away

A few days ago I had a strange feel­ing. The idea that I was a virus stuck in my head. Anything I came in con­tact with became infect­ed.

It just seemed like any­one I’ve become close with has been hurt in some way. It felt as if all my rela­tion­ships always take a turn for the worse, and it’s my fault. I’ll find some tiny, for­giv­able trait, and turn it into a detestable prob­lem. I’ll close off. I’ll hurt some­one.

Sometimes I think that I hurt peo­ple to test my bound­aries, to know how much they care. Perhaps I’m so inse­cure in my rela­tion­ships that I need to be sure about how some­one feels about me.

It’s as if I try to be friends with peo­ple I want to offend, so that they will hurt me back in some way, like Travis Bickle. Perhaps I need to be hurt.

I con­stant­ly feel as if I don’t know how to love. It’s such a fright­en­ing­ly scary idea. I wish I loved more. So many times I believe that I am expe­ri­enc­ing love, only to real­ize that I’m not, that it was just a fleet­ing emo­tion. Perhaps I need to be hurt to know that I can love.

I’ve only tru­ly loved once. Perhaps it was so intense, so pas­sion­ate, that all oth­er emo­tions feel numb in com­par­i­son.

Perhaps I sim­ply don’t know what love is.

I just know that I don’t want to hurt any­more.

The Current State of Lonliness

I’ve real­ized that, for some rea­son, I’m always, con­stant­ly seek­ing the approval of oth­ers. It’s some­thing that’s become a part of me, although I know that I’m able to deal with the times when I can get no approval what­so­ev­er.

I hate this about myself. It feels so damn cheap and shal­low. It can both­er me so much to know that some­one does­n’t like me, or some­thing that I’ve done.

My under­stand­ing of the rea­son why I’m like this is that my pre­vi­ous major rela­tion­ships have all hurt me in the sub­ject of accep­tance. It has affect­ed me so much that it’s some­thing that I can’t get over. I need accep­tance to ful­fill a child­hood void.

I adore praise. My mind accepts it like a vac­u­um. I let it affect me, and I don’t care. It’s some­thing that I need.

When praise leaves me, then I feel like I’m left alone, with no one who can under­stand any­thing that I do. It feels like there’s no accep­tance, like every­one hates my being.

And with this I go to sleep.