Some years ago, I visited my best friends and while sleeping over there, I had several vivid dreams.
In one of them, I was a child in a highly advanced, peaceful culture that faced total annihilation from a disaster of diluvian dimensions. I did not understand much of it, of course, being (in the dream) only a child. We children - dozens of us - were led to a large metal ship. We were told that there was a secret we would only learn after we were inside the ship and the doors were closed. We were sent through time, and during the fairly long trip we learned our secret. Each of us was given the ability to transform into an animal, chosen for us after our personality. This would make it possible for us to scout the land after we arrived, and find out about the new world we would live in, without being known by the locals.
The ship landed and we scattered in what seemed to be the present time. But when I tried to change into my animal form, which was a porcupine, something went wrong. I got stuck in a halfway form, a human shape with long, protruding spines.
I woke up and I felt that this dream was telling me something important about myself.
(More Frequently Unasked Questions as you continue to not ask...)
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Monday, July 23, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Playing tag with raccoons
This is not something porcupines usually do, mainly out of laziness but officially out of consideration. But being tagged by the thoughtful and artistic Robin of Motel Zero, I'll play along for a bit.
1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.
1) I already told you: Robin Starfish of Motel Zero. Go there, find haiku.
2.1) I have never been in love, never been homesick, never truly missed somebody. There is simply not a human-shaped hole in my soul for anyone to fill. This tends to creep people out. Trust me, it would have been mutual if I had not been used to your ways from an early age. Generally it looks to me like people have been unsuccessfully weaned.
2.2) I can look into people's eyes for any length of time, barring only the need to blink from physical dryness of the eyes. It causes me no pleasure or displeasure.
2.3) I have not been bored since sometime in my teens, except briefly during illness and similar confinement of mind and body both at once. I like to think that I changed on that day when I realized that life does not happen to me - I happen to it. But it could be that my brain simply would have grown out of boredom around that age anyway. I don't know with scientific certainty.
2.4) I am not shy, but I hate to bother people. To the casual observer, these may look the same, since I don't talk to people around me. Because I always have something interesting going on inside my head, I naturally assume that others have too, even when they are not actively doing anything. Yet I don't mind talking to people, alone or in groups, or even speak to crowds, if it is my job to do so.
2.5) My right hand and arm is permanently damaged from typing and mousing too much. It has recovered somewhat over the last few years, but I will likely need to be cautious for the rest of my life. One tool that has helped me is the speech recognition software "Dragon NaturallySpeaking" from Nuance (formerly Scansoft). Ironically, I can only use it for some minutes at a time, because my voice has fallen in disuse after decades of living alone. (At work I only talk briefly, and I can still do this at home too. 5-10 minutes an hour or so.)
2.6) I am not a vegetarian, but I have a natural distaste for eating dead animals. I occasionally do, in small quantities, but most of the time I just find it disgusting. I have been like this since childhood, but it has if anything increased now in my "middle age". I do however consume large quantities of milk. If I believed in reincarnation, I'd think that I was a reincarnated Hindu...
2.7) During my childhood on the farm we had two dogs, one after the other. I do not have pets now, but generally I prefer cats.
2.8) At age 15, I left home to go to high school in another part of Norway. Somewhat on a whim I applied for the language studies rather than maths and science. I never had reason to regret this, because the language study had mostly female students and the other mostly male. My quality of life skyrocketed. As a side effect, I learned English, which I now use more than my mother tongue. And that's how I met you!
3) Already wrote it all.
4) No. See 2.4, "I hate to bother people." Besides, the meme passed this way like 4 days ago. (I am not the fastest snail in the salad, I'm afraid.) So the taggables are already tagged.
That's all folks!
1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.
1) I already told you: Robin Starfish of Motel Zero. Go there, find haiku.
2.1) I have never been in love, never been homesick, never truly missed somebody. There is simply not a human-shaped hole in my soul for anyone to fill. This tends to creep people out. Trust me, it would have been mutual if I had not been used to your ways from an early age. Generally it looks to me like people have been unsuccessfully weaned.
2.2) I can look into people's eyes for any length of time, barring only the need to blink from physical dryness of the eyes. It causes me no pleasure or displeasure.
2.3) I have not been bored since sometime in my teens, except briefly during illness and similar confinement of mind and body both at once. I like to think that I changed on that day when I realized that life does not happen to me - I happen to it. But it could be that my brain simply would have grown out of boredom around that age anyway. I don't know with scientific certainty.
2.4) I am not shy, but I hate to bother people. To the casual observer, these may look the same, since I don't talk to people around me. Because I always have something interesting going on inside my head, I naturally assume that others have too, even when they are not actively doing anything. Yet I don't mind talking to people, alone or in groups, or even speak to crowds, if it is my job to do so.
2.5) My right hand and arm is permanently damaged from typing and mousing too much. It has recovered somewhat over the last few years, but I will likely need to be cautious for the rest of my life. One tool that has helped me is the speech recognition software "Dragon NaturallySpeaking" from Nuance (formerly Scansoft). Ironically, I can only use it for some minutes at a time, because my voice has fallen in disuse after decades of living alone. (At work I only talk briefly, and I can still do this at home too. 5-10 minutes an hour or so.)
2.6) I am not a vegetarian, but I have a natural distaste for eating dead animals. I occasionally do, in small quantities, but most of the time I just find it disgusting. I have been like this since childhood, but it has if anything increased now in my "middle age". I do however consume large quantities of milk. If I believed in reincarnation, I'd think that I was a reincarnated Hindu...
2.7) During my childhood on the farm we had two dogs, one after the other. I do not have pets now, but generally I prefer cats.
2.8) At age 15, I left home to go to high school in another part of Norway. Somewhat on a whim I applied for the language studies rather than maths and science. I never had reason to regret this, because the language study had mostly female students and the other mostly male. My quality of life skyrocketed. As a side effect, I learned English, which I now use more than my mother tongue. And that's how I met you!
3) Already wrote it all.
4) No. See 2.4, "I hate to bother people." Besides, the meme passed this way like 4 days ago. (I am not the fastest snail in the salad, I'm afraid.) So the taggables are already tagged.
That's all folks!
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