Something that’s been bugging me recently. I think a lot of people commonly cover up or ignore parts of their life that they’re not happy with. I think people actively lie to themselves about things. I think people often know one thing, but do another.
I saw a program on television recently about some explorer bloke who managed to get initiated into a remote forest tribe in the West-African country of Gabon. It involved taking some weirdass mind altering drug (read: tree roots) over a few days which made him violently ill and have some horrific hallucinations. He said a consequence of this experience was that he was made to actively confront parts of his life that he’d locked away in the deepest recesses of his mind. By bringing things to a head like this, he was able to realise what he’d done earlier in life. And he concluded he was a better person because he could finally put it behind him.
I think people do this sort of thing all the time. They lie to themselves. They’re unfaithful to themselves. They refuse to accept or admit something about themselves.
My biggest “personality pet peeve” is simple: people who are fake. I think I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I can see through people very easily. As far as possible, I try to keep my judgements of people limited. For example, I won’t judge people on the job they do. Or where they come from or where they live. I don’t care if you’re the Prince of Wales, or the bloke who empties my bins (excuse the stereotype), if you’re a good person, then I don’t have a problem with you. Defining a ‘good person’ is of course a tricky concept, and subjectivity begins to creep in. A good person to me, might be a total chopper to you. And vice versa.
The point being is I will judge you as being a chopper if I can see through you. If you’re trying to be someone you’re not, I’ll probably see it. I might not say anything about it, but I’ll probably see it. People are who they are. People can be who they want to be. But people aren’t who they want to be. And there’s the distinction. If you’re not who you want to be and equally you are who you don’t want to be, then it’s up to you to become the person you ought to be. Don’t pretend to be someone else and don’t ignore what you don’t want to be.
Make the difference. Stop lying to yourself. BE who you want to be.
Easy.
1) How is MT-Blacklist a “web application for weblogs”? It’s a SPAM filter for MovableType (which incidentally is in the same fucking category).
2) Where is Wordpress? By the far the most kickass blog app out there. No question.
3) What a pile. Food blogs? Asia (- middle east) ? Er. Which numpty came up with these godawful categories?
Additionally, as I had a peer through a lot of the blogs listed there, a familiar thought occurred to me again. My god there’s a lot of shit out there on the web. One of the blogs up for a photography award is Dooce.com. I had a quick look. In my eyes? Nothing special. Pictures of her child, her friends, a tree. Usual. Next: ScaryDuck. Up for best tagline: “Not scary. Not a duck.” Comedy genius. Ho-hum. Would I win it for having a site called PurpleSock or EasyFisting or something? But these blogs were getting 3-400 comments a day from people who regularly read them. So fair-do’s. But that either means that I missed the point, or there’s a whole load of people out there who are even more boring than the person who wrote the blog. But hey, that isn’t saying anything. No-one reads this blog. I know that and I’m not bothered by it. I enjoy writing this and it gives me an outlet.
Do I have a point?
I thought I did. I’ve lost it though. Maybe I’ll find it again.
If I wasn’t doing a PhD, I reckon I’d want to be a scaffolder. It looks like fun. Like playing with a giant jigsaw puzzle all day long.
Far be it from me to tell people how to run this country. But I can’t help feeling that Michael Howard is clutching at straws a bit on his immigration plans. I think he’s on the right lines because we need to tighten up our regulation. But having quotas is a shit idea. He claims the current system is unfair and inhumane, and that we need a fairer system. So why has he proposed a first past the post, he who snoozes loses, no more room at the inn type scenario? It’s ridiculous. How is saying “sorry, we’re full up at the moment, come back next year” more humane than the current system? It’s not.
And he’s missed another important point. Immigration from so-called “safe” countries. European Union Schmeuropean Schmunion. We are overrun with foreigners at the moment and it’s got noticeably worse in the last year. But they’re of all nationalities, French, Polish, Russian, Turkish…. and they all have zero respect for our ways, culture, heritage. British people are frequently labelled as being yobs and acting disgracefully overseas, but we’re certainly not the only ones.
It just pisses me off to walk down the street, or go into work, and have to put up with rude and obnoxious foreign people. Rude and obnoxious natives are bad enough, without the added ignomy of being subjected to the arrogance and pestilence of a language and customs barrier.
If it sounds like I have a personal grudge about this, then you’re hearing correctly. Exactly 6 days after I bought my new motorbike, it was vandalised by a drunk Russian. He’d been in my club, he left my club, he saw my bike, he pushed it over. That cost me £150 to put right (about two weeks wages) and this wanker got off scot free. Then there is the issue with the French git and the garage.
If you saw any of the Tsunamia Aid Relifef concert from the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff last night, then you’ll know that Eric Clapton playing the blues was wasted on the largely sub-18 crowd. On top of that, a massive stage in a humongous stadium is not really a suited venue for Eric’s style of blues. The honkytonk stuff, maybe.
The other acts were good though… Feeder, Snow Patrol… even *gasp* the Manics.
And £1.25m raised toward the disaster relief fund. Not too shabby at all!
I don’t know if anyone uses the excellent SpamFighter plugin for OE6 (www.spamfighter.com), It’s freeware or pay a bit for the Pro version.
Trouble is the recover password page of their website doesn’t work in FireFox 1.0. And when I told them this, I got the following response:
Dear Matt
Our website is only build to Internet Explorer..
Best Regards
Brian ChristiansenSPAMfighter ApS
Rovsingsgade 88, 2.
DK-2200 Copenhagen N
Denmark—– Original Message —–
From: Matt Thornton
To: support@spamfighter.com,
Sent: 1/21/2005 12:10:51 PM
Subject: Lost Password pageHi,
Just to let you know that your lost password page doesn’t work in Firefox
1.0. You don’t see the box to enter your email address.Cheers
Matt
You’d have thought that someone offering a product like this would be aware of browser incompatibilities and such like.
Though it’s the council’s fault. Surely they know that putting traffic cones near student pubs is a really stupid thing to do?