Useless
2023-10-02   dejbug.github.io

Useless

Don't know why, don't know if it'd make any difference if I did know why, but I just can't get myself to look at all this paperwork I have. labs.la:utexas I don't want to touch it. I neither wish to feel nor smell the paper. I don't want to read the language. This instrument of bureaucrats. Every year the same routine. Every year nothing whatsoever changes. An unwelcome reminder that I live on borrowed time. sep
All my hanging around. All your cutting down to size. — DM yt
the kindness
of strangers

Tonight

I need to fill it out tonight. deutsche-rentenversicherung.de I need to walk it over to the Landratsamt and throw it in the mailbox there. odw So there is a chance they'll be looking at it in the morning. The deadline is the end of the month. That's how long I have avoided doing it. When all they really need to know is that nothing's changed. When all they really have to do is click a button. But this paperwork is the air we breathe, the substrate of the world we share, the way we know that we exist. wiki There is no way around it. wiki Welfare propagates at the speed of paperwork. Progress equals paperwork squared.
Lead me into your darkness
When this world is trying it's hardest
To leave me unimpressed
— DM "One Caress"

Future

I get glimpses now and then of a parallel universe, an alternate reality, a quantum tunnel out of here. Again there was a stranger's WhatsApp message. A recruiter or someone pretending to be one, reaching out to me. It did make me feel a bit more optimistic for a minute. I don't know where they're getting my number from. It's flattering. This tiny bit of effort that they've made. wiki To pull me back. To make me part of something greater than myself. wiki

Merology

For some reason they even knew that I'm incapable of grinding out a full-time job and had made sure to mention the possibility of a part-time gig. I like it. It almost made me write them back. But I'm hopeless; and I'm devoid of hope. I will not waste their time nor mine. The only thing that keeps me going is that I am free to give it all up on a whim. That nothing, nobody depends on me. It's called falling asleep because you have to give it all up. All the things you'd rather do. All those interesting thoughts. Giving it all up means giving yourself up. sep Pretending that I won't wake up is the only way that I can get a full night's worth of rest. Pretending that not waking up on time won't matter because nothing ever again will.

Irony

The more I hassle to be punctual, the less punctual I end up being.

Integrity

These are the times when I must set up shop in bed, doing nothing in particular, just breathing, just staring at the backside of my lids. nccih.nih.gov Feeling half-forgotten. This last part is important. If I'd keep thinking of deadlines I just wouldn't be able to relax. goodreads.com I might be lying down but I'd be wasting energy. In any case, you can't write a CV entirely with filler phrases. Stuffing needs something to stuff. There's no chance that anyone would hire someone just for showing up. This is not how I assume the world to function.

Yore

Used to be if you could read and write you're hired. We've come a long way. Unemployment is a good thing, then. A consequence of progress.

Occupation

MDD has cut a huge swath out of my allotted time on planet Erp farscape:fandom. Coding wiki and, to a lesser extent, chess wiki were two of the three obsessions that kept me hoping to wake up again each night. Which reminds me that I need to prepare an opening for tomorrow's match; the second round of our club's championship is nigh. (Update: I prevailed in a hard-fought struggle against a lower-rated opponent. Missing an early winning one-move tactic but holding on until he overlooked my game-ending pawn move. Despite the outcome, I believe we both played this one well.)

Commitment

I used to think that all this procrastination was just the final form of an adolescent fear of commitment. Today I think it's something else entirely. It's some sort of disconnect, of course. Like sitting in the front row of the theater. Proper immersion requires a certain distance to the fantasy. yt Try watching your favorite movie scenes without the soundtrack. Try watching it dubbed into German. (Or try Italian if you happen to be German.) It's the sound that sets the mood. That tells you how to feel about those faces, walls, and spaces. It is the invisible that animates the visible. Listen closely, for you are at the threshold of religion here. Faith, otherwise known as the suspension of disbelief.
Will I always be here? — DM "In Your Room"

Design

The storyteller's technique supports the emergent fantasy only insofar as it fails to draw attention to itself. wiki If the world were intelligently designed, everywhere you looked would only God be shining through. gh
Das System ist das Problem. — HGich.T yt

Devolution

Why is playing chess so difficult? wiki Because we can't evaluate a future we don't see. Because if we could imagine perfectly, why would we ever try to find a mate? Were not the most successful propagators of our species the ones who needed to surround themselves with what they felt to be desirable? Objects of beauty. Eidetic crutches. labs.la:utexas Because if closing our eyes would fail extinguishing the light fantastic, how could we ever fall asleep? And is death not just another way of saying psychological exhaustion? Listen to this:
Psychical contagion: The transference of disease ... by mere force of example. — Webster
By mere force of an example. Brilliant! Dictionary writers once used to be philosophers.

Night

It's 2 am. If I fill the forms out now I'll be outside during witching hour. wiki I would like that very much. It would imbue this routine administrative paperwork with a certain aura of whatever the opposite of mind-numbingly boring is. But I am so tired. And my bowels feel as if they've knotted themselves up. Tiamat is restless. Let's waste one more day. Just one more day? I'm sounding like a dying man, begging for more time.
I can almost lay my hands upon / The warm glow that lingers on — DM "Higher Love"

Sirs

Sir. Her Maty fynding that the lawes of the realm do not cary severity enough to represse the insolency of all sortes of fellows, the number wherof by such meanes doth daily increase, yt hath pleased her of late to devise that such offendors, being repryved from execution, shalbe bestowed in her gallyes, wherof one is already built, and more are meant to be built; the use of which kind of punishment will both terrify ill disposed persons from offending, and make thos that shall hazard them selves to offend in some sorte proffitable to the common wealthe. — ia
I've been browsing the archive and chanced upon this book. I opened it up randomly and this is what I read. Her Majesty the Queen of England. First "Maty" of the Ship of State. wiki Timber me a-shiver. wiki
Hand me my sentence, I'll show no repentance
— DM "Condemnation"

Tendentious

A galley was a type of ship which relied mostly on oars for propulsion... — wiki
A fantasy is a type of virus which relies mostly on ears for reproduction.

Future #2

Had to renew my Letsencrypt certificates this morning. letsencrypt It's been a couple months since I've leased a bit of dedicated server time for cheap. Other things have happened and I've already half-forgotten everything I'd learned while setting it all up from scratch. I need to write things down. Tutorials for future selves.

Precipitous

Priapus is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. — wiki
Let's fighting, love! — DVDA yt