Dushkin dot org
21
Mar '07

The Perils of Organization

— dushkin
@20:18

Tenth grade was the worst two years (edit: yes, two years) of my life. It completely alienated me from others, and made me consider suicide. Which I never actually committed, evidently, I’m here blogging myself to death. Ta-da.

Organization is not a learned “skill.” It’s not a “skill” to begin with. It’s about spending time dealing with bureaucracy and the paper-hell in advance. In my experience, it saves practically no time whatsoever.

Unfortunately, I seem to have this self destructive tendency to work great under pressure. If Dushkin works great under pressure, Dushkin will try to push self to edge, Dushkin will create stress for Dushkin to finish work. In other words, I procrastinate on purpose.

“Know thyself” my ass. It’s obviously self-destructive, and mazochistic. One of my incompatible wishes somewhere down in my id, to only work under pressure.

Organization detached me from the rest of the world. You start reading self improvement books, working on things in pieces, and the next thing you know, there’s a distance between you and the rest of the world and you just can’t do anything about it. A thin membrane will seperate you from your peers, parents, “community” and friends. “Sorry, can’t talk now, I’m busy.”

By decompressing your work, you leave yourself practically no time to do other things which are, probably, more important. When you do have the time, you will realize that your “friends” have already gotten into the habbit of not inviting you to social gatherings (of whatever nature.)

Reversing the situation is theoretically impossible. For instance, my birthday “party.” I invited various people, out of which two people came, and one uninvited guest, another one arrived an hour and a half late and insisted on leavingbecome midnight for a total of about 1 hour of actually doing anything. The other three decided it’ll be a great idea to go smoke pot, although I made it very clear that I have no interest in it. The whole thing ended at around 11:40 pm.

I timed it, phoned all the parties that needed to be phoned, passed emails around, begged, and wrote everything down. When it came to the practical stage, nothing went as planned.

It crossed a certain line when I began planning social interaction and trying to make sense of my world using the calendar. After two very long phone calls with BlueCoffee, I finally began to snap out of this organization-overdrive.

There is, I would say, no correlation between organization and saving time. Some of us just work slower, some are less able to isolate themselves from their environment.

It basically became very clear to me what I really wanted to do with myself and how to stop this organization madness. Unfortunately, without it, my grades are starting to slip. I might be a “better person”. I do find myself facing my incompatible wishes and slowly my super-ego dissolving and making less descisions. The former view, which accepted self-help books, now rejects standards, ideas, laws and roles and substitutes it with something else.

At the same time, I can’t convince myself of all sorts of things. The result of less self discipline. I also find it much harder to read, listen to records all the way through and stick to a single task.

My advice, don’t “get organized”! Your superiors are going to go nuts, but at least you don’t sell yourself to the whole bureaucracy.

Actually, I’m quite sick of organization. All I really want is just to run around aimlessly in grassy meadows and not think about anything. Society is all about normalization. Not very pleasant.

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04
Nov '06

Inviting Yourself Doesn’t Work

— dushkin
@0:12

A rumor found its way to me, that my neighbor is using the house this weekend for a party. Now of course I’m interested in coming. Who wouldn’t mind, when your neighbor is a blond in the earlier years of her life, and a couple of centimeters shorter than you.

In the past I was pretty mean to my neighbors. I had mentioned earlier that I do not regret it, and yet, now I feel as if I might be regretting doing so, and yet, I still don’t regret it.

Why? Well, at the time, it was a perfectly valid judgement. My logic had no apparent, perceivable flaws, no apparent design faults. It was a smooth elegant plan, justified for its purpose and cause. True. It might have been somewhat stirring, and possibly immoral, but it worked. It worked and fulfilled its purpose down to the last goal. It was, in the scope of the problem in itself, reasonable.

Why might I be regretting it? Possibly due to, first of all, ruining the fun. She probably had a good talk with her mother, evidently - no parties in months. Every now and then, some friends might come over, but there was no more smoking in the hallway, no more yelling and no more doors opening and closing for every group of four noisy teens wanting to get a few puffs of their cigarettes. But then again, she was now being restricted. Who am I to tell her what to do, that’s one thing, but I don’t want to chop her wings off.

I was informed at around 6:00 PM that day, the party had started about three hours afterwards. During those three hours, I went around the house in a daze considering whether I should go or not.

She sure didn’t like me, I thought. After what I’ve done to her, putting the gag on her parties. Trying would be superfluous, unneeded, and unwelcome

My social transformation. I can’t stop it, just yet. I’m filling out the percentages slowly, but with great certainty, and might just reach the (mostly undefinable) goal of gaining a “place within the social structure.” Stopping now would be pointless. It was just the beginning. It’s like a pet. Even if you do feel like killing it, you’re not going to be able to get yourself to, instead, you’ll just wait for it to die on its own, so you don’t have to feel guilty for terminating the poor creature. Not making an attempt was in fact, not an option.

Just to be sure, I put about eight Bacardi Breezer, my favorite “alcohol soft-drink” (I guess you could put it that way) as of today, inside a supermarket bag. It would be harder to refuse when you’re brining something over.

I put on my newly baught cologne which I’d realized after a while that I simply put too much of, since my eyes began to sore slightly, but I sure did smell good. I got out o the house, and went towards the next door.

For a minute, I was just standing in front of the door, considering, until I heard, all of a sudden, the bell ringing.

Similarly to apartment where I live, you can’t tell the front door from the apartment’s door. It’s the same ring. Same sound. No difference.

She heard the doorbell. So did I, which meant that I could do one of two things, either I’ll just get a sudden burst of sheepishness and run away, or, just use it as a sort of a way to combat that problem - a catalyst analogous to someone putting a hand on your shoulder when you’re about to do something stupid enough to get you in prison. I chose the latter.

She ran to the door in heavy steps in those loud shoes that she wore, and opened the door. I didn’t recognize her, mostly because I never had a good look at her face.. There I was, standing in front of her.

“Hi. Would it be alright if I joined, I’m your next door neighbor,” I started, “I brought some drinks too, and got some more at home, I mean..”

She wore a black dress of some interesting semi-formal design, of some material resambling velvet, and at the same time simple cotton. Smooth hair, unnatural blond as far as I could tell, perfectly combed with a little white line, revealing her scalp, on the left side of her head. Interestingly revealing the dress was, and more interesting was why she wore it, but it sure wasn’t because her breast was exceptionally interesting - below average, nothing interesting enough to show in a display case. Not a work of art, but she just had it. Imperfect in a good old human way.

“Well, you see. It’s only for close friends.” Her accent was unmistakably foreign, but she was exceptionally good for a second language. It was that common universal American-like accent.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s just for my close friends…”

She knew how to come up with excuses on the fly. But she was good at it, good enough to make me understand that she just won’t let me join, and pressure won’t help. The least I could do, was be nice to her. “By the way, happy birthday. October 23rd, right?”

“Right. You too,” she smiled, “I heard you had yours not so long ago too.” And indeed, my birthday was two weeks ago, four days before hers. She didn’t hate me.

“The next time you’re having a party or something don’t hesitate to invite me over, I’m really bored out of my mind on weekends, usually, and I’d be happy if you had invited me to one of your parties, you know.” Squeezing the last couple of drops before you throw something in the bin is always a good idea.

She gave me a general interjection, as if to agree, substituting a nod.

“Goodbye, then.” I said and started going towards my door, keys in one hand, supermarket bag in the other.

“Bye.” She said and slammed the door, exactly the way I was used to hear in my bedroom.

Rejection.

I believed her, and at the same time didn’t want to believe her. I’d much rather to think of her as a bitch than to think of myself as a loser.

Even if she did do it on purpose, I can’t blame her, you know what.

The only question is what excuse to use next.

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20
Oct '06

Nice Drawings, Bad Story

— dushkin
@15:12

Recently I’ve been chain-watching (like chain-smoking, only watching stuff instead of smoking) Chobits recently, and as an analytical person, realized the obvious flaws of the weak storyline.

There’s no point of you reading this if you haven’t watched/read Chobits, but be assured that it contains no spoilers.

The problem is simple. I haven’t actually watched the last couple of episodes. At first sight it might seem that protagonist being Motosuwa has a conflict - Yumi vs. Chii. There’s an obvious focus problem, since Chii is the character the reader is meant to focus on and empathize with. However Motosuwa gets that title instead.

Chii is pretty, carnal (due to limited knowledge about the social structure), ignorant, and absolutely subservient, not to mention that a relationship with her would be socially unacceptable within the scope of Chobits. On the other hand, Yumi, the real girl, thinks for herself (and demonstrates she can do just that), knows how to behave within the social structure and recognizes the fact that people tend to “go the wrong way” with Persocoms.

The audience simply empathizes with Yumi and Motosuwa, since they’re both going through something - Motosuwa’s frequent soliloquies, which every now and then are simply a cover up for something else that he means to say, but instead says in a different way and Yumi’s sudden sadness when someone talks about a persocom. Chii hardly reveals any feelings besides an occasional suggestion towards Motosuwa and maybe Asimov’s robot law. Chii is just a part of the background, I can’t relate nor empathize with her.

Nice drawings can’t cover up for a bad storyline.

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