Oh my god… not more than 3 minutes ago an earthquake must have taken place near Milan, because everything started oscillating just like on a boat… it never happened before to me, and I must confess I’m still a little shocked, though it was - I think - nothing to be afraid of. I do hope this doesn’t mean somewhere else in north Italy the earthquake has done some damage…
Scene: University, int. day.
A student recklessly running down the stairs.
The audience know from a previous dialogue that said student is hoping to catch the train as soon as he can, to avoid being late at a reharsal he scheduled for 20:30.
The student is on the last step of the stairs when he misplaces his left foot. He manages not to fall but we see him swear. For some seconds, his face is nothing but a mask of pain. He then sits massaging his hurting foot and murmuring words better left unsaid. After a while he stands up, still aching, and he slowly starts to limp to the train.
Scene: Outside the University, ext. day
The camera follows the limping student while he’s looking at the clock: not more than 5 minutes before the train’s departure. The camera rotates 180° and we see from the grimace on his face that the student’s only thought is to catch that train and reach home as soon as he can. It’s an epic journey: the camera turns again wile rising to show the path he has to follow.
Scene: Train platform, ext. day
The student arrives on the platform just in time: he managed to catch the train, but it’s clear he will be late at his reharsal. And unfortunately he’is likely to be late on many, many other occasions… Fade to Black.
I’ll let you guess who the student is… I’ll only tell you I have a sprain ankle, and I won’t be able to walk normally for at least 20 days. More important: I won’t be able to play drums for 20 days. I swear I would run around like crazy if my deambulation wasn’t limited to… well, to jumping around on my right leg (I’ve got no crutches right now).
I know it’s useless, but I’m really, really, really pissed off by this situation. I hope I can get used to it fast, because the next 20 days are going to be a real pain in the ass… :|
At last I managed to install gentoo. Believe me, it was a pain: don’t even think about doing it unless you’re willing to spend hours and hours reading tutorials, manpages, browsing forums like crazy because - of course - nothing ever works as expected ;) However, given the fact that a little challenge was what I was looking for after all, I don’t regret my choice. I even installed a minimal window manager (blackbox for those of you who know what I’m talkin about ;)) and now I can go around telling everyone how cool my gentoobox is (this is basically the reason why a normal person should install Linux, by the way :P).
I can tell you this: if you’re looking for a way to be forced to learn lots of things about linux and PCs in general, installing gentoo is a very good starting point ;)
And now if you will excuse me, I have to emerge LaTeX…
Random thoughts:
The way wee see other people is 50% how they are and 50% what we project on them. We always try to understand, to guess what the other people’s thoughts are. “Does she like me?”, “Will he be happy if I do this?”, “Do they think I’m worth their friendship?”… Of course someone’s thoughts are more important than another’s: maybe your parent’s, some of your teacher’s, your friend’s etc, but in the end it’s not uncommon to be curious about another person’s thoughts and feelings towards us.
The problem is, we rarely approach people withouth a previous conception of what they will think: we use this conception to try to bring the interaction with people in the direction we want. To have an example, think about having to tell your teacher you haven’t studied (I bet this happened at least one time in everyone’s life ;)): you know (or you think you know) she will be disappointed, maybe get angry, so you usually choose to keep a low profile, pretend to be sorry or something like this. But should you think she won’t get angry, you’d keep a different attitude, wouldn’t you?
This really isn’t a problem in itself. The problem is, a lot of times we are mistaken: our analysis of other people’s way of thinking is biased by some condition and finally proves utterly wrong. Sometimes we project our wishes on others, or we think everyone is feeling the way we are feeling: imagine to have just finished listening to a cd you find absolutely awesome. You talk about the cd with a friend and you are somewhat unconsciously sure that he will like it too… but your friend just seems bored, or even tells you he hates that kind of music. It’s quite obvious, from a rational point of view, that everyone’s feelings are different from every other’s: we’re all different people after all. It’s not always easy, though, to understand this concept when our feelings are involved, and we can’t help projecting these feelings on others.
Sometimes we project on other people our fears: when we’re afraid of someone’s judgement we are likely to take everything he says as a negative comment, even if he wasn’t meaning to be critical. This is plainly stupid, of course: we end up being worried when there’s no need to and sometimes this makes us act in meaningless ways.
This is something I have experienced too often. Being conscious of how stupid it is only makes it worse. Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck, caught in a web, unable to change my way of thinking, even if I know I should. Even if I know this way of thinking is just going to make me feel bad.