This is what I was going to write today before a story happened instead. It’s a topic that has gotten bumped that way at leasy three times, so I figured, what the hell, I wrote the story crazy early in the morning, I can do another blog entry.

But first, the absolutely mandatory Iron Maiden link :

There. Now we can continue.

I’ve been watching a true-crime show (you’d think I would learn) called, misleadingly, Your Worst Nightmare lately. It’s pretty much like most other true-crime shows except that the production values for the reenactments are quite excellent for TV. Well acted, shot on film, good likenesses, and so on.

And yup, I am finding it depressing, like with the Forensic Files. And that is mostly due to the high quality reenactments. They are like made-for-TV horror movies, and knowing that this all happened in the real world is really depressing.

But I am not here to talk about that today. Instead, I want to talk about danger.

Being part horror movie, the episodes have had people in mortal (and fatal) danger at the hands of another human being. And when I watch these things, I feel for the people in danger (hence the depressing) but I don’t identify with them.

I’ve never screamed in fear, I have never seriously though I was going to die, and honestly, I know that I can handle myself quite well in a physical struggle.

And I know this because I was savaged by bullying growing up, and that brought out the savage in me. There is a side of me that sleeps most of the time that is fully capable of meeting violence with violence and which is very confident on that score because it knows that my particularly high voltage mind makes me very dangerous indeed.

I don’t like this side of me, and luckily, the conditions for summoning the demon are almost never met. I am a fairly calm fellow most of the time, anxieties aside, and in control of myself. The sorts of situations that bring that side to the fore are exceedingly rare in the lives of the average citizen. I doubt they will occur in my lifetime.

But that doesn’t make the beast go away. And it doesn’t go away for a very simple reason :

I need it.

Phew, that was not easy to confess. I feel a little dizzy now.

But yes, I need that savage side in order to feel safe. I know that, at least in extreme situations, that my brute side will come out and I will be able to fight off the enemy and emerge victorious from any battle.

Or if not, I will at least make the enemy regret having fucked with the wrong guy.

So while I don’t like my savage side, and it doesn’t fit in at all with the sort of person I want to see myself as, there is no point in disapproving of it any more. To do so would be downright disingenuous, if not outright hypocritical.

I need my monster. And he needs me.

I’ve never been physically afraid of people. They’re just people, after all. Even as a little kid, I couldn’t see why people on TV would get all freaked out and scream just because some idiot with a knife and a mask pops up. It’s just a person! Pick up something heavy and/or jagged and defend yourself!

Perhaps that says something deep about just how disconnected from mainstream humanity I am. Or perhaps it is merely the arrogance of someone who has never fought for his very life.

But I do know this : I mourn the humanity and civilization I lost when the beast was forced into life by circumstance. I know deep down in my gut that other people are better adjusted to society precisely because they were not cast into savagery against their will at a young age.

Maybe the beast keeps me safe…. from dangers extremely unlikely to recur.

But maybe it’s what keeps me from feeling safe, too.

I still will talk to you again tomorrow, nice people!

Came across this interesting little musical number today :

It’s a song about what it’s like to be The Flash, the DC universe’s super speedster. The idea is that being The Flash, someone who goes super fast on every level and therefore for whom time as we know it passes incredibly slow.

I can relate.

Obviously I am no superhuman supercomputer like The Flash, but I have, in most instances, a higher than average mental speed, and I have had lots and lots of experiences where I felt like I could not believe how slow everything was going.

I mean, don’t people even THINK?

Being the sort of person who is unreasonably reasonable, I can usually calm myself down by telling myself that these people are doing the best they can, and it’s my problem to deal with if it seems like things are going too slow.

They are going fast enough for everyone else, Mister Speedymind.

There are some advantages to thinking faster than most people. Works wonders in arguments, obviously. I may have formed my countering argument before you even stop talking. Thus I give the appearance of great sagacity when really, I’m just quick.

It’s good, though, that I don’t just think fast, I think deep. That slows things down a lot compared to what it would be like if I was a shallow rapid thinker. That would be…. a nightmare.

But I have expanded my mind many times, and I learned at an early age that one powerful cure for boredom was to think about things as deeply and thoroughly as I can.

Thus I whiled away all the time spent waiting for the next bell because I had done the work that was supposed to keep me busy for the rest of the period in like, five minutes. I spent a lot of time in what used to be considered a mystic or even holy frame of mind, when I wasn’t thinking about anything, but then again, I was thinking about everything.

And the thing is, I had to solve the problem of boredom. True boredom is very painful to people like me, and what’s worse, we’re quite prone to it. Young people feel boredom more acutely than adults because their have a far narrower sense of time, and so a bored me in class in elementary school was in desperate need of escape.

And they wouldn’t let me read. Seriously. Maybe they secretly thought I deserved to be bored for doing my work so fast and, admittedly, with an air of contempt.

Well, how would you feel if you have to do a ridiculously easy test? Stuff that was so easy, it was an insult to your intelligence? Looking back, I wish I had not been quite so open about it, but honestly… that’s the normal reaction.

I supposed rapid boredom also explains my habit, as a wee one, of wandering away from my parents. They would be talking about adult stuff that I could not have cared less about if I had a degree in Apathy from Whatever University, and I would get bored, and wander off seeking mental stimulation.

It really felt like if I didn’t, I would die or go crazy.

Of course, I couldn’t see it from my poor parents’ point of view when I was that young. They must have been freaking out when they realized I was gone. I certainly would have been! It’s every parent’s worst nightmare to lose their child, and I feel bad now for what I put them through.

But at the time, I was like… what? What’s the big deal? I was bored.

Because of course, I knew I was safe.

I suppose it’s a matter of clock speed, or sampling rate. Our minds sense time by dividing it into equal numbers of mental CPU cycles. The faster you think, the faster you go through that many cycles, and subjective time slows waaaay down.

Luckily, the same function (differing sense of time) that made boredom so intolerable as a kid makes it way easier to deal with now that I am two score and two years old. I get bored way, way slower now. Usually, if there is time when I am away from the Net and therefore from my source of constant mental stimulation, I end up just enjoying the extra time in which to process and digest all the stuff I am constantly cramming into this brain of mine.

When I went to therapy yesterday, I had both a book and my tablets in my bag. Didn’t touch either of them. Just enjoyed the calm and quiet of waiting for and taking the bus.

Clearly, my habits and compulsions that make me grab all the mental stimulation I can handle have not actually kept pace with the changing reality of how much I actually need, or even want.

Sometimes, doing nothing but staring off into space makes for a refreshing change, and simple boredom a novelty. Especially in this oh so stimulating age.

Luckily (or perhaps not), my mind grows deeper and a little slower with age. I am able to go deeper and deeper into understanding things thanks to this increase in mind space, and I love that.

I always want to go deeper. Take things to the next level. Understand more of the game of games, the big picture, the big wheel inside which all the little cogs run.

I am still trying to understand everything, and will continue to do so till the day I die.

Knowledge, to me, is only a means toward that end. Don’t get me wrong, I’m an intellectual, and intellectuals love to learn. But to me, knowledge is merely the rough ore of the understanding I seek, to be cracked, smelted, purified, and integrated into that big picture that I have been painting for so long.

Sometimes, I feel so very small compared to this mind of mine. A tiny little man dwarfed by a massive supercomputer.

I shudder to think of what that means for my tiny little soul.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.