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Catch as catch can
I just woke up from a funny and scary dream. Needless to say it is also puzzling like all dreams are supposed to be. I am a passenger in this van driven by Paz, a cab driver friend of mine. He is driving very fast and recklessly like most stereotypical professional cab drivers, and for some reason I am “helping” him by using the emergency hand break at the most unexpected times. We are gaining even more speed on a relatively empty highway in spite of my intermittent use of the breaks. He lights up a cigarette as I pull the break handle again. He curses, and we suddenly start moving backwards on the same highway at about the same neck-braking speed. Only this time the pavement of the highway is made out of software programs indented at different levels and we follow backwards the indentations as if they were road or pedestrian crossing signs. I let go of the hand break; he throws the cigarette out of the window, and we are still following the indentations while trying to avoid the few cars that pop up in our way from time to time. Finally we are able to stop softly on the grass of some embankment. I wake up laughing. Now, what the hell was that all about? Among many theories about dreams and their interpretations, I remember one I learned long ago. It states that our personality is actually a composite of many personalities that reveal themselves in various contexts. (Does that mean that we all wear masks and speak with forked tongues?) Anyway, these personalities within us need to communicate with each other. The function of a dream is to get through what one personality is saying to another by using this incredibly metaphoric, expressive, and contorted language of dreams. To me, this dream means that my struggles with the new software are driving my mind totally out of control. It signals to me that it’s about time to take a deep breath and focus the mind’s eye on the ball. What is it that I am trying to do? Where is the ball? All I am trying to do is acquire the habit of writing regularly. “Not everybody is born to be a writer, but everybody should be able to learn how to write.” So why am I not doing it? I don’t know a good way to keep writing, but I do know just about all the ways of not writing. This time it is software troubles. The general pattern is that I have to do something else before I write. This seems to be typical neurotic behavior, trying to use the future to compensate for the past while wasting away the present either by worrying about the future or feeling guilty about the past. I picked up the Radio software pretty much out of the blue, just to give it a try. I have some problems with it—lack of control type problems. I don’t know when it does what it does, or even what exactly it is that it does. I only know that it doesn’t do what I expect it to do. I go to the support forum. My problems instantly pale in comparison with what I find there. I come there mostly seeking information and clarification and find there the chaotic scene of an emergency hospital room in a war zone. People with their heads cut off, people who stopped breathing three days ago, people who are mad like hell but cannot even express it because their blog doesn’t upload, etc. I realize that the cure is worse than the disease, and I make a few instant decisions. I will look for different and hopefully better software. I will host it on my own server so that I don’t have the aggravation of dealing with the indolence, incompetence, and idiosyncrasies of anybody else but me. I start implementing this decision. Obviously, I am not writing at this point. I am buried over my head in thick software bull-droppings. They soon become a full blown avalanche of software bullshit; and it’s well known that there is no better bullshit in the world than software bullshit. Every time I try some other software package I have to set up things differently. Every set-up has its own hiccups. No wonder I have a dream where I am driven backwards on a road laid out by software indentations. What can I do? Now I will use the most potent of all coping strategies known to me. I will make believe that I am not alone. I will ask for help. I am blessed by having two great sons, both of them students of computer science (anything that needs the word science in its name is definitely not a science, e.g. political science, social science, science-fiction, etc.) They will help me. Meanwhile I shall write. That’s what I am trying to do here. I am writing this because I haven’t written in so long that my blog is catching cob-webs. I would like to thank everybody who had some comments about my infantile attempts at writing. Unfortunately, I had to disable comments since they are maintained at yet another different server. (Am I a control freak just because I want to understand what’s going on? This is not really a question, not even a rhetorical one. Forget it.) In my new setup, (if and when it ever comes) I’ll try to have the mechanics working properly so that the only remaining hiccup will be the quality and quantity of my writing. Hmmm, keep dreaming … but please no more software chases.
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