That’s right, folks. No more any of that ol’ shiet. After some serious introspection, I decided I can’t resume writing the way I used to. I’m no longer the guy I was a year ago — to say nothing of the guy I was two years ago! Yeesh… Much less insecurity, much less angst. More intellectual progress, and more nuanced opinions. Perhaps even more love for my fellow man?

Nah, let’s not overdo it.

Before we move on, though, I’d like to dwell on this topic for a moment. Call it “for old times’ sake”!

To my detriment, I feel I’ve always lacked certain elementary conversation skills — not all of them, to be sure, but a few very basic ones. There’s a screw loose in there somewhere, and I think it’s because my knowledge base and interests have always centered around topics no sane person could or should give two shits about. I could talk for hours about why I think something called “koryu snobbery” is the most vile thing on this planet. But when it’s come to, how should I put this, matters of collective importance, or all that relationship crap, I’ve never been too much of a talker. Most of the time, either I haven’t been interested enough to have an opinion, or I’ve felt I can’t express myself well enough, and decided not to say anything in fear of hurting someone close to me.

I think this awkward part of my personality has played a big role in most situations during my life where I’ve managed to do something wildly inappropriate. One of the great wonders of life is the ease with which you can make someone hate your guts by saying the wrong word at the wrong time. And it’s almost as easy to hate yourself because of it.

But the point of this post is, heh, that I think I’m getting over all of this!

The panacea for problems of this sort, it seems — or so I think I’ve figured out — is to always go the extra mile to be the good guy: to always try your best to find the right words; to actively steer the conversation into productive directions; and when in doubt, to speak rather than to shut up about what’s on your mind.

[EDIT: Come to think of it, I think I've known this all along, but I recall getting called manipulative when I tried this some years ago! Oh well, no biggie. The second time's the charm, obv!]

But to stay on top of the game, so to speak, is often remarkably difficult. It is a feeling quite like no other when no matter how hard you try, your interlocutor just doesn’t get it — in an argument, for example, when absolutely nothing seems to get through; when even the best, most well thought-out point you make doesn’t even merit a nod. It makes you feel dumb as fuck — and these days, I hate almost nothing more than feeling dumb as fuck.

I want an upgrade to regular dumb.

Or maybe it’s not me — maybe it’s just that these days I prefer to hang out with people who expect everything to come out of my mouth to be rock solid.

But in any case, I digress.

I think just about everyone has a subject they feel very strongly about — one they also tend to be very vocal about — but have a hard time discussing in a constructive manner. Whether it’s about politics, economy, or rape jokes; there’s always something that’ll get you fired up.

Interestingly, the worst offenders are often the ones who are the most well-read. It’s surprisingly easy, it seems, to become a sort of intellectual bully, without even noticing it. In a conversation with participants of varying levels of knowledge, however, I feel strongly that it is the duty of these more skilled individuals to make sure that things run smoothly and that everyone feels their input is appreciated.

Heh, for a brief moment, I thought of going into detail about certain pet peeves I’ve had to tackle with recently, but I don’t want to make it seem like I want to throw a certain individual under the bus. What I’m trying to say is, I think everyone is an ass sometimes — to varying degrees, of course. But no matter how great you think you are, don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re always one of the good guys. It’s always important to keep on your toes and try your darnedest; and furthermore, to forgive those who at times fail.

Now there’s a thought worth thinking about, said the narcissist.

Next, I’d like to recap where this blog sort of left off, and where I’d like to take it from here:

To make a long story short, during the last year or so, in spite of my various shortcomings, the most obvious one being my famously thick skull — and fuck it, since this is my blog, I’ll take the liberty to include my upbringing; or more precisely, the lack of a proper one — I feel I’ve managed to cram in quite a lot of very difficult (to me) and abstract stuff about philosophy, politics, and the social sciences. The knowledge I’ve amassed ranges from stuff that’s very likely to be useful to me in various future situations — especially ones involving grown-ups in suits — to all kinds of esoteric crap that is often pompously labeled academic, but is, in reality, mostly useless. But even at its worst, I feel the process of learning the stuff has in itself made me a bit better as a person.

While obviously still full of holes, I feel very good about my newly acquired education; so good, in fact, that I feel I’m no longer ashamed to move on in life — a thing that’s always a big hang-up for me. I feel I need to justify the time I’ve spent doing whatever I’ve been doing — regardless of whether it was a good idea to start doing it in the first place — by becoming good at it, before I can put it behind me and start concentrating on something else.

The thing with me is, whenever I have the choice, I like to just “grind it out”. That is, my preferred style of learning is to shut out the outside world and concentrate on learning a new skill by myself. To this day, I must have done this about a million times. I feel it’s by far the best, if not the only, way for me to effectively tackle new subjects. I’ve always sucked in the classroom, but all this Khan academy -type stuff really seems to work for me.

That said, from now on, I’d like to concentrate more on different facets of learning and putting to use what you’ve learned. The discussion will, however, as a matter of practicality, continue to take the form of personal anecdotes that deal with the subjects I’ve been yearning to master lately. So I don’t think that many things will change. Heh.

Besides, I’m not intending to give up my political rants!

But at least I’ll need to draw a new logo or two, and add them to the mix to reflect these changes — or the lack thereof. I even played around with the site’s layout; tried changing the colors and everything, but everything I tried — especially the inverted colors version — came out looking like the dreaded h-word (in the adjective form), so good taste will make me refrain from any large changes in this department as well.

Oh well, something’ll happen!