Kapitano Challenge

Ric has challenged several bloggers, including me, to write about themselves. Well, this is me.


I have no patience at all with superstitions about an afterlife, creator gods, engrams, alien abduction, memory of water, clairvoyance or stepping on the cracks. However, I have been fascinated all my life by the strange things people do and believe, and the even stranger ways they justify them.

In other words, I know what people believe, what they really believe, why they believe it, and why they're wrong, but not how to make them stop.

I started training for the catholic pristhood, but didn't finish.

My boyfriend is a christian. He has seen most of the world, while I have never been further abroad than the Latin Quarter of Paris.

I think about sex all the time, but don't enjoy it. I eat chocolate when I'm feeling miserable, but don't enjoy it.

I have two degrees (BA and MA) in art, but I can't draw and don't understand how to look at paintings. There's two related reasons I don't work in the art world - I regard 99% of it's people as frauds and imbiciles, and I never pretened to think otherwise. The art business works on sychophancy and lies, and I'm extraordinarily bad at both.

I spent most of my 10+ years in university reading about linguistics and philosophy. The only non-native languages I can use with fluency are artificial - in particular Esperanto.

I've never read anything by Tolkein. I think Terry Pratchett is pretentious, John Le Carre perceptive, and Samuel Beckett wonderful.

I am 34 and live with my parents because I can't afford to live anywhere else. Other people tell their parents they love them, and feel loved by them. This surprised me when I found out, last year.

I have tendonitis, and have always had trouble walking.

I frequently forget which direction is left, and which is right.

I once spent six months in jail. My parents told everyone I was in a mental institution.

I am a Trotskyist.

My first career was programming computers. I left it in 1994 because I hated the corporate culture that was creeping into it. However, my technical skills are constantly needed by comrades who understand world history in minute detail, but can't install a firewall on their computers.

I want to be a science teacher, because I want to do something useful, and also because I need a steady career.

I love almost all kinds of music, but never had the patience to learn how to read it, or play any instruments properly. I write songs, and electronic music to go with them. This is what I really want to do with my life.

6 comments:

  1. I have no words to comment on such a breathtaking text. At this moment, right after having read it, I feel overwhelmed and moved.
    I do thank you very much for endulging on my somehow childish challenge... I hope and wish I haven't upset you, Captain. You have - and deserve - my utmost respect. I cannot type anymore. I hardly see the keyboard...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow!

    You went to prison!?

    Can you bless me?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Minge: Yep, I was in a really bad relationship with someone who was completely in love with me, but was also a messed-up alchoholic.

    We spent six months making each other happy, then two years making each other suffer. He needed to control me, and I'm not quite sure what I needed.

    He got drunk most nights and spent hours screaming abuse at me, and every few weeks I'd lose patience and beat him up. Then I'd go back to my parent's home, and he'd telephone, begging me to come back and telling me how much he loved me. I told myself we could return to the good early days of our relationship, and went back to him.

    Then one night I came home from working the night shift to find he'd taken the last of my money to buy bottles of wine. I decided then and there to walk out permanantly, but instead of being sensible and just leaving, I smashed the empty bottle over his head, several times. And then called an ambulance.

    So maybe you don't want my blessing after all. Besides, I think you're quite blessed enough, my son.



    Ric: You cirtainly haven't upset me - and I'm not sure about deserving respect.

    I'm just glad my words can hold meaning for you. And I'm also glad I'm at a stage in my life when I can write about it without wishing it would all end.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I could have written that last paragraph myself... After all we all seem to go through the same «things» in our lives sooner or later. The only part that really matters is that one we don't know about, as far as others are concerned. Until we do...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm not sure how to respond to that. So here's several possible responses, in various tones.

    "If I agreed, I wouldn't be"

    "I think you're just fabulous"

    "[Blush]"

    "You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment."

    "Thank you"

    ReplyDelete