ON THE DEFENCE

Another evening where I don't feel like much except writing more 
posts to not upload to Gopherspace because Aussies.space isn't 
accepting SFTP connections again yet. I set to some two-yearly 
maintenance jobs on the Jag today - brake fluid and coolant change 
(the latter might be excessively regular as a servicing schedule, 
but it's also pretty easy), mostly in the nude. My brake fluid 
suction system that I built back when I first got the car is still 
working well. Tomorrow I've arranged for my father to come around 
and press on the brake while I make it bleed, a cruel-sounding job 
that is annoyingly impossible to do single-handed (well, I have 
considered building some sort of pneumatic brake pedal pusher, but 
that's a bit over the top).

Anyhow tonight I've gone all self reflective again and started 
thinking about my own behaviour around people: I basically play all 
my human interactions on the defensive, in that I resist 
volunteering any information that could be used against me. 
Alternatively here I give out all the information but try 
relatively hard to keep it anonymous. It seems so natural to me 
that I easily forget just how many people don't do that at all - 
they revel in the opportunity to express almost every opinion and 
fact about themselves that they hold in their head, or at least it 
seems so.

It's basically a risk vs reward thing that I learnt at school. I 
wasn't really seeking friends so all I'd get from speaking about 
whatever nonsense I thought as a child would be material for people 
to pick on me with. Later on my interests also developed away from 
the friends I did have, so there was often the fact that nobody was 
really interested in what I was talking about in the first place, 
and I began to assume that they weren't (as I still often do). 
Surely another part is how my mother and stepfather, who I mostly 
lived with as a child, never really took anything I said seriously 
(and to a fair extent still don't), least of all on an emotional 
level. You know, that still makes me feel angry and frustrated. 
You'd think I'd have got over it by now.

One thing that is quite funny is how by the later years of 
secondary school it was the era where everyone except me had smart 
phones, and I was quite nervous of being filmed/photographed for 
fear of misuse of images of myself on the internet. It's pretty 
ridiculous given the life I've gone on to live because it really 
wouldn't matter one bit, even if the internet was somehow plastered 
with me in blackface with a Nazi flag hung off my penis. What a 
whole lot of worry over nothing!

I guess it's also interesting that I don't have much of a social 
reference point since school. I'm not sure whether I'm more open or 
more closed than I was back then really. Of course I never did 
anything like writing this phlog. But actually the stuff in this 
post, exposing as it is, I wouldn't actually be able to say to 
anyone in person. Not to mean that I'm missing some special person 
(though a girlfriend would be nice), but I actually developed a 
mental barrier that blocks me talking about these things. Not just 
deeply personal things, but all topics that I believe in quite 
seriously, or even that I think the person I'm talking to takes 
seriously. I can't really bring them up in conversation, if I try I 
just get all emotional. It's a bit unfortunate that, and I used to 
hope that it would wear off over time, but then it also doesn't 
really matter much for me in practice these days.

 - The Free Thinker