Think of the modern Saudi Arabian woman, never allowed to leave her house unless escorted by a male relative, not allowed to drive a car or vote and so on. It's easy enough to imagine a woman there being miserable. At the same time there are women there who are perfectly happy.

What's the difference between the two?

The miserable Saudi Arabian woman has an imagination. She can imagine a better life. While the happy Saudi Arabian woman does not. She instead just accepts things as they are and finds what little things there are to be happy about in her particular reality.

Excuse the analogy as I don't mean to make little of the horrendous plight of Muslim women but the same applies in America. If you have sufficient imagination you can be utterly miserable here. You can look around and see that although things certainly aren't as bad as in Saudi Arabia, we're still a bunch of pitiful barbarians.

If you have sufficient imagination anyway, you can see this.

The miserable Saudi Arabian woman might get killed if she dared say what she actually thought about her situation. In the US the situation certainly isn't as bad, but all the happy Americans also would respond negatively and anyway, speaking out doesn't do any good.

I'm writing up a research paper for a research group I'm on. I did up the first draft and got feedback from the rest of the group about it. I'm the only man on the team. It's me and around ten or so women. And all the women are managers, etc. I'm the lowest ranking person. There was one other woman who ranked as low as me but she just got promoted.

I don't think I'm going to get promoted anytime soon...? Kind of hope not. I think my people skills maybe aren't good enough. (Either because of the father I had, or how much of a dreamer I am, or just how much extreme stuff I've been through, I ultimately don't relate quite well enough, somehow.... There is also the fact I'm the only man.) But then this women who just got promoted sits in these research meetings and never says anything, while I've mostly carried the project so far and spend more time giving my opinion than most managers.

Which is a little dangerous of course. The underlings are somewhat expected to keep their mouths shut and be yesman in any corporate structure. But perhaps not too horribly so, in this particular structure. I think the people are generally very happy with my input and work. I do disagree with managers regularly. I worry a bit about doing so. Ideally, it's what I should be doing. If my managers are any good it's what they should want me to be doing. But such "ideal behavior" at times hasn't worked out for me in the past. And I'm definitely tempering it a bit more these days than I once did. Ultimately though I've always felt extreme disgust for the yesman. Those who obey authority even when they know it's wrong. Those of the Milgram shock experiment. The "good germans", etc. And so, so many people I've known in my own personal experience.

Anyway a few people suggested changes to the paper that I could have expected well enough. Really I figured it was just a first draft. But I must say making the expected changes to make it read more like other published work, will actually make it not as good of a paper in terms of actually imparting information to the reader. What I mean to say is the established writing form isn't entirely rational. And that ultimately I'm a bad writer because I try to follow the rational instead of just following the crowd. And I suppose I'll always be a bad writer for this reason. (Although the Finnish papers I read were far more rational, but I'm expected to follow the American ones...)

And then furthermore, despite my endless reading and endless attempts to write, I'll never be anything special at it. For example, I don't see the point in avoiding a repetitious structure when starting a new paragraph that explains yet another person's previous work. You make it harder to follow if with each chapter you switch things around, yet I know that's what I'm supposed to do. Same thing in that I don't think a different word/adjective should be used when you refer over and over to the same thing. Again, just brings potential pointless confusion. Finally I want to start out with a very very brief introduction of all the potential benefits of the practice change we want to make before jumping into the particulars. This way the reader sees all of them, right in one paragraph. All together, very easily compiled.

But no, that's just not how it's done. So I'll have to break that up into at least three paragraphs and make them not as brief and make it a bit harder for the reader to quickly get information from it.

So this first draft was very easy to understand, I have to now go back and make it less easy to understand and instead more like other people's papers.

So today I sit, still sick with the flu, trying to do this. And it's harder for me than it might be for another, because I'm not just copying the accepted normal way. I'm caught between doing it in what ought to be the right way, and doing it the accepted way. Trying to figure how far can I push it towards the right way. Probably not very far actually.

And this is what it's like, again and again, reiventing everything, because actually most things really don't work that well. It's a bit of a pain in the ass today. And if you carry it all the way, it makes life hell. It leaves one in torment. Take it all the way, and good luck functioning in the actual world at all.

"...there are people who are dead-alive, people who are alive-alive. The dead-alive also write, walk, speak, act. But they make no mistakes, and they produce only dead things. The alive-alive are constantly in error, in search, in questions, in torment." Yevgeny Zamyatin

It is so much better than my time working as an engineer/scientist though. There is absolutely zero tolerance for any originality whatsoever in that massive field. You have more freedom of speech and are less compelled to kiss ass in the military.

My I'm in such a good mood today.

Best not to think. I might ruin it.

...(sigh) Now it occurs to me I missed a training class that was right after the 8 hour training class I had. This gives me anxiety about the possibility that some punishment awaits me. Some rightwing force stuff to keep us workers on the straight and narrow. Now I lay here with a tinge of anxiety that ruins the happiness I was feeling.

So then:

When fearful, when anxious, find someone else to be concerned about. Someone else to worry about instead of yourself. Someone else to focus your concern upon other than yourself. That's what I was doing previously today. How unfortunate to be pulled down into selfish concerns.

I suppose that's an original thought. That a society based on negative reinforcement stops people from being empathetic, compassionate and pulls them down into being selfish, simply for self preservation.

But instead must redirect.

And when thinking negatively of someone, of their unethical actions, redirect to the social norms of this society. It's the system, not the people.

Redirect.

...what works even better in this case is to pretend I hadn't remembered about the class I missed. Or forget that I remembered.

Had a dream that started out in the car with my Mom and two vague people in the back. Mom decided to take a short cut through someone's lawn in response to which I voiced my extreme disapproval. The short cut meant running over flowers and over a very small fence. Unfortunately the lawn's owner was there waiting and Mom had to then take an additional detour which ended up with her stuck and caught while the lawn owner called the police. Mom said I could just leave, it wasn't my fault and I didn't have to take part in the punishment.

Dreams are art. The "lie" which gets us closer to the truth. Seemingly random stuff which symbolizes/analogizes our own lives. The first half of this dream could symbolize my mother's second marriage, which perhaps was a mistake, one which I got taken along for the ride, where just getting away maybe would have been for the better.

So I got out and walked away and decided to visit S. But I couldn't remember quite where she lived. Which was strange. It seemed as if the house was hidden. As if the evil god kept trying to make me forget in order to thwart my destiny. I finally managed to find the house anyway.

A beautiful, unusual house. She was living with her parents. I came in and met her dad. He looked just like Michael Parenti in the dream. I debated with myself if I should mention this. Normally I don't mention to people that they look like someone else. This time though, in want of small talk I did. He had never heard of him. Although he made a bet beforehand that whoever it was, he'd know them, then he attempted to pretend like he did, I think as a joke.

He had a puppy with him that had a strange furry tentacle-like growth coming out of the top of his back. They were planning on having it removed. I noticed the dog could actually use it though, could wrap it around things like a monkey tail and I suggested they let the dog keep it's tentacle.

During all this I debated going downstairs to see S. Problem was that I was married in the dream and on what pretext exactly was I here visiting her anyway?

...heard on some disgusting radio station the following: "Man rule number 13: Never call up another man, just to talk." Meant to be funny although the humor doesn't translate to words, the gruff "manly" voice is lost, and the comedic timing.

That is the social norms of our society. To call up another man just to talk would be gay and thus breaks the social norms. And to call up a woman just to talk means you want in her pants. In our society there is no reason at all that a man would ever call up anyone "just to talk" except that he wants to have sex with whomever he's called.

So to be there at S's house without a pretext will make it quite clear to her that I've got something inappropriate going on in my head. And I've spent my life not lying about anything, thus I'm pretty much incapable of dishonesty.

She finally comes upstairs before I go down, it's like a ladder that is used to come up and down from this lower room and she makes a quip about how I must have not wanted to use the ladder. She's pregnant and glowing. Really looks beautiful. And my heart gives such a hurtful jealous pang. She must be with someone now!

Dream basically ends here. In real life I don't have anything really to do with S now because I'm basically a hermit. A hermit because I'd rather stare at a wall than take part in the crap social norms of this society. I'd rather stare at a wall than lie to myself. I'm not allowed to have meaningful relationships with anyone but my wife and other relatives. And I don't want to waste any time outside of work with people who really will only ever be aquaintances. People I forever have to censor most I who I really am with. People whom soon enough will move away and never be seen again.

To have healthy meaningful relationships with other people is not allowed in this society and I'm not interested in the twisted pitiful stuff that is. Rather spend the next 40 years at home. Which isn't so bad really. As long as I don't spend it watching TV.

...well the aquaintances aren't useless. To have no social interaction at all is really not good. Luckily my work gives me a ton of interaction.