Online advertisers can fuck off

Right. So, I’m a Mass Effect addict. I’ll be bored and decide to start a run through just to re-live the story again and then won’t resurface for a month and a half because I’ll slam through all three games multiple times. Hell, at this point I’ve seen every single choice carried through at least once and I know exactly which choices I’m going to make and what the end results will be.

BUT! Now ME: Andromeda is about to come out in like two days – and my computer can’t run it. I’m staring down the barrel of a $1,000 to $2,000 machine upgrade to be able to run this god damned game and I know I can’t justify that to my wife right now. There are days where I try to run it through in my head and it just goes nowhere – she’s not wrong that I can wait, and while money isn’t tight it certainly isn’t “thousand or two free” levels of expendable either.

I’ve resigned myself to that, mostly.

So, can we just stop with throwing the ads for the game in my face several times every day? I’ve meticulously avoided searching for anything related to ME:A and any time advertising pops up in like YouTube or something I mark it as not interested so that it will go away. AND STILL IT CHASES ME!! Walked into a computer store to get my parents a printer – on the monitors there. Check in to Facebook – sponsored post.

Fuck you, advertisers. Stop making this harder than it needs to be!

On arguments and changing minds

Read an interesting article the other day and it got me thinking quite a bit about political/religious discourse and how that interacts with our lives - specifically my life, but probably other people as well.

The absolute, one line summary is that nobody changed anybody's mind by yelling their arguments and calling the other person an idiot. Expanded form runs more to the following.

If you really want to change somebody's opinion, really look back at your own life and think about times that you changed your mind. What convinced you? Was it the part where you stated your opinion (right? wrong? doesn't matter right now) and they got right in your face, called you crazy for believing that, and yelled all the justifications for their statement at you? I'm betting probably not. My experiences have been more a slow absorption of opinions, facts, and beliefs from the people around me who genuinely do believe what they are saying. These are people you respect (or even just know) and hearing them say whatever they have to say stops you for a minute so that you can look at what you think and decide if this has bearing.

The best example I can think of is atheists vs people who believe in a religion. I was pretty atheistic in my teen years. Didn't understand how anyone could believe in something with absolutely no proof or way of reproducing results. Sure, people I knew and respected were "believers", but they were just wrong on that and maybe a few other things, we agreed on a lot more items. My mind really started to change when tragedy struck. I'll skip the details of that part - the important point right now is that it was the believers who stepped in and helped. The church community immediately brought comfort and support, with no pressure about belief or anything. They just wanted to do the right thing and help people who needed help. Of course there was help from others as well, that's just a given in a situation like that, but not from strangers.

So that's what got me thinking about my own beliefs and how I interacted with others, which got me into attending a church regularly. Not because I necessarily believed in everything, but because I wanted to give back some of the help that was given to me. Talking to people in church led to a few realizations; lots of people attend who *gasp* don't think it's literally true. Who think maybe there's something more to our world than what can be seen and felt, or maybe there isn't, but the overall message to try and be better to other people is worth paying attention to. It's more about community and attitude than dogma.

That went on longer than I intended, but the point here is that it was calm, quiet opinions that don't care whether they 'win' an argument are the ones that will end up changing minds. The Richard Dawkins types of the world who are more concerned with making the people they debate look foolish than in trying to show them a small incremental point they can get behind over and over until they come around to the same way of thinking don't help anything.

Falling apart

I wanted to try and write something new every week but kind of got blocked by my stupid brain, anxiety over what is (let's face it) something I write basically for myself. Even this simple work has several days of run-up and way more deletion and on-the-spot editing than it really should.

I'm pushing myself through, though, because it's important that I not stop and let those sorts of things overwhelm me - even when I have nothing important to say. Of all the things to finally get me into this, it's my knees.

So, background. I train in Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing) and have for several years. I'm not great or anything, I just enjoy the challenge and it gets me out of the house and exercising. However, in the past year I have injured both knees (not at the same time). Ligament damage. There's basically nothing you can do to speed up the healing process except to be careful, rest, and build up the surrounding muscles to support the knee better. When it happened the first time, I took six weeks off from training. Going back in to the club was very difficult after that, and I had to force myself to go every time for more than a month. My second injury came at the beginning of December 2016, and I immediately felt my mood and attitude sink. I just knew that I would have to go through the rebuilding process all over again and wasn't sure I was up to it. Hell, I thought about quitting several times over the next few days.

After 10 days or so I finally pulled myself out of it. There was no way I was giving up. So I grabbed my gear and went in for a morning class. I was very thankful I was the only person there that day, since it meant I could talk to my instructor and let him know what was happening. He was super supportive and modified his training plan to account for my leg. Since then, it's been slowly getting better, and I've just had to learn to be very careful how I kick when I need to support myself on that knee.

(That took longer than I thought it would ...) Anyways, the point is that I forced myself to get back up from the injury and keep going. Slowly at first, sure, but at least moving forwards. The writing is like that, and probably will be for a while as I figure out what my tone, my 'voice', is going to be.

Another, more different post

So. I’ve been hacking away at writing for the past couple of days. Started I think three different items, all on different topics, all basically boiling down to me complaining about various items I had encountered in either the news (or more precisely the comments to a news item) or in real life. My sort of goal with all of this is to try and get better at expressing things as complete items instead of just hanging complaints – and that’s where all my other writing fell apart. The complaints are there, but no solution or even resolution to the items.

Instead, this morning on my way to work I stopped into my favourite local coffee shop. I go in a couple of times a week and almost always get the same thing. When I walked in the woman behind the counter just immediately started getting my drink ready, greeted me with a smile and a cheery hello, and struck up a brief conversation. Nothing important, just standard coffee shop talk – weather, work week, etc. I realized I see her several times a week and still don’t know her name (curse my shyness!), but she brightens up my day every time I go in.

I usually tip pretty generously for my morning hot chocolate, but this time I decided to double up and just run it to a nearly 100% tip (while still making it easy to break into change and such). Her smile and heartfelt thank you were more than enough compensation, and I got to head off to work feeling a bit better about my day.

I guess my point is that it’s easy to complain, but it’s just as easy to be kind and generous and friendly. I thankfully can afford to give a bit extra to show my appreciation these days, but there have been times where I couldn’t and the same woman was exactly as friendly every time. So her being kind prompted me to be generous, which then made us both happier for the day. Maybe doesn’t work out like that every time, but does it ever really hurt to be nice?

A return to talking

So.

It's been several years since I last did any writing. Well, online writing anyhow. The things I write for myself don't count. The constant argument in my ridiculous brain is that there isn't really all that much for me to say that anyone would find interesting.

I've decided to ignore that argument, on the basis that my writing is still for me, it's just done somewhere that other people can look at it if they so choose.

So to begin, a quick summary. Situated in Northern Ontario. Work in financial information (I support accounting software, I have to explain it every time ...). Married, one kid, moderately numerous other assorted family members. That's the extreme basics. 

So, for my first post I've decided to put in a copy of something I wrote originally as a mental health help thing for myself, that then I decided to share in the hope it might help someone else as well.
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I’m going to prelude everything by saying I’m honestly not trying for attention or anything with this. Just need to get it out of myself and hope it can be helpful. I was originally going to do this as a video but I can’t get through it. It was hard enough to write.

So you’ve been warned.

In a little over a month I will be 1 year old. It seems like an odd statement, but there’s a point here.

On March 15, 2016 I tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose of prescription medications. There were a large number of things that influenced that choice, but one of the biggest factors was not talking to anyone about what was going on in my head and asking for help. I swallowed dozens of pills and lay down to sleep, expecting to never get up again. By all rights, I shouldn’t be here today.

But I am. I was lucky. My wife found me in time and saved me, calling an ambulance and keeping me awake until they arrived. I have no real memory of what went on between going to sleep and somewhere around the second day in the hospital. I’m told my blood pressure tanked, and that I was resentful of being there. Even once I get to a point where I can start to remember things, it’s all jagged memories – flashes of things, brief bursts of time that are clear and then more fog.

There’s a lot more to say about what went on, but it’s not what I have on my mind today.

Today I am thankful to be alive. Today I am thankful that I still have a family around me to support me through difficult times. Today I know that I am almost one full year into what I’ve come to realize is my second chance.

And today I want to be open about what happened to me in the hopes that it can help someone else.

If you’re struggling, fighting an uphill battle against your own brain, know that you are so far from alone. I couldn’t see it myself when I was buried in my own head, but there are people who care about what happens to you and would be devastated if you were gone. Talk to a family member, a friend, a co-worker – there is someone you know who is ready to help you. If you can’t think of anyone in your life that you trust to open up to, call a crisis support organization. They are there to help people just like you, and they will never, ever judge what you are going through.

If you have someone in your life who you think is in this sort of trouble, talk to them. Let them know how much they mean to you and how important they are in the world. Everyone adds something to the people around them; sometimes they just need to be reminded of how much they bring. Here’s some very useful information to have, just in case:

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/suicide-prevention/suicide-prevention-helping-someone-who-is-suicidal.htm

Hopefully, you never need to use that information. But I wish I’d had it earlier, and I’m glad I know it now.

I also wish I had some elegant way to end this, but I really don’t.