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The purpose now, Fulfill the need; The desires, the reasons, the place to bleed; Gone. My duty complete. Let it go? The time still screams, The voices guiding the distant blow, Is that so? Is that so?

Now, Please, Return my place, My home, Among the shells of past, Hollowed out familiar friends, Floating round the grave-less rains. Bring the next one forth In time, I'll await from the deep. Hold the ghosts; The known – the given, The tossed aside and sunken need, I remain, unknown, This is home. This is home.

Katrin Bennhold has written a fascinating and well researched piece in The New York Times describing Facebook's efforts in Germany to delete hate speech from the site.

Facebook's Berlin “deletion center” has 1,200 content moderators spread over five floors of a large office building:

In the country of the Holocaust, the commitment against hate speech is as fierce as the commitment to free speech. Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” is only available in an annotated version. Swastikas are illegal. Inciting hatred is punishable by up to five years in jail.

Even so, not all Germans support the effort:

The far-right Alternative of Germany, a noisy and prolific user of social media, has been quick to proclaim “the end of free speech.”Human rights organizations have warned that the legislation was inspiring authoritarian governments to copy it.

Things are going slow, too slow. I can't seem to function properly as I can't function at all. I wake up with this empty feeling of coldness. Everything is so cold it makes me shiver. I seek to be warm and when it's warm I seek to be clear. The cold messes with my head as it should. I wake up weak. Barely breathing.. I wonder did I win the battle this time? I didn't. I seem to fight all night long. What for? Freedom. From myself. I leave pieces of myself after every battle. As I lose something every morning. Do I still have things to lose? Can I still fight? I miss joy, I miss lightness. I feel so heavy it's suffocating. I wanna stop, waking up.

I’m happier now than I have been in years. That is what I tell people. And it is probably true. I’m not depressed or particularly anxious. I’m not really worried about anything. I’m grieving the death of my cat and struggling with my upcoming exams but that is sort of it. I study and I volunteer. My relationship is going well, I have a nice home, and very good friends. Everything is alright with my family, I guess. My best friend moved away and I miss her but she is doing fine. My boyfriend is unemployed but we’ll figure that out. Things are fine. Really. And yet, I picked myself up from the living room floor after lying there crying for about 5 minutes. So what’s up with that? Not just with the whole crying-thing but the telling people that I am happy?

The thing is, that I mostly don’t feel unhappy. Maybe that’s what different. I haven’t had time to feel anything or respond to it for a long time. I have felt things of course, but I made a blog to have somewhere to put it that wasn’t my family or friends or strangers. I gave it a place I could close at the click of a button, and open again if needed. I can’t even remember when I last looked at it, because suddenly, my life was calm. And it still is. I have absolutely nothing to complain about. So am I bored? Am I annoyed? Am I just slowly recovering? Why do I suddenly cry and then suddenly stop. Hormones? Am I not eating enough? Or maybe not correctly, whatever that means. Or maybe the problem is that I have the time for it to become an issue. The crying. Because honestly, I don’t think I am depressed and I mostly don’t feel sad.

I feel like I am getting old though. Not in the osteoporosis sort of way but still. I don’t think I am actually getting old, not yet, but I think this is what it feels like. I am a bit tired. To be honest, I am very tired. My hair is turning grey but I don’t think it’s falling off any more. No more than hair usually does. My skin is … well, I guess I am thankful that it isn’t worse than it is ...

I recently felt I needed to apologise to an entire (small) company whose employees had serviced my mother when she was ill. I had been really, really rude to them, and I didn’t understand it. I remember the situation and what I did but I didn’t see the consequences of my actions. So I apologised seven months after I had rudely scolded a bunch of employees who did their very, very best. I realised then that maybe I had lost myself a bit while trying to save the world. I don’t know if it’s related to my crying. Maybe/maybe not. Maybe I have just realised that I am not a hero in any way. Maybe I mourn that my illusion about me being a good anything shattered many months ago. But at the same time, I feel more free than I did before. Maybe I also grew a little. Hopefully, I didn’t grow into a monster. My friends tell me that I am intimidating and I hate that. Not them telling me – I am thankful for their honesty – but I hate the thought of me intimidating others. I don’t want to be that person. But that raises the question: Who do I want to be? And do I even resemble someone or something I want to be?


These are the sort of thoughts that shouldn’t be clouding my mind when I try to write a paper, so here they are. On my screen, in my blog, in a place I can close at the click of button. So here goes ….

I think I've skipped a day or to before posting another journal and it's quite discouraging but I'm sure habit forming isn't easy, so I persist.

Siblings night with our partners

We had a siblings night at last that we are all complete with our partners. Wine and discussion about trivial topics was an experience, though it wasn't the best introduction it was a start. It was nice to see my sister in law so pleased to see with who I am with at last.

Apathic

Just awhile ago, my stomach hurt about 3 inches below my navel. I wasn't sure if it was bowel, appendicitis or other diagnosis I got from the Internet. One thing was for sure is that it was paralyzing and a weakening pain. After mentioning it while chatting, it was sad to hear that he wasn't concerned for my well being at all. He didn't ask what it was, he didn't show a single hint of worry about what I was going through, his apathy stung more than my physical condition.

Discipline and Hormones

I can't believe that on an age above 25, I'm still as sex driven as ever that I'm having a hard time to abstain. I've failed thrice and I'm not at all pleased. Hopefully this week, I do better.

Promises and Delayed Goals

Procrastination has always been my worst enemy next to fear. I promised my brother a Powerpoint presentation to salvage his offers that he refuses. It's been months already, I think I offered it on February and I still haven't started. Sad to say, but it's still in the shelves nowhere in my priority.

Unstable Unicorns

I bought a limited edition card game today, hopefully it was worth the deal. I got the limited edition but for an additional $5 than getting the ordinary one. The kicker is that it had limited edition cards that might be worth $10 each.

Gaps in the Walls

I was weirded out that the air conditioner was hot lately, I thought it just needed replacement. Fortunately, I figured it out last night, there was a huge gap that was pressed by the CCTV wires that made heat enter in bulk. I covered it with paperbags, seems like the room's colder now.

Cleaning and Relaxing

I've always loved cleaning when I'm doing it. Today I bought a mop, it was so fun to move it around and see the wet spots get clean. If I only had the time, I would do it more often.

Dgroup and Discussions

Oh my, I love having these discussions. I missed it! Connecting faith with our everyday lives, scriptures and it's relevance and being more in tune with people of the same wavelength. Well I can't exactly say thinking the same but I sure do miss having that environment and people around me. I really hope I can continue this routine.

This is that quiet screaming sound where you realize that you're all alone even though they said you weren't going to be. They don't understand that in the end, you just are. It's for you to realize and pick up the torch early so you can be prepared for it. Don't just bury your head in the sand ignoring the evidence your logical self keeps bringing up to your conscious whole.

Embrace the hand you were dealt whether promised something entirely different or just stumbling upon such a discovery now. It's for you to decide the next steps and take action. I wonder what you'll do? I can probably guess. It might be similar to what I do. I'm hoping I'm wrong for both our sakes, because time is limited and in the end, together, we're all alone.

I often quote Bill Murray playing Hunter S. Thompson in the movie Where the Buffalo Roam by saying It still hasn't gotten weird enough for me. That doesn't mean life is boring. It definitely doesn't have to be. Life can be an interesting mix, much like what I've been reading these past few weeks.

Let's get this Monday started with these links:

Writing

There Are More Than Six Ways to Tell a Story, wherein writer Matthew Baker thumbs his nose at an AI's contention that stories rely on six major emotional trajectories, and explains the techniques he used to write his latest short story collection.

This Is What It Was Like Learning To Report Before Fake News Was The Biggest Problem In The World, wherein a now-seasoned journalist takes a look back at his on-the-job education — warts, mistakes, missteps, and all.

How Do We Write Now, wherein we learn how one writer breaks the shackles of distraction to start, and finish, her work.

Politics and Finance

The junhu and the art of everyday politics in Imperial China, wherein get a glimpse of how military households (called junhu) operated in Ming dynasty China, and how they helped hasten the decline of that dynasty.

Bitcoin: Mt. Gox Villain Mark Karpeles's Surprise Redemption, wherein we learn a bit more about the story behind the collapse of the largest bitcoin exchange, and how the fallout from that collapse is still happy slapping the exchange's former CEO.

1968: When the Communist Party Stopped a French Revolution, wherein we discover how divided the factions on the left wanting change truly were in that year, how those divisions scuttled a potential revolution, and how the failure of that revolution changed French politics in the decades that followed.

Ideas

The Dawn of Dining, wherein we're treated to a short history of the concept of dinner. It's actually a lot more fascinating than it sounds.

Made in Taiwan? How a Frenchman Fooled 18th-Century London, wherein we hear the story of a mysterious individual who briefly enchanted London society with tales of manners, language, ritual, and cannibalism from a far-off land that didn't exist.

The Prequel Boom, wherein Adam Kotsko examines why studios keep doing prequels if fans hate them and why fans hate them so much in the first place. Yet no matter how much they whine, those fans still pay money to see those prequels.

And that's it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.

— Scott Nesbitt

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