Archive for the 'Writing' Category
January 17th, 2008 by cybrpunk
They say that crazy people don’t know that they’re crazy. Does that mean that if you think that you are crazy that you can’t be? Or are you just not crazy in the way that you think? Can a person be paranoid of themself?
For those of you who have been reading this site for a long time you may have noticed that I mention sanity a lot. OK maybe not a lot but fairly often I think. I’ve always been fascinated with psychology and the way the mind works. I would have gone into Psychology as a profession if it weren’t for all the crazies. That and medical school was just too much money and commitment for me. Besides, I tend to be one of those people who seem to try and project everything they learn against themself to see if I exhibit any of those symptoms or traits. Scary.
But I still ponder these things a lot. I often wonder what phsychological problems I actually have and what indications other people may see in me. I have lengthy conversations with myself in my head and I’m not entirely sure it’s just my conscience talking. I wonder if there is a great evil lurking within me that I fight every day to keep in check. I wonder if I have the capacity to do the horrible things that go through my head sometimes. Of course, maybe that’s normal. How is one person to truly know if what they experience is completely normal for most sane human beings or if they are truly disturbed.
I suppose you could talk to a psychologist and try and find out, but unless there is something medically wrong with you I’m not sure you could really take their opinions as truth. Because that’s exactly what they will give: opinions. A psychologist knows the basics to how the brain works and knows what goes on inside their own mind. However, they rely on what people and their patients are willing to tell them about their problems and the workings of their minds to decide what may be going on. Is that really fair or accurate?
Let’s do a little test using the first thing that comes to mind for each item:
- Think of an animal
- Think of something happening to that animal
- Think of how you think you would react to that something happening to that animal
- Think of the first color to come to mind when you read this line
- Think of your first vehicle
- What was the animal’s name?
Did you do that? Do you think it’s fair to say that the answers you gave are sane? If I polled 10,000 people for their answers to these questions and tabulated them together and then gave you the results, would your answers look any more or less sane? That depends on one thing: honesty.
You see most people will not say the first thing that comes to their minds if they don’t like what it was. People constantly censor and edit themselves whether from politeness, political correctness or self preservation. So out of 10,000 respondants you could guarantee that at least 50% of the answer were not honest first thoughts. Then you compare your own answers and probably don’t know for sure if your answers were honestly the first thing that popped into your mind. You may have gone with the second, third or maybe even tenth thing that went through your mind because you were too disgusted, ashamed or embarrased that you possibly thought what you did for a given question.
But that is my opinion based on my own life and experiences. Here’s a thought for myself: what if I’m totally wrong about what I just wrote? What if it’s just me that goes through the dishonesty of answering questions because I can’t handle the first things that go through my mind. Maybe it’s just me and everyone else thought of rainbows and unicorns. It’s that uncertainty that makes me question sanity. Because no one can ever be truly sure that how they feel is sane.
Or maybe it’s just me.
December 5th, 2007 by cybrpunk
I started writing again the other day. No, not on the zombie series. [Well OK that's not entirely true. I did do a little work on The Killing Fields at lunch today.] This is another new story line. Something along the lines of a children’s book. For adults. Because of all the blood and death. You know… for kids. *swivels hoola-hoop*
Yeah OK so there usually isn’t a whole lot of blood and death in kids books so this would obviously not be the correct classification. I was just thinking of something light-hearted like Jumanji and Night at the Museum mixed with something a little more disturbing like Hellraiser and The Relic with maybe a bit of Cthulhu mythos influences to spice it up a bit. I probably won’t finish it just like everything else, but you never know. Maybe if things settle down at work after I get back from the States, I can try and concentrate on writing more often. Maybe some more drawing too. That would be nice.
If any of my readers is a police officer, especially one that’s been on a murder crime scene, and wouldn’t mind me asking them a few procedural questions through e-mail, send me a message @ cybrpunk 13 @ gmail dot com. Your country or state of jurisdiction is not important to me so don’t let that stop you.
September 5th, 2007 by cybrpunk
Even though he isn’t a high salary executive, Joe is what most people would consider a world traveller. He works long hours for his company and spends a fourth of his time each week flying from one city to another. He likes his work and his company and doesn’t even mind the constant travel so much. He does have one complaint though. Although he always gets a window seat, he never has a view.
Every single flight, day or night, Dallas or Tokyo, his window always looks out over the wing of the airplane. He doesn’t know if its just bad luck or someone in the airline was just picking on him, but it never fails to happen. Its especially grating when the captain makes an announcement to look out his side of the plane to see the Grand Canyon or the Eiffel Tower or some other scenic treat that everyone else gets to “oooh” and “ahhh” over.
Today Joe is flying from Singapore to Hong Kong. He is sitting in his requested window seat and he stares out the window at the grey wing obscuring his view of the water. He bitterly wonders what he did to deserve this curse and wishes that just once he could get a clear view of the scenery below. He pushes the button to lean back his seat and tries to nap for the remainder of the trip.
Joe wakes suddenly to the unexpected sound of metal grinding on metal which is immediately followed by the cries and screams of many of the passengers of the plane. Joe looks out his window and sees the wing and the sky as usual. He notices that it looks like the wing is not only flexing up and down like normal but forward and backward as well. A flight attendant is walking down the aisle trying to calm people down and asking them to be quiet. No one seems to believe her as the tearing sounds come again.
Joe never screamed or panicked. It was with mixed emotions that Joe greeted the sight of the wing crumpling and tearing and eventually ripping from the side of the plane. Even though he knew that they would all die, he had a spectacular view of the sea and the islands below from his window seat.
July 18th, 2007 by cybrpunk
This is a crosspost from DarknessWithin.net.
I remember one time when I was eight years old and my parents took me to a county fair. It wasn’t our county as ours didn’t have fairs worth mentioning but the next nearest one to us. They always had the best fairs with ponies, demolition derbies, funnel cakes, lemonade and my personal favorite: a magician.
Since as long as I could remember at that point, I was fascinated with magicians. My Dad always harrumphed and said it was all fake, but at least Mom encouraged my fantasies as a child. When I went to a see a magician, I’d hang on their every word and their every motion. I’d gasp at the appropriate times and clap like a lunatic at the end of the show. To me, magic was real and I knew that when I grew up, I would be a great magician too. That is, until the county fair.
You see, up till that point I had always been a spectator. Spectators are safe in their seats and safe in the knowledge that it’s just a show, no matter what their beliefs. That day however, the magician asked for a volunteer. As fascinated as I was with magic, for some reason I didn’t want to be a volunteer. Something about this man on stage sent my skin crawling up and down my spine when he looked at me. I did not raise my hand and tried to make myself as small as possible as the other children frantically waved their arms in the arms in the air while simultaneously making sounds like constipated monkeys. I would have crawled in my Mother’s pocket at that point if I could have. I watched the magician cover his eyes with one hand and make a grand gesture of pointing out at the audience and sweeping his hand back and forth across the crowd. And when his finger stopped while it was pointing in my direction I knew that it must have been one of the other children with their arms in the air that he meant. He uncovered his eyes and his eyes immediately locked with mine.
“Come on up, boy!” called the man from the stage. He grinned at me and the assembly of kids exhaled in a single disappointed sigh.
Continue reading ‘The magician’
July 17th, 2007 by cybrpunk
I am not a beach kind of person but that doesn’t stop me from really looking forward to our island vacation. Six nights in what we are hoping is something close to paradise should do the trick. Maybe next time we can go someplace with mountains. I’m more of a mountain and rocks kind of person. Need to pack tomorrow night after work. We leave bright and early on Thursday.
In other news, you’ll be seeing another original story here tomorrow that will be cross-posted on the fiction site I told you about before. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with zombies for those of you waiting for DAY FIVE. It is a decent diversion though, so keep an eye out for that tomorrow. Hopefully you’ll like it.
I need to go take the dogs outside to do their thing before bedtime so I suppose that’s it for now. Goodnight.
July 14th, 2007 by cybrpunk
DAY FOUR: IN A CAGE
“SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!” I scream at them as if they can understand me. Maybe they can. Who the fuck cares anymore. I’ve been trapped in this fucking cage for four or five days now. I don’t know. There’s no day, no night and no end to that constant moaning. It’s enough to drive a person insane. Add to the situation that there’s no food, water or toilet in here and we got ourselves one serious problem. Oh… and no way out. I hadn’t thought about for a while. Except maybe five minutes ago. And probably every two to five minutes before that. I don’t have a whole lot else to keep me occupied these days.
So for the eight thousand and first time, let’s take a quick look at my world of shit. I’m trapped in the lay-a-way cage of my local Z-Mart since the day my shift as a stock-man quickly got extended till the end of my life. Whenever that will be. I’m surrounded with a few shelves filled with cardboard boxes. I’ve been through every box at least five times. I guess its common sense but people don’t seem to put food or drinks into lay-a-way. “Or fucking toilet paper!” I yell out loud as I smash my hand against shelf. And… “Oww! That hurt!” I yell again as pain in my hand flares up for doing something stupid like punching a metal shelving unit. I hold my hand against my stomach and nurse my ego more than anything. I look around for any sort of applause from my rapt audience but they don’t seem to care what I do as I long as I’m still breathing. Well, I’m sure they would care if I opened the door to this palace of mine. I’m sure they’d love that. Zombie, party of 200: your table is ready.
No toilet paper, but someone did take the time to put a toilet seat into lay-a-way because they obviously must not have needed it too badly. “Oh, we should get a new toilet seat. Ya know… sometime. Let’s put one in lay-a-way so we don’t have to pay that $29.99 all at once.” I hope the people who thought of that little gem are in this crowd right now. Although I shouldn’t be too annoyed with them. That seat and a mop bucket are the only thing I’ve had to take a dump in since I got in here. It would really smell like shit in here if it weren’t for all the decaying dead bodies pressing themselves against the chain link fencing. Ah, the smell of death and shit. I wish I had some brownies.
Continue reading ‘DAY FOUR’
July 13th, 2007 by cybrpunk
This will seem rather anti-climactic but I have the results of the NAME the DEAD Contest. And due to the nature of my mood at the moment, I will break down the results into different categories to extend the length of this post. So with further adieu, here we go. With the results. Now.
Most comprehensive responder to the contest
Christy at http://casachristy.com
Second most comprehensive responder to the contest
Yoshi at http://haroyoshi.com
Goofiest responder to the contest
KD at http://karaokediva.blogdns.com
Most startling revelation of the contest
That almost no one cares either about the contest or about the names of the people in the stories.
Yeah, so I got three responses from the three people above. That either means that people aren’t bothering to read the stories or they just don’t care to play my little games. Either way it doesn’t really matter.
Why?
Because for one thing I’ve decided that the names are irrelevant and have re-formatted the first three Days to follow the new one.
And also DAY FOUR is finished! Yay! I need to have my lovely editor give it a thorough read through and I should be able to post it tomorrow. Hopefully she can get through it without falling asleep because it’s definitely the longest one yet (8 pages printed, currently sitting at 6,704 words). That’s way longer than DAY ONE and DAY TWO combined!
OK I seriously need to stop talking about it or everyone will be all hyped up and then be pissed when they read it and think it sucks.
I may go get myself some pity donuts.
July 9th, 2007 by cybrpunk
What would be the nature of a person who took everything that everyone said as the truth? Would a person of a such a trusting nature be able to differentiate when two statements of conflicting nature were told to them? Would they then think that the person who told them of the first statement was a liar because of what the second person told them? What if it was impossible to do so? Then the person could only function if they had no ability to retain knowledge. And if they could retain knowledge then how could it be filed in their minds? How could contradicting notions be categorized if all such notions were perceived to be truth? Could a person handle such a task?
A computer couldn’t compute this. A computer has to have logical rules just like most people need logical rules. Whether or not they see themselves as logical or not, there are self imposed rules that have to be followed or the world ceases to lose it’s meaning. And if the world has no meaning then the person’s existence would have no meaning. If there is no meaning to an existence then there is little or no will to live. How does one live with the Internet and the television? How does one quantify their existence in the presence of newspaper and reference sections? How does one make sense of the world overshadowed by politics and religion? All of these sources have contradicting truths every hour of every day, oftentimes within their own words.
So how are we dealing with this? The same way people always have. They pick the truth that they are most comfortable with and they stick to it until (and sometimes even after) they are proven wrong. People make conscious choices as to what they will and will not believe about themselves, their friends and family and the world around them. But to get back to the point: what if you were incapable of doing this? What if you believed everything? I believe (by choice) that this is impossible without going mad. Although, is this part of what drives people mad? Could this nature being bombarded with the constant flow of informational truths be the reason that we are seeing more and more insanity every day?
There may be some truth to this, but you have to choose….
July 7th, 2007 by cybrpunk
Hi all, as you know I’ve been doing more original writing on here lately and it seems I’ll be doing even more as we go along. I have quite a few scenarios written for my Day series that I’ve been writing so be on the lookout for those on no set schedule. However you can expect to see Day Four next week.
But to get to my point, I’ve also agreed to start doing some writing for a virtual alternate universe that is being started at http://www.darknesswithin.net that will feature a few talented people with me tagging along. It’s a themed fiction project in a world of magic and horror and I think it has some serious potential. There’s not much out there yet as we’re just getting started, but the ideas that are being tossed around are pretty cool. I’ve posted my first short entry on the site but I’ve got some other ideas that I’m working on as well.
Anyway, I’m kinda excited about this so please take a moment to check it out. And tune in here next week for Day Four.
July 6th, 2007 by cybrpunk
My clock is wrong. Wrong for my time zone. The hours are wrong. The minutes are wrong too. But which is truly wrong? I have two clocks sitting side by side. One ticking away on my desk and the other being displayed on my computer monitor: both with different times on them. But which clock is wrong? I assume the computer clock to be correct because the computer simply reads the system clock and tells me the results. The ticking clock has hands that move and a single power source of a battery that can fade and die with time. The computer is plugged in and has a battery backup for such things as system time. Because time is so very important. Time is what makes a computer work. Time is what keeps the processor churning away on all the ones and zeroes that are thrown into it. A shredder in reverse.
But how do we know the time is right? It was set at one point and since forgotten. Anyone could change the time when you walk away from your computer. The computer wouldn’t care. It’s the flow of time it cares about and not the counting of the instants that pass. The time on a computer could be any combination of hours, minutes and seconds. But not so on my ticking little clock. It’s only concern is the display of the time. But it also could be changed. Changed by hand, changed by malfunction, changed by the dying battery. Time can slow on the ticking clock. A pass of the second hand around the face counting out sixty ticks could in actuality take seventy seconds. Or the clock could be made improperly and those same 60 ticks could take a mere 56 seconds. Either thus changing the percieved and presented time without ever being the wiser. If time slowed. If time sped up. If time halted so would the computer. The ticking clock would not. Happily displaying the wrong information for all to see. It tells us with blind faith that what we see is the honest truth. It is not lying. In it’s world it is always correct.
So which is wrong? Can I verify it with an atomic clock? Sure, assuming that the clock was set right in the first place. What if the first atomic clock was set seventeen seconds fast when it was first started? Another clock setter uses the atomic clock as a reference and sets their digital clock to the same hour and minute as the atomic never realizing that the seconds were not the same. Adding their own error to the equation by not waiting for the minute to change before setting their own device. What if both my clocks are right? Is that even theoretically possible unless I were approaching light speed? Both are probably wrong. That makes the most sense but how do I check? How can I know for sure? Maybe they both lie intentionally.
