Wednesday, September 23, 2009

   Why do people feel lonely?
Just a warning - there will definitely be more questions than answers in this post.

I have always been a more of an analytical person than an emotional person. As a result, I often look for reasons for the emotions. I think this is most important in analyzing anger. If I can identify the triggers, it is much less likely that I will get as angry when the situation happens again.

Loneliness is an emotion that still baffles me for the most part. I have definitely felt lonely before, but looking back, I think it is muddled because there are some other emotions that are pretty much cemented to the lonely emotion. It is not as clean as some of the simpler emotions like anger or fear.

I have spent time by myself many times & not felt lonely. So - what is different in those times where I have felt lonely? One of the easiest memories for me to recall where I was lonely was when I travelled to Japan for 5 months for work. The feeling that I call "being lonely" to me was a cold hollow feeling in my core. The cemented emotions that I referred to are sadness and fear. I really don't think anybody that is lonely feels safe or happy.

The fear in my situation was more than what I would consider appropriate looking back on it. The trip - although long, was for a limited period of time. I got to speak to my wife pretty much every day & was in no danger of physical harm. There was definitely reason for stress since I was in a country where people did not understand what I was saying & I could not understand them, but stress is different than fear.

My work environment was such that I generally interacted with my coworkers 1 day per week or sometimes once over a two week period. Definitely a lot of alone time.

There were times while sightseeing where I should have been caught up in the moment & engrossed in the new experience, but generally I had a constant feeling of something missing. It is kind of hard to understand how much talking to someone during a new experience adds to the experience. Taking pictures helped. Taking the photos & thinking of the captions could almost replace the missing conversation... almost. Even though I can see those components & understand them, I still don't have a full understanding of why I feel lonely sometimes & not others. I have been to Disneyland by myself & fully enjoyed the experience. I shifted into an observational mode & just focused on everything around me.

For the people reading this post - when do you feel most lonely? Do you always feel lonely when you are alone? If not, do you know why? I am hoping by understanding other people's responses, I might get a different perspective on my own emotions.

I hope everyone is well. Take care.

-bunraku
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Friday, July 31, 2009

   Another Oscar Injustice
I just got back from the movies. I expect the movie I saw (since nobody I know has even heard of it) will get passed by for movies that got more hype.

The movie is great for people who enjoy 1960's and 70's sci-fi movies like Silent Running, Logan's Run, etc. Sam Rockwell plays the lead & basically has to carry the acting load by himself. Kevin Spacey has voiceover work as a computer. Beyond those two, I think there is less than 5 minutes of dialogue by other people. I hope Sam is recognized for his acting come Oscar time, but since the movie opened in June & topped out at about 250 theaters & had no advertising that I saw, I expect it will not be a big contender.

Oh well. Today was the first day of my mini-vacation. Woohoo! ok - Mini-vacation = 2 days off work & I still logged in a couple of times today to help the newly trained support people. The big vacation activity today was giving a plumber lots of money & then going to the movies. Later this weekend - painting the master bedroom - I hope. I bought the supplies 4th of July weekend. It would be nice if I could complete the project in under a month. Tick tock tick tock... only a couple of days left for that self-imposed timeline.

Take care - I hope everyone is doing well.

btw - the name of the movie is "Moon"

-bunraku
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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

   Netflix has brought out the movie geek in me
My wife and I recently signed up for NetFlix - I think the tipping point was when movie rentals got up over $5 per movie.

I'm not sure if Netflix is a worldwide company or local to America, so I will give a brief recap of what it is. It is an online movie rental/streaming subscription service. For a monthly fee, you get unlimited rentals and streaming movies. The streaming movies I watch on either my computer or using my HD Tivo, I can watch it on TV. The limitation on "unlimited" is the number of movies you can have out at once. We have a 3 disc limit, so it runs about $20 a month. We can keep the discs as long as we want - there is no due date & they come with a prepaid envelope to return them. Generally, when we return a disc, we will get the next one 2 days later. I dropped 2 discs off at the post office on Monday morning & I already got confirmation that the next 2 discs on my list have shipped (today is Tuesday).

So, since we have had it - about a month now - we have watched all 24 episodes of Gankutsuo - Count of Monte Cristo, The Man Who Would Be King, a documentary on string theory, some Addams Family episodes, Tales of the Black Freighter, a Burns and Allen episode, The Bank Dick with WC Fields, The Secret (remake of a japanese movie), Definitely Maybe, The Day The Earth Stood Still (original), Children of Men, True Blood and... well, yeah - quite a few movies.

I almost forgot how much I enjoy so many different kinds of movies & how much the older ones can tell you about the time they were made. The Bank Dick for example, was somewhat of a distasteful film by today's standards. The main character was an alcoholic habitual liar (I know - some people think that would be redundant) & in the end is rewarded for his lies. I did however, appreciate WC Fields'... I'm not sure if it was acting, but the persona he portrayed on screen. Based on his actions, I should have liked his character much much less, but I was still happy and sad for him at the end (happy, he was a millionaire - sad, he was still the same old drunk he was at the beginning of the movie). At the time, the drunk aspect of it had less of a stigma than it does today, so the final shot of WC Fields running after his bartender would have just brought laughs instead of the twinge of sadness it brought out in me.

I think I have another 20+ DVDs already queued up. The ones I am most excited about - The Reduced Shakespeare Company (all of Shakespeare's plays in 90 minutes - not 90 minutes each, 90 minutes total). Freedom (sci-fi anime) and The Great Dictator. I may have seen the Great Dictator before, but I think I have only seen clips from it & not the full movie. That was a brave movie made by Charlie Chaplin. It is a parody of Hitler made in 1940 - before the US got involved in WWII. It obviously had a strong political message. This was not a film Hollywood wanted made at that time.

Well, I just wanted to ramble about that for a while. I hope you all are doing well.

-bunraku
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