Well now, everyone in Seattle thinks I hate them. This, of course, is ridiculous. It makes sense that I would only come to dislike people which I am around all the time, right? Right. This is exactly the opposite of what everyone else seems to do, which is to come to dislike people that they don't spend a lot of time with. (Yes, the disliking comes afterwards in most experiments conducted.) I wish I could get the point across that I'm not uncommunicative because I'm angry or unfriendly. I'm just self-absorbed. If my acquaintances weren't so self-absorbed, they'd realize that their actions aren't what makes me the way I am. Naturally, I'm so interested in what and why I'm thinking and doing what I'm doing and thinking, I hardly notice what the people around me are thinking and doing. It seems logical that they should be the ones most interested in their actions and thoughts. This is good. Everyone consider your own problems the most important, it's not a sure thing that anyone else will notice them. Really, why should they? Compassion? Is compassion what happens when people start agreeing that someone else's problems are more deserving of attention than their own?
I guess so. Still, there's this natural urge to help other people, maybe everyone has it. Help, though, is considered a gift by some, currency by others. When I help someone, I don't foresee 'calling in' favors sometime in the future, with accounting records to insure I'm giving as well as I'm getting. The tricky thing about being helped is, some people help you and that's it, no obligation. They really DO give you a favor, and since you feel good about it, you tend to spontaneously help them when they need it. Some people put another checkmark on your "favors owed" card and plan to hold it over your head in the future. I am willing to live on the streets rather than put up with that second type of "help" for any length of time. It makes me sick; it feels like something a child molestor might say. "Since I did something nice for you, how would you like to do something nice for me?" No thanks. How about I pay you a lump sum and then you never "help" me again, that would be fucking wonderful.
Rrr. And the thing about friends is, they don't seem to get it that arguments don't operate on the level of the friendship. Yeah, I'm pissed about your stupid tendency to X. I'm not expecting you to do anything about it, but I will bitch about it when it pisses me off. Welcome to human nature. Have a donut, they're raspberry.
Despite all this running through my head, I am HAPPY. Very very very happy. I am training to be Zen coder. I wrote SQL/CGI/SCMP modules today, for integration in a product which will make a lot of money. They aren't coredumping much anymore, I sense a tendency towards stability creeping in. I wonder what is considered stable enough for public use? Will the program have to accept ANY random garbage and have a sane response for it? I guess I would feel okay releasing it at that point.
(While searching for information on SCMP development libraries, I found out that it also stands for "South China Morning Post" and "Snuggly Coupled Multi-Processing") (?)
Trying to understand polygon fillers. You want to know how to fill a polygon? The paint-bucket tool?! Okay: The screen is made of lots of dots in rows. We can draw horizontal rows of dots very quickly. To make a filled polygon, we could make a list of all the rows that the polygon spans, and where its left and right edges are in each row. Then we could just go through the list and draw horizontal lines starting at the left edge and stopping at the right edge. Simple, ay? Then if you want to flat shade it, you get the cross product of uh... I think I'm busy. Time to ...time to BUY COKE. I can buy coke. I'm not used to having any money yet, I'm still reeling.
In fact, as I walked back from the bank, all I could think was "I can't stop smiling. I look stupid. help." I can now repay those people who helped me while I was poor. If I start right now, I could be poor again pretty quickly. It might be a good idea to wait until I am actually really secure, financially, before being Mr. Reciprocation.
COKE