It's much easier to be in a one sided love, secretly.

About inequality and prejudice

I had this thought today and it stroke me. Maybe it's as simple as making the best of what you have been given. You are ugly, people think you steal because you were born in a poor country, people misjudge you because of your natural unfriendly face expression.. you are fat.. or you are a female software developer.

Yesterday I approached a group of guys on a software conference meetup, I had no make up and no mood for anything else than just having a beer, I wanted to get a bit tipsy and switch my mind off. Maybe to listen to some people voices and interact with them occasionally. So there is this group looking like they are having a relaxed conversation, and I am approaching them. As soon as they noticed me - puff, magic, the backs straightened, the eyesight started to nervously wander from the speaker to me and back, next one of them got a talk attack about some bullshit, the other desperately tried to interrupt, and after 10 minutes of trying to follow whatever whoever it saying to me I realized that a) I can't follow the conversation b) the whole "relaxed" atmosphere went to hell, and the level of the conversation below it. And of course, finally, just to finish me up, came the awaited question: "so what are you actually doing here (at a software conference)? Oh really, you are a software developer??".

And at that point I could get pissed off, like I usually do, and then I thought: ok sometimes you have a bit slower machine, but does it mean you should give up learning to program, sometimes a bit worse startup in life, does it mean you should give up learning and going to university, maybe your parents did not buy you a car and a house, does it mean you are justified to live under the bridge. Does it mean that something is not fair? I think long time ago I decided there are no unfair things, things are as they are, and it is up to the person involved to do sth with it. I was born as a female, yes, and it is up to me to learn to use the advantages of that, and avoid the disadvantages, or, simply, not give a shit.

Ignoring exceptions

I just wondered, is this clean code?

..
} catch(InterruptedException ignore) {}
..

I'm not sure, but I like it :D

The most reliable stain remover..

Stain?

 No stain! :D

Seriously, nothing else helped, even the special stuff I bought in the shop.. next time I won't waste my time :D

A thought about a dog that happened in a doctor's waiting room..

A dog without one leg jumping happily, why does it trigger this funny feeling inside us, something between disgust, hope, relieve and happiness.

Maybe because it means that even if something goes entirely not the way we wanted, we will still be able to be happy? And maybe we will not even remember how it could have been otherwise, as the reality in which we will end up well be the only reality we will know. Just like the dog does now.

So maybe it's also not that scary to bend your limits or accept things you were not willing to accept, or actually try to understand the other person's point of view, despite being afraid that this will change your settled views. Despite the feeling that you do something against yourself. Maybe a change, even if painful, even if at beginning it feels like we are losing or sacrificing something, maybe with time it will feel as good as before. Because we will know no other way.

Because, does it really matter which way it is? If it's the best one or second best or second worst? In the end it will be the only way I know, so why should I bother.

Some words of wisdom by me

Don't be what other people expect you to be, confront them with who you are.

Reactive programming vs reactive behaviour

.. such paradox

Permission to be yourself

.. and imagine some people wait all their lives for one.

Iceland

It's my friends that wanted to go. Bare rocks never appealed to me, and things like ice, snow and lack of people I have already experienced in Finland. But I said I'd join. In the end it's a place that everyone should visit at least once in a lifetime, I thought. But it was worth it, I already know :)

We have planned a nine days road trip around the island. Well, one could say eight days, as last two night we plan to spend in Reykjavik. Today is the 5th day of the trip.

What surprised me is that Iceland can be green in some times of the year and in certain locations. There are actually quite a lot of flowers growing in the summer in the Skaftafel national park, which we could see in the movie watched at the Visitor's Centre. As we came here a bit too early, the grass is just  starting to change colour from beige to greenish. But I imagine that with the green spots next to black rocks it must look striking.

Actually, for a person who has never been in Scandinavia such trip could be a pretty good overview of how the nature can thrive, how contrasting places there can be, how beautiful our Earth can be. Iceland seems to be a combination of black rocks, black sand, blue sea water, gray lakes with white and blue sparkling ice, spots of green and reddish moss, green trees and colorful flowers. And many times you see almost all of those things mixed right next to each other. That's unique, indeed.

Car rental 

What was the new thing I learned was that they explicitly asked us to watch out for the doors, not to be destroyed by strong wind when opened. So we should always hold the door while getting on and off and not leave them open. Also we should try to park against the direction of the wind, so that it does not open the door but closes it.

The woman at the car rental place also told us that the weather in Iceland tends to change rapidly, from a sunny day to a snowstorm. For that reason, every day in the morning, before setting off, we should check a special website for the road conditions and weather (it's also possible to call a special number, in case we don't have access to the Internet).

We asked whether the woman was Icelandic and she said she's Swedish and lives here since 1,5 years, because of a relationship. But she does not like the weather. "It's too windy", she said.

First impressions

We landed in Reykjavik, and our trip started there, we were going to the south and next to the east.

During first two days we could not get rid of the impression that we are on a different planet, something like Mars, but less reddish perhaps. The ground and the sand here are always black. Around us we could see gray and brown hills, with rocks and stones of different sizes scattered around. Also light conditions are very typical for Scandinavia, which means that the colours appear very vivid and they are of high contrast. Also the sun is shining at a lower angle, so everything casts a shadow, even the single small stones. All that gives the impression of being on another planet, indeed.

Lava fields

That's the Mars in the full version :D 

We found it surprising that there was absolutely no place to pull the car over. For a few kilometers all we had in front of us was a narrow elevated road with black fields of rough stones on both sides. We were not sure how risky it would be to simply stop at the side of the road, letting the car stand half on the road and half on the stones. Finally, almost at the end of the lava field, we found a short segment of a side road, filled with the very same stones. Very carefully we drove in there. But as soon as we got off the car it became clear that the stones are very stable. They are really rough, and have very irregular shapes, so when they lie on each other they hold together really well. They were so rough that they quickly made the skin on my hands rough too, just because I was touching them.

The spaces between the rocks were filled with the black sand.

But the nature is already taking over. You could see bunches of moss and other unidentified plant like organisms, trying to  grow in the rocks.

The thing in the middle is just rubbish though :P Probably blown over from some farmer's field.

Seljalandsfoss and other waterfalls

The Seljalandsfoss was a waterfall that was.. well, like a waterfall. A big one. A lot of tourists walking around, taking uncountable number of pictures, selfies, photos of each other, photos of the waterfall, photos of the fields surrounding the waterfall from behind the waterfall.. Oh, as it was possible to walk behind the waterfall, and even though the way there was covered in thin, perfectly slippery layer of ice, all the people, in all kind of shoes were slowly walking there and back. I was really surprised that no one fell into the water, including myself.

That was not the interesting part though. When I took the path leading from the big waterfall along the mountain, I ended up at the front of something that looked like a cave. And inside the cave was another waterfall, maybe a bit smaller than Seljalandsfoss, but still looking impressive, and it was possible to come very close to it. And the ground was not slippery, only wet. And, most importantly, there was no crowds of people around.

Besides that, there's a lot of waterfalls in Iceland..

Recently I understood that I do not need to wait for anyone to start living the life I want to have. Just like I do not need to wait until I retire until I start travelling and enjoy my life. It's just an illusion that at some point in life I would meet some special person who would allow me to be myself and do what I want to do. First of all, almost no one ever meets such fitting person, second of all, I do not need such person to start living. Maybe now, soon at the age of 30, is the right time to actually start?

Another thing is, why have I been stopping myself from being myself until now? In many things most of the people I find so different from me and at the same time so alike (similar to reach other), that in some strange way I assumed that everyone is forcing themselves to be who they are - and I  tried to do the same. But, the heck, why? I still don't know how many people are actually forcing themselves and how many just are who they are, but that's not relevant, what is relevant is that I don't have to be like the most of the people. Understanding the meaning of these trivial words gives me so much power, so much inner motivation, and so much of the feeling of happiness.

Rainbow gathering - The astrologist

I was just heading home. I decided to walk, since finding out which car will go first was impossible. "Yes we go" "When?" "Soon". "Sorry we decided we go later". So I was walking and after maybe 40 minutes someone stopped, a van. A woman and an old man inside, both very happy. The woman immediately got off the van, and got back in in the back, saying that it's too cluttered to let someone in there. So I sat in the front. I learned that the man is from Belgium and the woman is German. They both lived in Portugal since years. They were constantly switching the languages that they spoke: Portugese, German and English. Sometimes they would switch the language in the middle of the sentence, another time they would just insert an expression from another language in the middle of the sentence. They asked if it's fine if we stop for a coffee at the coffee shop, that was separating the 5km country road leading to the camp from the main village road. I said yes and soon they were ordering something which I think was coffee with milk. But there was a lot of milk in it, the fluid was almost white. I went to toilet and when I went out they were no longer at the counter. I went out and I found the German woman sitting on a bench in front of the shop, talking with those men who typically sit in front of village bars. In fact, the coffee shop looked a bit like a bar also. I sat on the bench next to her.  She was talking with the men and laughing, again switching among the three languages, as it turned out that the man sitting next to her is also German. She sounded as if she knew them for years but they just met. Then came the man and started talking to me. He said that this year the gathering was too confusing, there were too many people and too many new people coming just for short time, thinking that it's like some kind of festival, without trying to understand what rainbow is about. So also there were less workshops, as it was difficult to get the people organised. He said he would usually give an astrology workshop, asking people about their birthdays, and ordering them on the ground according to the places where their planets currently are. And then next day he would move the positions of people a bit, according to how the planets moved. He said that people can then observe how they influence each other, who is standing closer, who is standing opposite, and can make a connection with how they feel about those people, whether they get along or not. I thought that's a very interesting idea.

We then continued but first after we got in the car the man would be finishing off making his joint. The woman yelled "let's go let's go let's go" and the man silenced her by saying "Are you in a hurry?" with the tone of voice suggesting that being in a hurry would be a very bad thing to do. The woman then excused herself saying that it's just coffee that made her hyperactive. After few minutes we drove off, with the old van, that was making all strange kind of noises, and we were going 40 km/h.

The man asked me what I was doing in life. That turned out to be difficult to explain. He kept on asking what do I actually do at work throughout the day, and he could not understand how one can manage to spend more than 1h at the computer daily. He said that after one hour he feels sick and is done for the rest of the day. And that he loses all inspiration in front of the computer screen.

We were approaching the town they were supposed to leave me. Then the man said I could actually stay at their place, few kilometres further, and take a bus from that place the next day. Because he sounded so confident about the bus I took the risk and said yes, but soon I realised that we were definitely not on the same page. It turned out they don't know exactly when the buses go or how often they go. Soon it also became clear that we were talking about two-three buses during the whole day,  rather than a regular connection. And still I had to change buses two times on the way. So when they realised I'm going to Faro the next day because of a flight, they got a bit worried and started to think how to help me. For example the woman strongly advised that I hitchhike, as there was some event in Faro the next day in the evening. "But her flight is at 2", said the man. "But she could easily get a ride of she waited till the evening", the woman replied. Next she offered me a ride but on Wednesday, while my flight was on Tuesday. That did not feel good at all. A weird idea crossed my mind and I asked "Do you maybe have Internet at your place?" "no, Internet we don't have". We stopped at a gas station to ask about the time of the morning bus and luckily it was 7:20. In such case I could even hitchhike, I thought. Then came the second question, as after three days of rolling in the mud I really need to make myself look decent enough to be let inside the plane: "..and do you have a shower at your place?" "well, not really. . It's a kind of solar shower. . Which means if you're lucky the water is warm and if not then it's really cold."... "ok great", I thought. "What did I expect, going with two hippies.. a living room and big TV set?"... i started preparing myself mentally for a freezing cold whole body shower. "It does not matter I have been freezing for last three nights in the tent, no..", I tried to convince myself.

We got to the place. It turned out that "our place" did not include the woman and she came only for a tea. besides that the place was.. a house with potential. A country house with big veranda with walls made of glass windows, so that in the end it looked like a greenhouse. The floor inside was just soil and/or cement and there were two big wooden tables. And an old sofa that has been used by the dog a lot. And chairs, of course. The man said the first thing I should do is to take the shower, while the water may still be warm. We got in the yard and I was presented the solar shower. Among the hens walking, there was a wooden plate, one meter in diameter, directed in the way that it was facing the sun, and a garden hose, convoluted into a spiral, fixed on top of the wooden board. "Even if the water is warm there's not much of it" I thought. But I undressed and prepared the shampoo. I opened the tap a little so that the water ran very slowly. As soon as I realised that it's warm I spontaneously decided to start from my hair and to worry about the cold later. But the cold didn't come. I finished washing my whole body and the water was still warm. Even more, it was hot. It was just right temperature for a hot shower! I finished but of course I had no towel with me. I looked at the dog who came to me, I was standing there naked, and he wanted something. He wanted to play. He brought a big cone with him, apparently his toy. He made it so obvious that he's asking me to play with him that I could not say no. I was dressing up, throwing the cone every few seconds, and the dog was running after it to bring it back. I even tried pretending that I'm throwing something to see if he still runs but no, he saw I did not throw anything and was looking at me with the "wtf" face expression. Once I also threw the cone against a tree and after he didn't find it on the ground he started looking up at the tree, to see if it got stuck there. It was a very smart dog!

After I finished dressing up I got into the house. The woman was still there but soon she decided to go home. The man asked me if I want a joint also, I asked for a short one and with less tabaco.

While having smoked a bit of weed I observed a very important thing: the mind remembers shitload of things and makes connections between them. I don't know why, but it seems that if I smoke, I become much more aware  of these connections. Such various thoughts run through my mind that it's amazing that the mind has connected those things, as me myself would never think of it. Many memories were crossing my mind that I would never think I still remembered. And when I was aware of those connections (it was something like 3 thoughts per second), then the mood of the current situation, my perception of it were becoming really clear. And also clear became all the projections. And I saw that there's shitload of them, shitload. And I bet everyone's mind is doing it. Just subconsciously. The brain is like super sensitive computer, constantly gathering information, and then replaying everything that can be in any way relevant, that is in any way connected. Probably this is also how the dreams work. But one thing I understood is also how much we are influenced by the past. There's still so much to learn, to be able to recognise such mini projections on daily basis, without smoking anything. I bet it's possible.

We started cooking. At least we tried. soon it turned out that there's no gas anymore and we had to use a small camping gas cooker. Also there was no tomato sauce. But in the end we managed to prepare something that tasted pretty okay. Also at some point some people came into the house with their children, they were sometimes speaking to us, sometimes just doing their stuff. They cooked something for themselves too. The man asked if I wanted him to check my real zodiac sign and it's characteristics, that is based not only on date of birth but also exact time of birth. Of course I wanted to. I asked my mother via sms about my time off birth. He said he needs to open the android application, where he can see how the planets were aligned at this time. He asked me where I was born and instead of searching the coordinates he just put them out of the memory in the input fields. I was shocked. "How can you possibly know the coordinates by heart?!" "I can. I was a ship captain". He said he knows the coordinates of the main cities by heart. And that's how it was easier for him to learn about astrology later. He was completely distrusting the things like horoscope, until he got one of astrologist telling him about his sign. He said he fell off the chair then.

Rainbow gathering - The guy with parmesan

That was the second food circle, but it already got late at night. And cold. I was freezing, and considering to skip the whole thing, until i heard that that evening they had pasta. Pasta, warm pasta, after eating sprouts, half raw wheat and salad all the time. I didn't even know that it was allowed to eat pasta. I forced myself to wash one plate and started to look around for a place to sit, even though I didn't feel like sitting on the cold ground at all. And then I saw him - a guy sitting next to a candle, on a blanket. I didn't even hope for the blanket, but sitting next to a candle would give me at least a bit of illusion of warmth. But then he invited me to sit on the remaining half of the blanket. "But, is it free?", I could not believe. Yes it was free. It was so much warmer on this simple thin blanket. I was already feeling much better, it was like little tiny light in the tunnel of desperation, desperation because of the cold. The guy said he was from Germany. Like most of the people he didn't wear shoes. I asked him how he is not cold. He said he feels the cold but it does not bother him. That I should learn it. That it all depends on your attitude. If you tell yourself "I'm so cold", then you will be cold. Instead you should think "now I want to get warm", and you will get warm. And indeed, all the people around were dressed almost same like in the day, and most of them were barefoot. And no one seemed cold. But I know that it was freaking cold on that night. Maybe between 5 and 10 Celsius.

The first dish arrived, the salad, and I saw the guy taking something out of his pocket and cutting pieces of something into his dish. "Ginger?" I thought.  "Maybe some special root?". I looked closer and it was. . simply cheese! "Cheese?!" "Yes, parmesan, you want some?" "Oh, this is cheating:p" "no, this is not cheating,it's enjoying life:p The blanket is enjoying life as well". That was such a nice accent, a bit of normality among the weirdness of the whole thing.

The next day I took a closer look at the guy in the daylight. He was wearing a gadabout style hat, with kind of long hair braided in thin parts, with different sorts of beads on them. Colourful and lively. Very strong and consistent image. And very positive.
- "..and so sometimes I don't understand those people. I ordered the coffee and the man behind the counter was like 'but you have to pay. NOW' - as if I was going to grab the coffee and run away with it. What the hell. So I paid and I saw that there's kitchen and a sink and some glasses. So I go inside to drink some water and then someone stops me, and says I can't enter there. They call the manager and he says 'you have to leave this place, you can't enter this area without shoes' 'but, eee I'm waiting for the coffee I just ordered' 'then can you please wait outside' well so I asked 'can I have a takeaway coffee at least:D'". Someone else added "Yea exactly, and can you imagine you actually have to pay to pee? Who invented that?? If you don't have money you can't pee or what?" "Yea every time I go through the gates I feel life there's a camera watching whether I paid 50 cents for my peeing, haha:D I always smile and do a stupid face to them:D". Someone else added "Where do they want me to pee if I don't have money? Shall I go there and pee in front of the door, if they don't let me in? :p".

The only time the cigarettes contributed to my health

As it turns out, cartoon boxes are very good in isolating the cold from the groud when you try to sleep in a tent withuot a sleeping pad, when it's so cold that you are able to see your breath. They saved my life :)

Rainbow gathering in Portugal

No, it's not about gays and lesbians, it's more like hippie style community gathering for few weeks to live together in the nature. I have heard about them by accident and since then I knew I have to check this out. I had no idea what to expect..

The camp was located deep in the middle of nowhere, in Portuguese countryside. If you didn't have a car the only way to get there was a lot of walking and hitchhiking. First you had to arrive to a small 5 000 inhabitant town, then find a car that would take you to a tiny village, then from this village you had to continue 6-7 km on a country road, and muddy roads, to end up in the valley.

The camp consisted of few bigger tents, many of them were actually just the tent roofs, with a campfire underneath, and the small tents of people. There was a tea tent, chai tent, healing tent, children tent, and the kitchen tent. In the middle of the camp was the big fireplace where people gathered two times per day to sing, om and then eat together.

First thing that surprised me was that it was not allowed to use soap. Or shampoo, or toothpaste. Nothing chemical, unless it's some special biodegradable solution. And of course I did not bring any such with me. But there were replacements. I didn't know it before, but ash works with dirt exactly like soap: it binds particles of fat, and dirt is basically fat. So there was a process for cleaning everything with ash: from doing the dishes to washing your hair. Since the ash was used for cleaning, nothing else than wood could be burned in the fireplaces. For brushing teeth one could use coconut oil.

The people could walk around naked. Some people were always naked some were never some were sometimes. When people showered then they were naked of course. After a while it feelt very normal, and I noticed an interesting phenomenon: after looking at, speaking with the person who is naked, you get a fuller picture of this person in your head. I realised that clothes make us all look very similar. They hide big part of the body, they hide the body shape, the skin colour, the skin facture, they hide for example how the skin around the stomach ripples when people sit down. When you see the person naked you see the full person, it makes up a consistent whole. Also, when people wear clothes they sometimes wear clothes that don't match them. Or they don't feel comfortable in. But the body always matches the owner, and therefore it is always beautiful. There is no ugly bodies. We made ourselves such a matrix with this obsession about how we look, unbelievable!

And kids, there were also kids. Of various ages, even a mother with a 1 year old baby. The children really seemed to have a good time there, they were constantly running around without having to do anything specific.

Alcohol was not allowed there, also no synthetic drugs. Having stated that it's worth mentioning that marihuana is not considered drug but a medicine ;) Also, all the meals were vegan, often raw, often with oatmeal or soaked grains, with a bit of sand or dirt that you could often feel between your teeth. But I agree that it's not a bad thing to have contact with dirt sometimes, to be more resistant to various allergies for example. Also, while at the beginning it was difficult for me to eat this food at all (it felt like eating grass), after a while I realised that it keeps me full even though the portions were small. And I even missed this food after coming back home! 

About the people - there were all kinds of people. Just like in society there's all kinds of people: smart people and stupid people, kind people and jerks, people with personality problems, and finally people who did not completely fit there. Also many people with unsatisfied need for belonging somewhere, I think such groups attract them. Also people with low self esteem who like to present themselves as expert in something, in order to compensate for their low self esteem. And appearing as expert in paranormal stuff seems easy for them I think. No one can prove then wrong. But I think you can still spot them easily, by amount of 'I' and 'me' in their sentences.

What I really liked was the quality of human interaction. There was no empty meaningless behaviours. If someone didn't feel like speaking to you they wouldn't. They didn't care to "make new friends", to appear social, they didn't care about none of those superficial things. They wouldn't ask a question about which they're not interested to hear the answer. And they were always smiling at you and they were always ready to help you. And find you a place to sit among them, share their food, offer you tea. Another thing is that I never felt judged by where I am from or how I look, which I feel that normally happes a lot.

At the last day what struck me is that all those people seem to be at some point of a process. I am talking about magnitude of years here. Some are just starting some are pretty far. Some will never get there :p This process seem to be transforming people. And those transformed people - they are all so different from each other! like completely different style, different way of speaking, of dressing, of everything. I never saw such variety of people. I never knew people can be so specific, individual, yet each is different. As if each of them was a different character from a different children fairy tale. Each bringing a different mood, but specific only for this person. It's amazing what civilisation did to us. We all became copy paste.

They call the people from the city, and the city itself, civilisation, they call it Babylon. And they differentiate strongly between "we" and "them". But it's not the racist style differentiation, it's indeed a huge difference in the way of thinking and in the realities that the both groups live in. And it's not that there is some hate or dislike (except some pathological individuals of course). It's like two parallel worlds, and people from one world cannot understand how the people from the other world can at all live there. But it came to my understanding that both groups are valid. Maybe one is significantly smaller but they are equally valid. Let's start from a simple example: there's many people who cannot imagine that they would ever go camping. Because there's dirty. Because there you sleep on the ground. And there can be bugs in the tent. And some people are even more scared as believe you can actually die from being bitten by a beatle or an ant. And some people cannot imagine bathing in a cold river. Because it's cold. You can get a cold and die. We go further: it's not possible to live outside for long time. Because there's no heating, no electricity. How are you gonna cook? Eating only bugs or plants? Impossible, you would die of some disease. Drinking water from the spring, without cooking it? Impossible, you can die from it, it's not been processed properly. Not using soap? You would get some disease and die. And slowly, slowly we are coming to a conclusion that a human is not able to survive in wilderness. That we are not able to survive without factories, plastic, and chemical industry. But wait, didn't we come from wilderness? ... such a paradox, such an illusion that we live in. Oh and it's so true! I trust much more something that's been processed than something coming from the nature. But wait  minute - what the heck, why? Isn't it... silly? 

Isn't it silly to work 8 hours per day 5 days a week to later be too old to enjoy whatever you could do with the money you earned.. There's so many contradictions we don't notice. We work to earn vacation, so we spend a lot of time to earn a tiny bit of time. We do this all thinking we exchange it for security, but it's false security. I have health insurance but it can happen there will be no place in the hospital, or the doctor will mistreat me, or even kill me if they can get the organs - dead people don't speak anyway. Do I trust the health care? No I don't. I put my money in the bank, can I trust the bank? No, there can be another crisis. Or the bank can be a false bank. I pay for my pension, can I be sure I will get pension at all? No. So what kind of security is it? Imaginary, I guess;) Illusion.. Food, can I have food without working? So much food is getting wasted nowadays. We have too much food around here. I spoke with one guy who said that it's not a problem to find food. And he was not even skinny. He has a shelter - a tent. He finds fresh water in streams. And he needs nothing else. Why is that we do need more? And who is happier? As indeed, all those people were always happy.

"The best way to get to trust something is to understand how it works."

Spring Integration in Action
Mark Fisher, Jonas Partner, Marius Bogoevici, and Iwein Fuld

..quite philosophical ;)