Diary

A transgression

I went over my Data plan limit this morning.

Found a bench in Walmart next to a vending machine and plugged in. Was there for about 2 hours.

No internet so I used my mobile phone tethering feature to send internet from my phone to my laptop.
I had about 1.5 gigs of data left in the shared quota. Seeing as it's the last day to use it, I figured might as well use it up. Doubted that I could use that much data in a day.

How quickly I was wrong. In an hour, I used 1.6 gigs just browsing images and being in a chat room. How is that possible?

I looked at my browser cache size and it is less than 150 mb. My saved pictures total is less than 200 mb. What the heck took 1gb out of my plan?

Windows update is disabled. All other software have automatic updates disabled as well. No Internet programs running besides Firefox. Mobile phone shows all the 1.6 gb of data was used for tethering, so it wasn't the phone.

Verizon texted me, one to warn at 90% and another at 100% but my phone being on silent I didn't notice until I had already gone over the limit.

Also, the last day of the plan is actually tomorrow, so I'm going to be without data for a day. Not a big deal, I can use offline GPS navigation with Maps.ME.

Moping

It's really stupid to mope over this event. The extra data cost is $15, so it's not a financial disaster like a car accident loss. But it crushed my spirit and now I'm having a hard time focusing on other things I planned for today. I'm trying to sort out how not to be affected so much by something stupid like this. If had to pay $15 for something outside my control, an accident not my fault, I wouldn't be upset. But that's not really the root of the low spirits.

First, the family plan is under my father's account so he pays the bills. I suppose my father could demand I pay the fee, but because this has never come up in ten years having a family plan, that consequence doesn't jump to mind. What troubles me is when my father sees the extra charge, I know he will feel offended and his knee-jerk reaction will be to criticize and resent my actions.

My father

My father has not messaged me to scold me about what I'm doing in life, because he knows my continual lapse into depression has limited my options and insomuch as we have not communicated, he doesn't know about the journey. He sees things in a different way than I do.

To him, life has simple, rigid rules. Purpose is a luxury, not a necessity. Actually, purpose to him is very simple. Do the tasks you are required to. Work is not supposed to be fun. It is your duty, so you must do it. That is his mindset.

So what he sees as 'purpose' that I talk about, he thinks is just daydreaming idleness. In that way he sees wanting higher purpose as a sign of sloth, of weak will, of indulgence. Why do you need to have some other reason to do something, you should just do it!

Because he has purpose, and to him it is simple and unambiguous, he feels others ought to see purpose as the same thing. When people don't act according to his view, he sees their want for something else as a lack of hardworking discipline, a laziness, a desire for something easier, a failure to be stoic and a lack of responsibility.

He does not understand when people do not follow rules. He is very critical of people. To him, there is one right way to do things. His confidence in himself comes from a sense of security and competence he gets from adhering closely to rules. He thinks other people need to be the same way.

Part of this duty is to admonish whoever fails to follow the rule to the letter as he has trained himself to do. He sees this as promoting good behavior in other people, by making them aware of their faults... and he assumes that other people ought to hold themselves responsible to correcting themselves and follow his example.

What actually happens is other people don't like being corrected and they keep doing what they do, avoiding future conversations with my father. This just makes my father upset at them further, thinking other people are lazy, undisciplined, and always think they are right when they are wrong. Which is true - but my father's vision of 'right' is just another version of the same thing... being convinced you are right and not wanting to do things differently.

My father's way has many virtues; he is hard-working, responsible, stoic, and just. But the flip side of this rigid belief system that he does not see is how he treats other people when they do not conform to his standards. He is petty, condescending, harsh, vindictive, intolerant, and full of recriminations.

Because his code of morality has no mention of emotional behavior, my father cannot see his interpersonal conduct as wrong. It is simply a means to affect correction of behavior toward his code of duty and responsibility. If everyone was convinced of his code, his habit of correcting others could be acceptable; nobody would see a problem with his emotional conduct, they may even see it as justified and virtuous as he himself believes.

But people have different forms of conduct that offer advantages beyond my father's limited philosophy. For one, the belief system my father adheres to is by its nature incapable of growth. It is exactly as it is - no more, and no demands nothing less.

My father's stoicism leaves no room for discussion, it simply removes the questions on what to do. It has no mention of situations where you don't know everything or you don't know what to do. It simply pretends that in these situations, the matters are irrelevant (mere distractions, and as such - weaknesses, that keep a person from their duty) or do not exist.

But experience proves otherwise. In uncomfortable situations when my father did not know what to do, when he could not explain the matters that conflict with his model of life, he mentally scrambled to reduce this scary, huge situation fraught with ambiguities, choices between two wrongs, complexities, chaos, and uncertainty... reduce it into small matters that he could judge right from wrong locally. He would focus on details that might pertain little to the situation as a whole, and hold on to them, out of fear... not of the situation going badly, but of losing his model of conduct.

His thought system is the only model of life that he knows, has worked his whole life to master. It has brought him to the success he has achieved, and he would be helpless were it smashed to pieces. My father's stubbornness is like that of a snail growing within a shell. Snails cannot leave their shells; shells grow out of their bodies and are permanently attached, unlike hermit crabs who need to change shells whenever they outgrow their shelter.

It is more than *a* view of reality to him; he has not been educated to consider alternative perspectives as equally functional models of reality; it is reality itself. Psychologically it would be intolerable to him to discard or alter his model of life in the face of surmounting unexplainable evidence, so he clings to his model ever tighter, looking ever closer in fine detail to capture some process at work that his model can explain.

I've discussed, explained, and even argued my perspectives to him in vain, because as much as he comprehends what I am saying, his emotional reactions and opinions are programmed into him and he is not aware that they are his opinions - he sees them as absolute truth - nor is he willing to change them.

But the thing about my father is he pins you on the smallest offenses, because those are the ones he can manage, and it's through those minor details that he controls you. Big sweeping life decisions, he has not much capability to consider in his mind, much less to micromanage you about. So on these he pretty much leaves you alone, if you stick to completing the chores in front of him, within his short field of vision.

If I had not gone over the data plan Internet limit, my father would not message me, but now he has a reason, an excuse.

My father's son

Also, I should stop using Internet to download naughty pictures for a while. When I find unrestricted access to Internet it has been my first priority to cast my net as wide as possible.

That's not what I set out on this journey to do. I want to apply myself to the endeavors that came to my mind as I lay in my depression bed, searching within myself for the faintest stirrings of ambition, hope.

I am my father's son in many ways. I want to promote in others the values I adhere to. I judge my own worth by the work I do, the accomplishments I achieve. Without my moral code I feel vulnerable, helpless, and insignificant. I am convinced of my own convictions, (LOL, what redundancy.) But I am not my father.

I choose not to do the same thing day in, day out to merely subsist. To me that is not the ultimate statement of life, nor is it a sufficient condition for life! (I tried to use a mathematical proof hyperbole there, but I'm running out of writing mojo. It's 1:30 pm and I haven't eaten since 6 am. my thoughts are starting to wander. i'm almost done. but the last 10% of the effort takes 90% of the time. I exaggerate, but - is that an actual quote, i'm not clever enough to have made that up myself, am i? yeah i looked it up, that is a quote i got from somewhere else: attributed to Tom Cargill talking about computer code development.)

I question rules and doctrine. I do the things I believe in and refuse the practices I object to. I have a duty to live for explaining my world and imbuing people and things with a philosophy that broadens their capabilities.

I am suddenly crying as I write this, chanced upon an emotional funny bone as I tap my tiny hammer.

I have an urge to correct people, like my father. What that means to me is I seek to understand natural order through Science. And by analytical thought form a natural philosophy to mold earth from dust, form clouds out of air, intent from complacency.

I want to turn lead into gold, though I know it to be impossible. Ever since I was ten years old, I wanted to be an alchemist. Now I know I don't need to turn lead into gold to be one. Now I know, I don't need anything more than a desire, matched by relentless pursuit and a ceaseless will to become one.

I don't mind stealing bread, I'm going hungry

I also want to hit this buffet before lunch ends at 3pm. The final 10% be damned.