Ignorance is...? Life-long shame

If you happen to be totally self-righteous and inwardly terrified that others might realise this and scorn you to oblivion, there is a very simple step you can take: realise that you’re not even fooling yourself, that we all make mistakes, that the huge mega-dose of shame you’re accumulating for yourself will be unbearable when it hits, and begin apologising.

What?

Yes, you really are a legend in your own mind. Only.

Apologise to yourself for never having had the integrity to confront this and begin dealing with it. Then pick out, identify, and apologise to yourself for each and every failing in your life. On each such occasion, forgive yourself for that flaw. This may take some time.

With that well underway, apologise to others. It can be a minor thing, to someone you barely know: it’s important to start somewhere.

Eventually, your life can be worth something. By building up your integrity, you’re approaching a time when the world is not so terrifying. Your ultimate goal may right now seem unapproachable, however genuine humility is achievable.

Comments

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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