A New Chapter in the Green Memories story!

The wait is over. It is finally here :).

Chapter Two – Eyes in the Dark follows seasoned detective, Hank, as he is tasked to spy upon our protagonist from Chapter One on the assumption that she is using SJ. Hank is down on his luck, his career is in the gutter and he has lost his motivation for most things in life. However, the meeting with our protagonist from Chapter One changes him and allows him to see things clearly once again. But how?

Find out by reading the newest chapter in the Green Memories story!

Click here

New Story in the Stories and Articles section!

I have uploaded a new story called “The Many Deaths of Alicia Hong” in the Stories and Articles section. It was originally only meant to serve as a small piece of fiction to describe my game progression in the Baldur’s Gate No Reload challenge, but the characters stuck with me and they began to live their own life through my writing.

Story is not complete as my main character, Alicia Hong, sadly died very early in the game :(. As such I lost all my energy towards continuing the piece. However, I genuinely feel that the story and interaction between the characters are one of the better pieces of prose I have written.

Follow the link https://chagens.wordpress.com/texts/stories/the-many-deaths-of-alicia-hong/ and I hope you will enjoy it!

A small truth of the day

Every time I log in to Facebook and see that I have received a new friend request, I always hope it is from a woman instead of a man. And when it turns out to be the latter, I become disappointed.

I wonder whether it is a sign of desperation or that I am merely enjoy “befriending” new girls.

A trip to the streets of Berlin

Barely I have sat in front of my computer before my fingers return to their familiar place on the keyboard fresh off the airplane. What a trip. Last time I visited Berlin was back in 2006 and let me tell you something: seeing a city from the viewpoint of an adult contra a teenager matters a lot.

Back in 2006 I barely noticed the city at all. I went to all the important places because I was told to go there. Not out of wish or want. Sure, the places made an impression on me, but nothing was really remarkable. This time was different because I was on my own most of the time and had to make the decisions myself. The trip became more of a journey than a sightseeing trip as I began to rediscover the places I had visited before, but with new eyes. Zoogischer Garten was one of the places which hadn’t changed a lot since 2006, and yet I felt emotionally different. It was very peaceful, almost utopia like. The place was in such a stark contrast to the movie Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo which had modeled my perception of the place.

My journey led me to the Victory Column which I saw for the first time. Its gold-like skin shone across the area as the sun hit its surface. To me it stood out of the place and acted as a focal point of the surrounding beauty in the area. The above picture is an attempt to capture its magnificence.

Berlin was certainly a pleasant place to visit and the tram system works like a charm. However, I also feel that Berlin is a city which one should gather energy to visit. Though you can easily get around in the city, you are easily exhausted and hardly have time to sit down and relax. There are simply too many things to see and experience.

Lucid Dreaming

Once in a while when I wake up in the morning, I am too tired to get out of the bed. I’m too tired to even keep my eyes open and my mind drifts off to sleep once again. But because my mind has registered that it is morning and time to get up, I never enter the deep sleep as you do during the night. In fact I retain one foot in the world of the living and one foot in the world of dreams. When that happens, I experience what is commonly referred to as  Lucid Dreaming.

A lucid dream is a state of mind where you are asleep, but retain a part of your consciousness. In short, you are only half-asleep. This state is difficult to maintain as your awoken consciousness continuously  tries to exert control over your unconsciousness which dispels the illusory reality of the dream world. However, with training you can maintain this state for long periods of time and experience what we essentially would refer to as a virtual reality in video games.

Today I had such an experience. It was more profound than any other lucid dreams I have had. The key difference with this dream lies in discovery that I was dreaming, but maintained the illusory world. As such I could walk around and act like it was the real world with the knowledge that I could change it as I saw fit. The dream itself was nothing spectacular, but one instance showed me the power of lucid dreaming when you are in control.

On the top of a sun-struck mountain with green fields and beautiful trees, I encounter a girl living in a cottage together with her mother. At first glance the girl is quite ordinary and I would have dismissed her in an instant in the real world. But because I am aware that I am dreaming, I begin to alter her expression. It is here where it becomes difficult. Although I am in control, my attempts to change her facial features and overall body type is met with some resistance. It is as if I am not entirely in control as I cannot make her into the perfect image of a woman. Some “faults” are still visible and in the end I settle with what I have achieved. My dream ends shortly there after.

The experience of struggling over control within a domain which should entirely be my own is fascinating. It reminds me of the split brain studies and the theory behind which I have read concerning my master’s thesis. The short gist of the theory states that our consciousness is not a specific center within the area, but a by-product of all the neurological interactions between the many different centers within the brain. Proof of this has been found within people suffering from brain damage which has only affected a certain part of the brain.

In one study scientists were able to licit two responses to the same question from one patient. They would put shutters between the eyes, so one eye saw the full extent of the question and another had a word blanked out. In this study the patient was asked what he wanted to be when he became older. His left hand wrote draftsman, while the right hand wrote automobile race. When the test ended, the scientists asked him again and the patient answered that he wanted to be a draftsman*.

To me it shows that our reality, our perceived reality, is constructed by more than one center of our brain. My lucid dream showed me the internal conflict between what my overall consciousness considers the perfect image of a woman and what a couple of specific centers within my brain considers an ideal woman. It goes to show that the perfect image of a given object may not be what you truly wish for.

* The experiment is described in detail in Fear Itself, p. 202-203 by Rush W. Dozier, Jr.

I don’t want to be your friend – A little piece on being stuck in the friendzone

When I wake up in the morning I think it is awesome to take a look at your life and marvel at the things you have accomplished so far. I think many people enjoy such past times especially when things are perhaps a little dull. One such thing I imagine is thinking of the awesome friends you have. You might have been at a party yesterday and had a great time. Perhaps you feel privileged that you have such good friends. I certainly do.

Ever since I sat foot in this world I have been a good friend. I have a knack for being able to strike up conversation with the unlikeliest of people and creating bonds of friendship with people I have hardly known for more than five minutes. In my childhood I even won a monetary reward for being a good friend to everyone in school. Such a gift is wonderful to have. You never feel alone in social company. One of the more interesting aspects of it is that friends can open doors to hitherto unknown opportunities. Say you need help on a project or looking for career opportunities and do not have the expertise within that given field; don’t fret. Call a friend who specializes within the field and have him teach you some basics. You might end up being better than him and helping him expand his career in return. Being able to make friends is a powerful ability and one that you shouldn’t scoff at.

And yet it is becoming more and more a curse in my experience. In the case of most men, at some point in their life they begin to look beyond their own borders and comfort zone. They realize that certain needs aren’t being met and they cannot fulfill them by themselves. They need a wo(man) in their life. It so happens that I am one of those men.

Being the person I am I use the best of my abilities to gain access to a woman’s comfort zone. You want to be pleasant and nice to be around. As an adolescent I had no trouble gaining the confidence of girls and given my lack of expertise, it was most likely the best course of action. I wanted to be around them as girls became interesting and this was the best way I knew of. Today I can count many of my friends as women and they largely outnumber the amount of male friends. However, as I grew older it dawned more and more on me that I wasn’t getting anywhere in terms of what I wanted. Women would flock to me as I was friendly, warm, not aggressive and nice to be around. I was the Nice Guy™. They would get their emotional fix by being in my presence. The support of a close friend; the closeness associated with a man without the sexual feelings; confiding with a man concerning boyfriend troubles. I provided all of those options and many more to the cadre of women who associated themselves with me. I was happy to provide it as it allowed me being closer to them. In some far corner of my mind I held an unrealistic expectation that they would begin to see me in a different light once they had realized what I could do for them. I stopped having those delusional thoughts when I realized that I was living in a fantasy world.

So turning a new page in the never ending book of my life, I began a new chapter and sat out to correct the mistakes of the past. Hardly a paragraph down I ran into the same troubles which had transpired on the previous pages. I was Nice Guy™. It is who I am. It is my personality. I am a gentle soul who enjoys the softer things in life. I like to cuddle while I hold a woman in my arms. I like to listen to some soothing music while I gently caress the soft hairs on the back of her neck. These are the things I enjoy. They are also the needs I have come to understand which are not being fulfilled. But I am also a sexual being. I want to be touched and caressed by a lover who I in turn touch and caress as well. But it is this side of me which women do not want or like to see. In their eyes I am the perfect friend. They can get their emotional fix with me and their sexual fix with another. Frankly, I am tired of it. I am tired of being the emotional fix for women and not their sexual fix. When I approach the subject, they either react with astonishment or repeat the same old phrase which I have heard a million times by now. “But we’re just friends”. Awesome, thanks, just what I wanted to hear.

And so we reach the point of my message: I don’t want to be your friend. You can be the most amazing and sweet girl in the entire world, but if you are not going to put out, then get out. We can remain “friends”, but I am not going to spend any more energy on you. I have reached a point in my life where more friends, especially female friends, just seem so pointless. I have no need or want to be in another person’s friend zone. It is just not worth it anymore. I think it is sad that it has come to this, but I can feel that if I do not do something drastically about it, then I will be forever stuck in the same old track, performing the same old song over and over, again and again.

New update in the Stories section! New Gilded Rose chapter!

So after a long hiatus due to a billion things, I am finally back with a new chapter in the Gilded Rose saga. Just to restate, this run was completed proximally 5-6 months ago and I have just been lazy in reporting back the results. There should be 2-3 more updates following this one and then the entire adventure is over :).

The Gilded Rose Part Seven – The Werewolf Isle and visiting the Undercellar

 

Did I use the wrong word?

I was in front of the computer when the phone rang. It was unexpected though not surprising as I was waiting on some sort confirmation for another potential event. I look at the phone and notice it is an old acquaintance. One I haven’t heard from in a long time and one I haven’t spoken to in a long time.

I pick up the phone and softly say ‘hello’ into the receiver. I am greeted by the old acquaintance with my name and the acquaintance proceeds to ask when I am planning to go to another person I know and if I have brought X stuff with me. I am puzzled as I have no idea what the acquaintance is talking about besides that I know of the person she is talking about. The conversation goes back and forth with me explaining that I have no idea what she is talking about and her asking if I am still on good terms with X other acquaintance. During the entire conversation I assume that my old acquaintance knows who she is talking to as she greeted me by my name. In the end, we agree that she should phone X other acquaintance and ask what is going on. We hang up.

Five minutes later the phone rings again and it is her. I pick up the phone and am told that there was a mix up and she is unsure who she has been speaking to. I explain that she is speaking to me who she (should) know from two years ago when we met at a party, went on a date and been to several parties together. I let it be known that I do not blame her for not remembering as she was pretty wasted when we subsequently met afterwards at those parties.She remembers and quickly terminates the conversation with the word-for-word lines:

I don’t know what you mean by ‘wasted’. May you have a nice day and summer holidays.

Did I say something wrong? It is hard to convey the complexities of the conversation in a transcript, but to me it felt as if I had said something wrong. Her defense and rebuttal of my comment that she was ‘wasted’ (note that there is no 1:1 translation of what I said in Danish to English) suggested that I had offended her somehow.

This would normally not be noteworthy, but lately I have experienced a change in my outwards behavior. My gym sessions are paying off and have provided me with more confidence. Unfortunately the confidence is also turning me into an asshole. While my comments do not contain any insidious or hurtful intentions, they can still be interpreted as being condescending.

As recently as yesterday, I made a comment to a co-worker that he should not attempt to lift X box due to it being very heavy. In the same comment I wanted him to know that although I could and had moved the box, it was not an easy thing to do and it would probably be better to ask for help in moving it. Another co-worker heard this and made it known to us both how condescending I had just been. I acknowledged it fully.

Comments and actions like these have lately turned me from the passive and non-conflict creating guy into an aggressive and conflicting creating person. Confidence has provided me with a tool of saying ‘no’, but also gave me the ability to be the aggressor as well. It is not so bad at the moment, but I am wondering how I am going to tackle it if this continues. I still remember enough of my old persona to see the split in my behavior.

There is no point in asking the acquaintance if my comment was hurtful or not at this point. Doing so would only cause it to blow it out of proportions. I have a feeling that I will be seeing her in a month or so when X other acquaintance is hosting an event and I might as well ask her there if the issue is still pressing.

New Short Story – ‘Green Memories’

A new short story has been uploaded under the ‘Stories and Articles’ subgroup.

This one took me some time to finish. The idea came to me in the autumn of 2009 and I have been writing on and off for some time. It wasn’t until recently that I decided to finish it as I now had an idea of where I wanted to go with the story.

The story is about a girl who is experiencing identity issues and low self-esteem. It focuses on her experiencing with the fictional drug she takes and how she feels it helps her tackle her internal issues.

You can find the page by clicking here.

 

A New Review under ‘The Late Night Review’

A new page has been added to ‘The Late Night Review’. This time I review Batman: Arkham Asylum which was released in 2009 and its subsequently success made it The Game of the Year (GOTY).