Cav's Place

While a lot could be said about those who lead and those who follow, those who plan and those who act, there are two people without whom no important action, no change, could ever happen. Those two are the first one who speaks out about the issue and the first one who stands in his or her support. They are the people who are willing to be the first, no matter the cost.
Everything has to start somewhere and someone has to be there to kick it into motion. Unfortunately, extremely few people are willing to take that chance, to single themselves out and become a target for all those who oppose their idea. Even when they agree with a controversial idea, they prefer to sit back and wait for others to take the first steps, joining in only when they could lose themselves in the crowd. But there would be no crowd without those first ones, because sometimes it takes more courage to say one word or to raise your hand than it takes to actually fight.

Imagine a scenario. An important issue is being discussed and you could cut the tension with a knife. A lot of important people are seated in a hall, listening to what’s being said and some of them taking turns speaking. There don’t seem to be any truly good solutions for the problem being discussed, not unless you take the really outrageous ones into account at least. Some might be thinking about those outrageous solutions, but nobody wants to speak out about them, it’d be suicide… Or, at least, nobody until one person stands, walks up to the microphone, speaks about one of those outrageous solutions and asks for support. There is a moment of silence, while everyone is trying to figure out whether he or she is really saying what they appear to be saying, then there is a lot of muttering, possibly some shouts for silence, some other shouts which are threatening or at least insulting the speaker… Then, slowly, as the speaker continues to face them undaunted, scanning their faces, there is silence again.
Without that speaker, that idea would have never seen the light of day. Even if most of the people in that hall would have been thinking the same thing, nobody else seemed to have the courage to speak out. Or perhaps nobody else was thinking that same thing until then, but some analyzed the idea on the spot and decided that it was a rather good one, which makes the speaker even more valuable. So the speaker was extremely valuable, there’s no doubt about that. There are now a number of people who agree with the speaker, but they still dare not speak out in support, fearing the consequences. Some of them might even be muttering or shouting against the speaker, afraid that they’ll become the next targets for the others’ outrage if they do not. So, as valuable as the speaker was, he or she would have to stand down, defeated, at least for the time being, if nobody would be willing to be the second “first”.
But what’s this? Somebody is shuffling in their chair. The speaker notices it and tries to make eye contact, doing their best to encourage that person. But that person would not look up, not yet anyway. The encouragement they need at that moment can only come from within, because that’s where the battle rages. They agree with the proposed solution, but they’re afraid of what will happen if they speak out, they’re uncertain about the outcome of the whole thing. Still, in the end, that little voice which says that they should do the right thing, despite their fears and misgivings, becomes stronger and so does their resolve. They look up to meet the speaker’s eyes and then, ever so slowly, they stand up. A deafening silence follows the very next moment. You could hear a pin drop. Then, one by one, a few others stand up. Then, several more follow suit…
The first leader is extremely important, but the first follower is equally so. It’s true that just these two people could hardly accomplish anything without the help of all the others who will join the movement after them, but it’s even more certain that nothing important would ever happen without both of them. They both take tremendous risks, as they won’t be able to hide even if an entire “school of fish” would form around them afterwards. Their supporters but also, and perhaps more importantly, their enemies will always remember that they started it all, that they were the first ones. This is why I said that sometimes it takes more courage to say one word or raise your hand than to actually fight. When you fight, you can be part of an “army”, you can get lost in the crowd and you could even try to escape the vengeance of your opponents by saying that you were just following orders. These two will never be able to do that…

You can apply the above situation to any number of past, current and future issues. You can replace speaking with any other form of communication. You can replace the hall with a city, a country or the whole world. You can replace the important people with average people or, quite the opposite, with very specific individuals. The general idea doesn’t change, it hasn’t changed through the ages… We need those two “firsts”, we need far more of them than we have… We have always needed far more of them than we ever had…
So… What about you? What would make you be willing to be the first, even if the risks were significant? What do you truly care about? Is there anything? If not, why not? How does realizing that make you feel?

Courage is even less common than usually thought. Especially when the death you risk is not that of your body… That’s very unfortunate for all of us, if we’re to have any chance of ever making it out of this mess we got ourselves in…

Once again, I knew all the songs before the show, but this time I didn’t try to find out what any of the presentations was going to be like ahead of time.
When ranking, I used the same system I have been using for all these years, which I explained last year so there’s no need to do it again.

I have to say that I really have no idea what the fuck did everybody see in the Norwegian performance to make them win, and by such a huge margin too! It was a song for the bottom half of the classification, and yet… I guess the fact that juries counted for 50% of the vote this time had a lot to do with that, but I still can’t even begin to understand it!
I’m happy for Iceland being second. Should have been first, but second is good too. Not much to speak of as far as show value goes, but a great voice and obviously the best song of the competition. That’s exactly the kind of song Eurovision is about.
I’m also happy for Azerbaijan. I put them second and consider them to be the only ones who had any real reason to challenge Iceland for the top spot, if only they would have done without that annoyingly “traditional” part of the song. Not quite the best in any one aspect, but one of the best in all of them and therefore a very solid performance overall. I ranked them as number one last year, on their debut, so it seems like they have really nice ideas…
The Turkish song was certainly pretty decent, but not one of the best. The show value was quite good, but once again not one of the best. I think “political” votes helped them gain a few places yet again. After all, considering the votes I’ve seen, it’s obvious that juries can pick “friendly” countries just as well as the regular people who vote can.
As for the British entry, it was quite a complex song… Too complex, actually; a bit too much for Eurovision. But it really doesn’t bother me that they ended up fifth, it’s not much higher than I ranked them anyway.

But here’s my classification (actual place between parenthesis):

1 Iceland (2)
2 Azerbaijan (3)
3 Sweden (21)
4 Albania (17)
5 Finland (25)
6 Ukraine (12)
7 Estonia (6)
8 United Kingdom (5)
9 Turkey (4)
10 Greece (7)
11 Germany (20)
12 Denmark (13)
13 Portugal (15)
14 Romania (19)
15 Bosnia (9)
16 Spain (=23)
17 Norway (1)
18 Malta (22)
19 Lithuania (=23)
20 Israel (16)
21 Croatia (18)
22 Moldova (14)
23 Armenia (10)
24 Russia (11)
25 France (8)

Got none right. One place off for Azerbaijan, Denmark, Estonia and Iceland. Two off for Portugal. Three off for Croatia, Greece and United Kingdom.
On the other hand, at least ten places off for Albania, Armenia, Finland, France, Norway, Russia and Sweden.
I have to say that I’m getting used to Armenia ending up way higher than I think it should. Since 2006, I have placed them 19th, 20th, 23rd and now 23rd again, but they ended up eighth, eighth again, fourth and now tenth.

Let me briefly explain my top ten picks now.
I already said what I had to say about Iceland and Azerbaijan, so there’s nothing more to add. I think these two were obviously the top two and that no other participant should have had any chance of challenging for anything higher than third. Period.
The Swedish entry was quite interesting. If Malena would have stuck to the high notes and they’d have had someone else sing the rest it could have really challenged for first, but as it was it didn’t quite work that way, seeing as she was struggling a bit with the parts which were obviously below her usual vocal range.
I find myself having a rather hard time explaining why did I put Albania fourth. I probably gave it an extra point because it came after a few songs which seemed to be of similar value and I thought it was slightly better than all of them. On one hand I’d be inclined to say that it gained four places because of that extra point, as it probably should have ranked right above Turkey, but on the other hand it was certainly better than Finland and Ukraine…
There were certainly plenty of songs better than the Finnish one, but I thought it had the second best show value, so that gave it a serious boost in the classification. It’s obviously one of those moments when I can’t say I agree with my own classification…
Show value was also the reason for placing Ukraine sixth. The song was rather poor, but I thought it had the best show value of all, so it ended up boosted by it and battling Finland for fifth. In the end I placed them sixth because, as I said, the song was quite poor. Once again, I don’t particularly agree with my own classification…
The Estonian song just caught my attention. There was something in it that just sounded “right”. It wasn’t truly great, but it did stand out. The rather low show value and the fact that it was sung in Estonian meant I couldn’t rank it higher than seventh, though.
As I said before, the British song was probably too pretentious for Eurovision. It was a good song, far better than most of their other attempts in recent years, I wouldn’t have ranked it this high otherwise, but they still don’t quite seem to get what this contest is all about.
Already said what I had to say about Turkey too. It was quite all right, but basically just the best out of a rather long series of songs which seemed to me to be of very similar value overall. Relatively good, but didn’t stand out.
And most of what I said about Turkey applies to Greece as well, though obviously I thought they were just a tiny bit worse.

Once again, I used the same system in the semi-finals and six out of my ten picks made it from each. In the first, I picked Andorra, Belarus, Belgium and Montenegro instead of Armenia, Bosnia, Israel and Malta (Armenia ranking last). In the second, I picked Ireland, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia instead of Croatia, Lithuania, Moldova and Norway (Lithuania and Croatia being the last two in my classification). So, yes, I didn’t even think Norway should have made it to the final, much less win it!
As a side note, the countries that benefitted from the new rule that states that juries choose one of the qualifiers from each semi-final were Finland and Croatia, which took the places of Macedonia and Serbia, respectively. I’m really surprised that the jury gave Finland such a helping hand, seeing as I expected the jury vote to go to a good song instead of a good show. It should also be noted that Macedonia was kicked out because of the jury vote last year too, when they also ranked tenth in the semi-final according to regular votes.

Please note that YouTube seems to hunt down and delete Eurovision videos quite often, judging from past experience, so the links are likely to become outdated quickly.

This isn’t working… I’m just sitting here and feeling like shit, thinking about the usual things and feeling embarrassed and stupid about everything. Even playing a game can make me feel crappy, so I’ll just pick a topic and whine for a little while.

It sucks that the apples and oranges are always in the kitchen, so I can only grab one if I go there, which can only happen if I somehow get out of my room when neither of my parents is in the kitchen and I notice this fact. Can’t say that another place could be found for them so it would be easier for me to grab one while staying a “ghost”, but it’s still annoying. Even more annoying is that I never remember to take one in my room at night so it’ll be here the next day.
As long as we’re talking about snacks, I’d still like to have some other things, of a more unhealthy kind, to munch on. There are hardly ever any of those around, and when they do exist they’re also in the kitchen… Or worse, in the creature’s room. I’m not talking about sweets, there are almost always sweets, but when I want to munch on something and grab something sweet because there’s nothing else handy, I end up either feeling a little sick, due to eating too much of it too fast, or being quite dissatisfied because I was careful and therefore didn’t get enough. I mean, come on, you can’t satisfy an urge to munch on something with sweets, at least not without feeling sick afterwards. Been through this before…
While I’m on this issue, it’s also quite annoying that dad doesn’t buy any other fruits. But I have to deal with it, since I wouldn’t know what to ask for even if I’d be so inclined and I obviously can’t buy any myself. That’s how it is with all the food, I just have to deal with what they get and make and quite often just try to find something that I dislike somewhat less than the other options…
Yes, I just wanted to whine and this was the first thing that came to mind, all right?

Actually, that’s how it is with everything. I just have to deal with what they buy and make… And that’s how it’ll always be, since I’ll never have much of a say in how my life goes and, unless a miracle happens, I’ll never again live with anyone who understands me either. Still wondering why the fuck am I still alive, because there’s certainly no point in anything. I mean I know why I’m alive, it’s because I didn’t have the courage to do what had to be done after she left and then found myself forced to create just enough hope to allow me to stick around like this, be “undead” because I couldn’t be anything else… But… Is that really all there is?
I’m just stuck here with them and no life and no path to anywhere. Or nowhere good, since it’s always possible for things to get worse… And they usually do. Never say things can’t get worse, because you’ll quickly be proved wrong. Learned that a long time ago…

I keep saying that I need a best friend, but I’m wondering what kind of person would she have to be. Obviously not a cheerful and positive person, we’d have nothing to talk about if she’d be like that, but she probably couldn’t be quite as far down as I am either. She’d have to be down in the pit with me, but holding on to a sturdy rope and willing to let me grab on to her. Then we could just comfort each other, be alone together, and wait for things to change while trying to see which of the problems that we could do little, if anything, about alone can be solved if we work together.
Still, even in the highly unlikely scenario that such a person will ever show up in my life, I’d fear that she’d start making her way up by herself and I’d be left behind once again. There have been few enough people I felt I could get close to so far and they have all left me behind sooner or later. Usually sooner. That’s what happens each and every time…

Basically… I guess that right now I just need to cuddle, need that kind of physical contact, the rest can probably wait a while longer. Haven’t had that either since Andra left. Hell, I’ve only been hugged once since then! Lately even my nicer dreams seem to focus just on this, hugging and cuddling. But, of course, that can’t happen either. Hope is just something I need to create because there is nothing else, but it’s not real… There’s no reason to hope when absolutely nothing works well when it comes to such things…

Jealousy is a concept I could never understand. I believe I can explain what mix of elements are responsible for creating it, what makes it take roots, but I can’t understand why do people allow it to grow and flourish. And I find the large number of people who believe that jealousy is proof of love and a good thing in a relationship, even if they tend to specify that it is only good in moderation, as being even more incomprehensible. How can anyone believe that an obviously wrong and harmful emotion is good?
Jealousy usually makes one impose unreasonable restrictions on their partner, or at least track their actions and make unreasonable assumptions about them. That creates power struggles within the relationship, and that can only tear it apart, making the jealous person’s partner more likely to look for someone else, or just for a way out, even if otherwise they wouldn’t have wanted to leave. It’s bad in itself and it only creates more bad things once it rears its ugly head. So what’s wrong with those who think it’s a good and even a necessary thing?

It’s not that hard to explain jealousy, even if you’re not a mental health professional. Actually, those who are might have a different explanation for it, but I never cared to look, seeing as they’re wrong most of the time. The way I see it, jealousy is what happens when possessiveness meets insecurity. Distrust is mandatory, though it could be an effect and not a cause, and ego and pride are also factors. What this means is that one person desires to have exclusive rights over their partner, own them if you will, they even feel entitled to this, but at the same time they don’t think it’s possible. Whether that’s because they don’t feel worthy of it or because they don’t think their partner is willing to allow themselves to be owned doesn’t matter much, as both of these reasons are present, sometimes even at the same time.
So it all starts from possessiveness, the desire to have exclusive rights over your partner. I know that much, but I can’t figure out why do people think that way. The fact that I fully support polyamory might have something to do with why I can’t understand this, but I really don’t. I don’t think they desire to be owned in the same way themselves, which means that they believe they’re superior to their partners. Having reached that conclusion, I have to ask what makes them think that. Actually, while we’re on this topic, why is owning that specific person so important to them, if they believe they’re superior to him or her?
If you think about it, the best thing you could say is that it makes no sense. The worst you could say is that it does make sense and it says a lot of bad things about those who act this way. Of course, if the latter is true and they’re just rotten, like most people are, they aren’t going to care. That might actually be the typical case, as most don’t seem to really care about all the problems their jealousy is causing, but what about those who do care? What about those who realize that their jealousy is hurting their partner and their relationship, yet still don’t stop? It could be that they can’t stop once it went past a certain level, it became a part of them and that obviously can’t change, but what made them let it get to that point? Did they only start to care once it became a serious problem or… What happened? Again, it just makes no sense.

But if that makes no sense, what about those who think it’s a good thing? They seem to believe that love implies jealousy and that you don’t really love someone if you’re not jealous. To me, that sounds like their ego talking, because if you love someone it’s quite obvious that you want them to be with you, but not that you want them to be yours. There’s a big difference beween the two, seeing as the latter implies ownership. The problem here is that you pretty much have to believe that your partner is inferior to you in order to feel entitled to own them, but you can’t believe that about someone you truly love. Ego and love, or pride and love, don’t mix well at all.
There are, of course, some potential explanations… One would include repressed dominant or submissive tendencies, which surface in the form of either jealousy or the desire for a jealous partner because they aren’t included in the relationship otherwise. Another would involve insecurities, which could lead one down the path of wishful thinking and make them reason that a jealous partner is interested in holding on to them and therefore less likely to leave, despite the fact that possessiveness actually makes such a partner more likely to just use them and not return favors. Yet another, and perhaps the simplest one, is that people try to justify what they already feel, so those who tend to be jealous will say that jealousy is a good thing just to avoid thinking that they might be doing something wrong.

There are several possible explanations, but no justifications. What matters is that jealousy harms. Whether it’s intentional or not is less important, because the result is what matters. Insecurity could actually help sometimes, if it’s treated in a constructive manner, if it causes the person feeling it to be the best they can be in an attempt to be good enough. But the other “ingredients”, possessiveness, ego, pride and lack of trust, can only harm a relationship. They create power struggles and a vicious circle which results in nothing but pain and suffering.
That said, why don’t people learn to offer each other the freedom they themselves would like to have? And perhaps even more than that, seeing as we’re talking about those they love… We complain that our bosses treat us as if we were worthless or that our governments are taking away our freedoms, yet we tend to treat even those we claim to love as inferior and take away their freedoms whenever possible.

Once again, I can’t bring myself to write anything. There are plenty of things on my mind, but mainly personal things and I was trying really hard to avoid other “feeling sorry for myself” posts. Yet I think it’s better to just write a little about these instead of nothing at all. Maybe it could also help me be able to think about other issues as well and therefore have something else to write about these days, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up, it doesn’t work like that…

Perhaps I should start with health concerns, since a new one has been added on top of the usual ones. I’ve been feeling a dull pain in my lower right side for a couple of weeks now, generally towards the back. My first thought was that my right kidney is trying to say something, but it might just be my hip complaining about the slightly increased difficulty of my daily exercise routine, or even something else entirely.
As for the usual concerns, they’re still there, no reason to get into them. My back also seems to hurt more and more often; there were only a couple of weeks between the last two times. It’s kind of sad that I’m getting used to a level of pain that made me basically unable to do anything, not even sleep, the first time I felt it. Also, my lower lip quivers quite a lot lately, I just find that weird.

Since that’s out of the way, I’m sure you know the real main concern that’s on my mind. It’s the same as always, or always since she left, that is… Of course I’m thinking and worrying a whole lot about Andra, that never changes. Would still really want to know what’s going on in her life, what’s she doing, how she is… And I’m still very scared of what I might find out…
Assuming she’s still in England, the current economic crisis is one more reason for concern, since I heard that the United Kingdom has been hit really hard. Being Romanian doesn’t exactly help anyone abroad, you know? Knowing her, she’d really want to keep her job, assuming she found one again after she went back, assuming she did go back. This would be really important to her on a personal level, not just from a financial point of view. But doing so might prove quite difficult right now, considering everything…
All I can say is that I hope she’s well and happy… But I’d really like to hear from her, though the prospect frightens me at the same time and I doubt I’d manage to handle it better than the last time. Actually, I’m still very surprised by how long I managed to delay cracking completely when we last talked, so I doubt I’d even get close to such a “performance” again. The one condition is still for her to have no kids. Whether her own or adopted or even just in her long-term care doesn’t really matter. That’s the one thing I’ll never accept and therefore the one thing which could kill me more than the current situation does.

Otherwise, I still sorely feel the lack of a real close friend… I haven’t even been that close to anyone on-line in a very long time, but I’m not talking about on-line friends now. Physical contact is really important to me and, while I couldn’t handle having any sort of “real life” relationship with more than a few people, having none is really taking its toll.
You’d think I’d get used to it, since the only time I had a close “real life” friend was also the only time I had anyone I could call my best friend. I’m talking about the short amount of time Elena P. was a part of my life… That’s a story I never wrote about here, maybe I should someday. But life has proven that when something appears to be too good to be true, it usually is. I’m saying this because I’ve had certain suspicions about what really happened back then all along, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d find something really ugly if I’ll ever find out what that was really about. But I doubt that’ll ever happen…
So no, I never got used to it. I certainly don’t want “people” around me, but I need one in order to be able to function in any way and a second one would also help. Lacking the first, the second becomes mandatory. The first would obviously be my girlfriend, and as of close to seven years ago that can only be Andra. The second would be someone I could truly call my best friend. I guess I did better with the girlfriend, since I had one for over three years. I’ve only had (what I thought to be) a real best friend for two months…

Those are the main problems that likely keep me from thinking long enough about anything else. Just writing about them doesn’t exactly help, it never does, but I couldn’t exactly do anything else…
Let’s see how I’ll manage to somehow get a second post out of myself this week, and hopefully one that doesn’t deal with personal issues. It’ll probably turn out like crap, but most of them do anyway…

One more thing, completely unrelated with any of this: My new video card’s power consumption is pretty much what I expected it to be, so I was excited for no reason when I thought it was much lower. It only uses as much as it needs, so that’s what confused me initially, because I wasn’t playing something that required any significant effort from it. Just thought I’d add this here, since I noticed it a couple of days ago.