“Games” is a fascinating word. Because it has many levels, and meanings. Lately I’ve been quite caught up with playing computer games. I treated myself to “City Life“. It was rather hard to find my way into the game, but once I managed that, it actually played quite well. Still figuring out some of the logics, but I already managed 2 Gold-Cities. Due to that I’ve not been very active in EVE lately. I did fly a mission yesterday evening, but after that I returned to CL again

Then there’s the usual mind-games. Lately every employer seems to involve masters at this particular (and nasty) trade. Fear-mongering is omnipresent. Living isn’t much fun anymore, when everything you do has some connotation of danger. It’s no fun, getting up to go to work, when you know you’ll just be faced with another (potentially) disastrous information.

Then there’s games people play between each other. A good deal of them are quite harmless, but there’s also quite serious and malicious games people can play. I’ve lately been the recipient of such a play. I’m pretty damn certain that I know beforehand which reaction I’m gonna get, but then – as usual – my explanation for the reasoning will be ignored. And everything will be my fault again. But, y’know, one can only play that particular card so many times, and expect to get away with it.

“Control” is another fascinating word. We all exercise it, we all relinquish it. Relinquished control is a very subtly dangerous thing. To a greater or lesser extent we voluntarily give up control. The person we give this control to gains a certain power over us. One should expect that with this power there comes responsibility. Well, it does, but rather frequently it is ignored. Basically like the “responsibility” I had to my toy-cars when I was a kid. Yeah, quite a few of them ended up being broken, but then again they were only objects, right? But … responsibility relating to a person … that’s something else. But again … todays society doesn’t seem to care. Everyone seems thrilled when she or he is given power over someone else, but most people don’t care for actually using it wisely.

Through years of experience I’ve grown accustomed to the fact that every time I voluntarily relinquish some control I will get hurt. Often there is way enough positive experience to make up for that. But not always. I’m not sure how this is for others, but every person I grow close to gains a rather significant amount of power over me. When people start using that power to hurt me, well … I’m prepared for it. But I’m human too, so I can only take so much, before I break. Since I’ve already experienced what happens, when I break, I attempt to stop it before it gets there.

What has always struck me as weird is the fact that people assume that once they are given a certain amount of power they will forever retain it, no matter what they do to you. They hurt you, lie to you, play games and still they expect you to be just there whenever the whim hits them, and they suddenly have a wish for their “toy”. I’ve seen this behavior soo often, it’s not funny anymore. But the pattern sticks.
This was also my reasoning to rename one of my contacts today.

In expectation of the reactions and in closing, I’ll just quote Linus Torvalds : “I’m going to just hunker down [...] and my asbestos underwear is firmly in place, and extremely uncomfortable.“