In Which I talk of Aero and of Blissful times, as well as the struggle against the mind gnosticism. God is Good, not the Demiurge

Good morning, sir friend, how are you today? As for me, I am okay, the week was one where I decided to bring my laptop to my portable desk table and use it reclining in bed. Not the recipe for the most productive week, that is true, but for several days, I did have relaxing moments, until decided to bring the computer back to my actual desk. I should do some desk cleansing at some point, even. Throw out some of the empty medicine boxes, I always worry to throw the wrong out, and there is this mysticism that the medicine will regenerate if I leave it there. Stupid, but at times this is where I gravitate towards. The weather has been quite nice if I can tell, we are approaching one of the best times of the year, which is the time of June-July! And then there is my birthday in August! How nice... at first I did not give it a serious thought, but maybe I could do another small personal Midmas celebration, for 2026. I know it has been an year rough around the edges concerning my finances, I did spend much more than I was expecting, and as consequence have a lot of bills to mitigate, and I know the job hunting went to no avail, for now, and the internship one also did not bore much fruit. Anxiety peaks are a given, I had those too, and the loneliness. The fear of some dearest friend ghosting me, as some have done before. In other words: bad stuff still happen, and I am absolutely terrified of saying I am "well" because I have this STUPID mystical superstition that if I do so, life will become vindicted and will throw awful awful things at me so I never dare to smile again. Or if I dare to say something, God will be enraged and will make me die over and over and over again. And over again. It is a real fear, even if baseless. I must always keep my smile down, fly under the radar undetected. If I am noticed, I will be taken to sleep. Not true, but a belief that insists in staying, I blame my OCD.... I think maybe this is why I want this midmas so bad: I want to dare and say: I love Christmas, God is my friend, gnosticism is bad, and I am happy, even with the bad things. I want to dare and say this... I am alive, I am happy, I did gain weight but I am more healthy than not. Life is not exactly a bliss but I am terrified of dying. That is so.

It is appropriate that I think of this in advance: I have been on an aero moment in my life, I suppose. Maybe as a revival, or maybe the first official one. Cataloguing, as much as it sounds abstract and arbitrary, is something I tend to do, I can even thrive on it. Much before the internet went on the "era of my life" craze, I did have it myself, but with gravitas, not as some manufactured moment to share. Those are not exactly easy to come by as often. I can only speak of my own personal times. 

Aero, I always loved the by now old user interface of Windows, and even before the proper Aero time, with the rusticity of Windows 98, and the softer edges, almost comic, of Windows XP. But specially Vista and 7, such a rapture of senses, gone too soon, it was abruptly discarded in the ill-judged age of the touchscreen. I discovered the softwares (StartAllBack and DWMBlurGlass comes to mind) and plug-ins that allowed me to bring back a bit of the bright and shiny illumination that used to be expected without said out loud, taken for granted on a monitor screen. Some of the bliss returned, but also... melancholia. Or a very odd feeling, that I divided into three thoughts: I am sad took me so long to find out of such tools. It is not really a return of Aero, more like a cosmetic approach to it. It will not bring back the happier years, if they existed at all. 

There is a gap, it feels, in my life, it lasted for much longer than I am happy admitting. Starting in 2013, and into between 2022 and 2024. Ten years or so, where there were far more tears and loneliness than before. And it is hard not to feel baffled, because 2012 was such a nice year for me personally. I wonder what could have gone differently, what could I have done to make at least 2013-2014 to 2016 less dreadful. It is very hard to say, I don't think it is much useful either. The world of the teenage years feel quite small in retrospect, but at the time it was such a big and scary set of walls and trade off paths, painful ones, that I had to face. I could talk about it, it is hard to do so without prolonging myself, though. I can only say: there was a set of blissful years in my life, at a time that not many think of. Some say Childhood, some point to teenage times. Harder to classify are the days between 10 and 13 years old. One is not exactly a teenager yet, but childhood is not exactly at its height. I like the expression Tween to refer to it. I can say my years of 2008-2012 were quite nice, not exactly perfect, some months really not great, but still, in retrospect, it all smells like fresh paint and delicate porcelain crockery. Something about it... maybe it is the first match of Civilization 4 I wrapped up, with a victory (I think), at a framerate on the single digits. Computer would take 20 minutes to end a single turn. Maybe it is the titanic videos I'd make on grandma's phone, where I'd run and scream acting like the water was rising and I'd have to flight for my dear life. And as I scream I'd run while holding the phone and the recording would be immensely chaotic and entirely unhinged. You can't bring those moments back, can you. Can life feel like this again... I do miss it. Not an universal golden years, but ones that belong to my thoughts and archives, in any case...

It was what I had in mind for today. Writing about it is happy and devastating at the same time. What can I say... just going to do the midmas if I can. It is all I have. I mean, besides your friendship. That I am grateful of. Thank you for spending some more minutes with me today! It does mean a lot! Hope I can write again real real soon, perhaps at some point next week? We are at the gates of my blog birthday, on June 8th, it did went by fast! I don't know how I will celebrate it, feels like I already ran out of ideas, but still... see you again real real soon! Cheers!