Unaffected

This time I did AQ test, which is self-test for autistic/Asperger tendencies.

Result: 29. Your score isn't an achievement, it just is. Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues at Cambridge's Autism Research Centre have created the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, or AQ, as a measure of the extent of autistic traits in adults. In the first major trial using the test, the average score in the control group was 16.4. Eighty percent of those diagnosed with autism or a related disorder scored 32 or higher. The test is not a means for making a diagnosis, however, and many who score above 32 and even meet the diagnostic criteria for mild autism or Asperger's report no difficulty functioning in their everyday lives. You scored less than 32. Make your own assessment of that.

Close, just as I thought... Here's a nice quote from J. Krishnamurti, which summarizes main point of his teachings:

"The teachings are not something out there in a book; what the teachings say is, 'Look at yourself, go into yourself, inquire into what is there, understand it, go beyond it', and so on. The teachings are only a means of pointing, explaining, but you have to understand, not the teachings, but yourself."

Zahir

We always want things we can't have...and remain blind to everything that is already here.

As for me, I have been searching for personalization of an idea. Met the persons but the idea remained so strong that there has been no other way than push those people away. Surely, I wish I could have been more gentle, more compassionate, more understanding to their feelings but I have been just too much in my own little word to make an attempt. I'm still there, at the crossroads, watching the seeker. It is impossible search that I'm on and I know it. It's filled with frustration, conflicts and paradoxes. Should just give up, throw away that which I treasured the most. True beauty can not be seen when energy is leaking out like this.

I have started reading a book of Paulo Coelho. I have read few of his books before and always liked them. However, this time I approached the book much more....personally. I have not read it far yet but the voice of the book could easily belong to myself. And that's the way I have never felt with any author even though I have read a lot in my life.

The book's title is Zahir.

Death survey results

According to our research, you'll be dead by January 2053 at age 77.

Probable cause: heart attack.

Why you die? 56% heart attack 24% car accident 13% loneliness 5% drowning of the lungs 2% wounds.

You have 17178.9 days left on this earth. You have already lived 39% of your life.

One for all and all for one

There’s a hero in every story. This hero faces great difficulties, saves himself and soon gets into another conflict. He makes choices according to what he chooses in the first place as important in life. Let’s introduce (cursive text is from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/3musk/characters.html) the main characters of Three Musketeers and see what choices they made in this retrospect:

D'Artagnan - The central character of the novel, d'Artagnan is a young, impoverished Gascon nobleman who comes to make his fortune in Paris. He is brave, noble, ambitious, crafty, and intelligent. Like any Romantic hero, he is driven by love and ruled by chivalry, but occasionally prone to fall into amoral behavior.

Amoral behaviour here means his interaction with certain Lady de Winter, it’s very hard to see him as amoral character. D’Artagnan’s choice first was love and after that there really wasn’t anything that mattered to him that much.

Athos - The most important of the Three Musketeers, Athos is something of a father figure to d'Artagnan. He is older than his comrades, although still a young man. Athos is distinguished in every way--intellect, appearance, bravery, swordsmanship--yet he is tortured by a deep melancholy, the source of which no one knows.

It’s interesting that Athos is named here as most important of trio (Athos, Porthos and Aramis) – I would say it’s a toss up between him and Aramis. Athos gave greatest importance first to honour (rather alien concept nowadays) and later on it was his son.

Aramis - A young Musketeer, one of the great Three. Aramis is a handsome young man, quiet and somewhat foppish. He constantly protests that he is only temporarily in the Musketeers, and that any day now he will return to the Church to pursue his true calling. Aramis has a mysterious mistress, Madame de Chevreuse, a high noblewoman, whose existence and identity he tries to keep from his friends.

These descriptions are all from the first book when all of them were quite young. Aramis was after power all his life, endless pursuit to get into higher position in world.

Porthos - Porthos, the third of the Three Musketeers, is loud, brash, and self-important. He is extremely vain, and enjoys outfitting himself handsomely; but for all that, he is a valiant fighter and a courageous friend. His mistress is Madame Coquenard, the wife of a wealthy attorney.

Little bit cold description about the simple, good-hearted giant of man. What mattered most to Porthos was what others thought about him.

Surely we find similarities in these choices from our own life. I have no trouble of naming, which musketeer’s role I have picked. I am also little bit tempted to write such a little description about myself but I’ll skip it for now.