Cogitation in the Time of War #5 - A quick look into another point of view

I was thinking about writing tomorrow, that is Carnival day (or Mardi Gras as some know it), that for sure there would be people thinking the military columns are a parade of floats (decorated cars) and in a month (April 1st) would say all of these talk about an invasion was all a lie.

I was reserving that sort of joke for tomorrow but today I already encountered some posts online (tweets and comments) saying that what we are witnessing now is a staging, all an act (and the authors seemed to be convinced of what they were saying). That means that someone already got ahead of me on that idea, that I admit I thought was kind of original, so might as well write and publish it now to see if I can still claim some credit for this "joke"...

I wrote the above some moments ago on Facebook and in Portuguese since this is a jest that doesn't work so well in English also because the Portuguese Carnival traditions are not well known outside of the country (I suppose) nor many countries outside of (some) catholic ones celebrate Carnival (but due to the one from Venice and from Rio de Janeiro many people know about it and of course in the US for example there's the Mardi Gras tradition although that one is much more know for girls flashing their boobs in exchange for beads, at least in New Orleans).

Cogitation in the Time of War #4 - The first peace negotiations

Both Ukraine and Russia agreed to talk without pre-conditions at the Belarus-Ukraine border. It's a positive development but if they happen soon, I believe they will go nowhere. And why? That is due to the reasons for Putin deciding to invade. Let me explain further.

Cogitation in the Time of War #3 - 78 hours later

Maybe nobody reads this, or cares, but I'll say it anyway:

To me Putin is the aggressor and I want Putin to lose (as in not achieve his objectives). So in a way, Russia (the state ruled by Putin) is the "bad guy".

BUT I have no beef against Russians. My children have friends and classmates that are Russians and we told them they have done nothing wrong and they shouldn't even say anything bad about Russians when they go back to school tomorrow. When my son asked me "are the Russians bad guys?" I tried to be very clear to him that not even the soldiers fighting are bad guys, they are just following orders.

We sometimes simplify these things and make it a "us VS them", I have done it and probably will do it in some posts, but I try hard to remind myself of the same words I shared with my kids

Cogitation in the Time of War #2 - Ghosts of Wars Past

Yeap, the above image shows a Russian tank flying the Soviet Union flag, while moving inside Ukraine in 2022. It's almost like seeing ghosts from wars past, namely de Cold War. To me it makes me think about the soviet tanks rolling into Warsaw Pact countries when the people there would manifest their will to escape Moscow's control.

Some people think (and one friend said that to me) this image is a fake, edited, but it's not; it's a traffic camera feed in the South of Ukraine. The feed was being broadcasted live and several people saw this tank. In this tweet you can see another video, taken from another camera feed, where the same tank with the flag is visible.

As my friend Cravo said to me, considering that Ukraine has the Azov Battalion (actually a regiment) that has neo-nazis/neo-fascists elements, we might watch in 2022 a fight in the ukrainian plains with one side hoisting the Nazi flag and the other side the Soviet flag. A surreal and bizarre scenario, that after 1944 nobody thought could be seen again except during filming of a movie or a documentary... With the added anomaly that this time the roles would be reversed with the "villains" being the invaders and the "heroes" being the defenders.

Cogitation in the Time of War #1 - The beggining

On February 4th around 17:07 I wrote this (in Dutch because the match was here): "Voordat Rusland en Oekraïne vechten op de Oost-Europees Laagland (hopelijk niet), strijden ze nu bij de FUTSAL EURO 2022 halve finale." and this menas: Before Russia and Ukraine battle each other in the East European Plain (I hope not), they fight now in the semi-finals of the Futsal EURO 2022.

Later on the 20th, wrote an additional comment about Putin and Ukraine that said, among other things:

This is so much alike 8 years ago, when there were no Russian troops in Crimea and Crimea was just looking for independence/sovereignty, but not really (it was a Russian plan all along).

All the pieces are set and all conditions are there to "justify" a Russian intervention. With the excuse of an attack on its troops or due to violence against Russians or whatever in the East of Ukraine, they will intervene.

(...)

What happens next depends on the reactions of the rest of the World. Russia can be severely impacted and that can diminish support for Putin.(...)8 years ago there were already many people in the West believing Russia had rights to take Crimea. Some will again think Russia is in its right and only reacting to provocations/moves by others.

The next day, Putin recognised the 2 self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas, making at the same time a lot of statements about Ukraine not being a real nation and the need to correct the mistake that came with the end of the Soviet Union, and I got this off my chest (and there was an interesting debate in the comments that maybe deserve its own dissertation):

It's done. Now all (the) pieces are in place. The 2 regions are recognised, Russian troops will enter to "protect them from Ukrainian aggression" and only question now is where it stops?

We were just starting to get back to normal...

Fuck this shit!

Music is a balm

Today by the end of the day (Wednesday, 26 of May) I was felling more cranky that in the previous days. It's true that I am falling behind my own personal goals and doing less work than I plan to when I wake up in the morning, being it due to non-work related commitments, or due to the constant messaging and chatting throughout the day, questions and emails that deviate my attention from the main tasks and I end up losing to much time with that. It has always been like that and I myself have always been like that.

But there's something else that was a probable source for more irritation and bad mood: today, and ulike most days in the last couple of weeks, I didn't listen to music during my activities, both domestically and work related ones.

So what's my diagnosis or condition/disorder anyway?

Around 3 weeks ago I'd already done a very little introduction for this text and saved it as draft. The image on top was already chosen (and edited cause I had to search and then combine the 2 separate ones) and the title was also set. But without writing more content, and with other ideas in mind, I used Facebook to make a survey on what my next dissertation theme should be. I was surprised since the post was shared in a group of people from my home town (Sever do Vouga, in Portugal) and because liking the post  was the reaction to cast a vote on this one, I counted 16 votes from different people. The little synopsis I used to describe what this text would be was: how I think I have one thing (ADHD), one psychologist thinks I'm a sociopath, another that I have Asperger's and finally a third one thinks it's just intellectual giftedness.

But before moving onto these different diagnosis, and provide more insight on the latest, I think I must tell the story from the beginning, so if you may, please click on the link before this. But if you're only interested in the process I went through for the diagnosis, that I'm still not sure when it will be final, you may continue reading the following paragraphs.

The Phantom Menace

This record that you'll read next was supposed to be a long expression of my feelings, and part of my ongoing therapy, a record where I open the book and describe the bad moments that I've gone through in the last 2 years. But I wasn't planning on sharing this now but while writing another chronicle regarding my psychic diagnosis I started telling the story since the beginning of this "situation" and I was already a few paragraphs long. So I used the Separate & Clarify technique and since this is the last day of Star Wars Week (the 10th still counts) here it goes: