This and that

Spent all of last evening trying to figure out what was wrong with my system. After booting up, at some point (anywhere from 1 to 30 minutes later) the mouse would stop working and then the keyboard, and then the picture would freeze too. Never did figure out what the deal was, but it looks like one of the drivers got messed up. Had to reinstall Windows and format the C drive so I could install onto a clean volume. Good thing I copied the browser's personal files, otherwise I'd have spent ages installing and setting up Firefox, but I didn't bother copying the cache, so now I have to load all the images from the internet all over again. All in all, in two hours I installed Windows, the drivers, and the main programs I need for work, and now everything's running fine, but I still want to find out the cause of the trouble so I can avoid it in the future — and, well, I'm curious.

Also figured out the other day that there's no point in changing yourself abruptly. Nothing good comes from forcing yourself, and if you do change, then it should be gradually. I am what I am, and when I look back at how I've lived up to now, I don't really regret anything, though sometimes I think completely differently, but that's not the mood right now and these last few days I've been in exactly this frame of mind. This world is too cruel to be too sincere or open in it; of course you can be a hypocrite and lie, but not everyone finds that pleasant. The constant hypocrisy is irritating, and what's even more irritating is that you can't survive without it. IMHO, it's better to keep your true thoughts and emotions to yourself if they go against the majority or would harm you or those you don't wish harm. You can only open up fully to someone very close, but finding such a person is next to impossible. In the end all that's left is things left unspoken; lying and being a hypocrite are impossible to avoid these days, but you can try to do it only in extreme cases, and the rest of the time it's better to stay quiet or tell the truth — but you can't change yourself abruptly.

I think. It really wasn't for nothing that I chose such a nickname and virtual appearance for myself — a white lion. Although, back when I was first creating it, I didn't think about it like that; maybe something was there in the subconscious. After all, white lions in theory can't live normally in the wild — they can't hunt properly, can't tolerate sunlight, and are doomed to solitude, since  the rest of their wild kin won't accept such an individual. A lion like that can't be strong because it can't feed itself properly and be out in the sun, so it won't be able to take over a pride. And so it turns out a lion like that can only survive if it behaves smarter than most of its kin, well, or if it lives in a zoo. Although, in that well-known fanfic based on TLK the white lion survived just fine, but he was still a recluse.