Lessons from the dark side

A few days ago a girl at my workplace commented on my death tattoo. 

"I think I could not live while being constantly reminded of death," she said.

"I am at a stage in my life where I could not live anymore while I'm not," I replied. 

I said it almost automatically. It just came out. It was the truth.

Later on I started thinking about it. Isn't it a bit strange that what scares others gives me hope?

I find it a bit difficult to explain but I will try.

The hard learnings

I have had several experiences in my life that have just shred me into bits and pieces. That turned me inside out. That totally shackled all I had. I could imagine cutting myself off from the world and sinking into morbid existence ... and then just fading away without anyone noticing. The hard part is that a part of my soul just wants to do that - wants to escape. Like a small scared child. The world is a terrible place, life is hard and painful and I know it. Deep down I know it, whatever I do. 

I cannot forget. I can forgive, but I cannot forget. This is the dark side of life and death that a lot of people don't want to be reminded about, but I do not have a choice here, do I.

However there is also a lighter side to death that I eventually came to understand. If you see beyond the dark you will see light. You will see the truth. You will see what matters and what does not. 

In the endgame what good is there that you had a Ferrari, HD tv and a pool table in your living room if you did not have true human connections? You get my point, right?

It took some time before I could understand these teachings and to be honest I used to be quite scared of life. Right now, I'm glad to be alive.

Here are some of the things I have learned.

1. Don't take yourself too seriously

Be silly, be stupid. Have fun. 

Do you remember how as kids we were just fooling around? Invented new games and adventures to have fun? We just moved to the music, making fool of ourselves and then were laughing about it. We made stupid faces to each other and laughed about it as well. We ran and climbed trees and played games and not because anyone told us to. We did it because it was fun. We liked doing it.

Then the teenager years came and suddenly we all tried to be oh so cool and grown up. By the numbers I am a grown up and all I can say is: "get out, it's a trap!"

We forget how to just play and have fun as kids and try to be the serious and gloom grownups that the society expects us to be. There are too many people like this.

Playing and fooling around is for kids, they say ... and that is just stupid.

Who says that you cannot be productive and playful at the same time? Have fun and get the work done at the same time?

You are not perfect. Just stop acting. None of us are and that is what makes it all so interesting.

You cannot and will not know everything. You are just a fool who tries to make the best of it all.

Death note: You will die. That is a fact. Cherish yourself and the life you have while you have it. Enjoy it.

2. Don't care too much of what others think of you.

The first point would not work too well without it, would it?

You know there used to be a cool and really friendly guy called Jesus. Everyone loved him .. except the people who did not. You see, even the son of god was not liked by everyone. Don't try the impossible. You are who you are and you will compute well with some people and not so well with others. That's just how it is. Don't waste your time on people that you do not connect with. Don't waste your time with being afraid of a judgement.

There is no point in trying to act cool. Acting is for acting school. Just be who you are - as long as you are not an asshole (remember, you want to have human connections).

Death note: Death can be sad, but it is even worse if you did not live at all. We all are scared sometimes, we all have our own demons, but the question comes down to Yes or No. Do you really want to live or not. Being in between, wasting your life as a zombie is the worst option.
Fun fact: the people who judge you will also die one day, so there's no point to worry :P

3. Connect with people

Be as honest as possible. Be real. Express your feelings as much as you possibly can (but don't be an asshole) . Yes you can make a fool of yourself like that, but who cares (check previous points) Connect. You cannot connect without the possibility of making a fool of yourself. The true human to human connection always has this scary part. If you care for someone, you will get hurt when they get hurt and you will laugh when they do. Connect with your full heart.
Even if it fails or the connection does not last forever, it is still better than never happening at all.
Your heart might get broken, but at least you have a heart. You will just put it together and move on and deep dive into other worlds and souls.

And sometimes you might think that you have lost them. We all are assholes sometimes... it is part of human nature. Whatever you did- just say that you you are sorry. If they really care for you, they will forgive.

Find your tribe. It is out there, you just have to find them and if you have them, the connection will stay - even if you do not see each-other for years or live far apart. Strange thing is this human connection.

Death note: Yes, it is sad - they as well will die one day. Sorry to bring it to you, but its the truth. Take as much as you can from these real heart to heart/ soul to soul connections. Cherish them. Value them. They will keep your heart warm and keep you going.

4. Do things now and really, don't be an Asshole

We have limited time in this world and so do all the others. All of us have our own way. Try to be kind and understanding even if you disagree with them.

All you have is Now. Right now. Nothing else is certain. Don't wait to say things that you want to say. Don't wait for a better time, if there is something you could already do right now. Don't wait for a fix in the future that will 'solve all your problems' - thats just wishful thinking. Might or might not happen for real.

Have expectations and hopes, but know that these are just thoughts. (there is a saying is Estonian that translates like this: "Human makes plans - god laughs") The only reality is now. Do things now. Even if scared, just do it.

Death note: People have the tendency to die. Value them for what they are and don't be an asshole - you might not get a chance to fix it later.

Epilogue

Do what you wish with these lessons. 

I have found them useful in my journeys. I have been doing things that I never imagined I would or even could do. I have had human encounters with strangers that have moved me from the bottom of my heart. I have shared myself with others and have gained so much back.

There is darkness in me that I cannot escape, what I can do is keep my heart warm and burning despite the dark. To be the light at the end of the tunnel.

Cheers!

Death note: CATS ARE NICE!

My Friends Will Know

I wanted to call this piece "Scenes about sex, connection and life", but decieded that it was giving too much away and was too straightforward. Also, most of my fiends are not surprised if I talk about these topics, some even expect it. So here you have it - random scenes in random order from my life about sex, connection and life.

*

It was about 7 or so years ago when I had to check a work thing while visiting a friend and asked to use his computer for it. He gladly helped me out. However I was surprised (even shoked) to notice that he had several porn sites stored in the browser bookmarks toolbar. Well in a way it made sense. You bookmark the sites that you visit and he was single man with a libido of Austin Powers.

I was not shoked because he watched porn. I was shoked because he had stored his visits and made it more easy, more at hand (pun intended).

Let me clarify. At that time sex for me was something that happened mostly in the dark and so did watching porn, both were something to hide (all men should know how to delete browser history). I had had a few partners, but I had not yet found the beast within - to be honest I even thought I was not really so sexual (and I also thought I was an introvert, boy are we wrong sometimes).

Last summer I had a coffee with the same friend and we talked about how the quality of porn had gone down or that maybe we had just grown up. 

That's life and friendship for you.

*

Finding your passion is a journey (goes with all kinds of passion). 

Mine started with a failed one night stand (if you need to drink 5 hours to get into the mood, then are you sure you really want this?). I still remember the feeling I had in the morning after. My life was a total mess. I had tried to find some comfort in passion and shared physical experience, but as it turned out: drinking might work well for the mood, but it does not go well with your bodily functions. 

Now I was mentally even in worse place than before. Everything was just merde (pardon my french).

So I went into a bookstore, to find something to read - to find something to escape into. I tried to numb my feelings, my deep dissapointment in the world and life itself.

I came out with a book called "Why is sex fun?". I deep dived into the book and the more I read, the more I understood how messed up we humans actually are compared to other spieces when it comes to the 'Oh, so natural and biologically programmed' thing called sex. 

Like it or not, lads and lasses, but we all are kinky as hell. Intercourse while preventing getting children? Only bonobos might understand it, maybe ... and they are using sex for allmost everything. Most animals would find our sexual habits just disgusting.

[On a sidenote: there is a theory that the big size of the human male genitalia  - gorillas have way smaller ones and get the job done just as well - is like a biologically designed disability. Like some male birds have tall tail feathers to attract females, so tall that they cannot fly properly. So the idea behind it is: "Check this out ladies! I have this huge disability! It gets on my way all the time, but as you see I am still alive. So I must be really great it staying alive as my disability does not make it easy. Lets make some offspring together!"]

*

A friend recently told me that according to Freud the two biggest topics in a persons life are death and sex and that I am a perfect example of that. True, these are the two topics I am really curious about (never mix them together!). The third topic I am really curious about is humor - it fits in well. These are also the topics that connect us all as humans.

I have some friends who can find an alternate (sexual) meaning in almost everything I say. True, I have cracked a lot of sex related jokes and some thoughts still come to me automatically. However it seems that I even do not have to put an effort into it (if you know what I mean) and lets be honest, the best jokes are the ones that come unintentionally (thats what she said).

*

I opened my eyes only to see how the spring sun gently played in the room and on the tender curves of the person sleeping next to me. We had slept only a few hours, max, however I did not feel tired. I felt the endorphins running through my body. There was sense of connection and gratitude. True, I was seeing several intimate friends (I do not like the term fuckbuddies) at that time - there was a date set up with another one for the next evening - but what we all were looking for was connection. Pure human connection, mainly physical, but if there was some mental connection aswell, there was nothing wrong with it. There were no strings attached, that was what we did and boy we were good at it. I woke her up gently and we had another round in the morning sun, before going to work.

[before you judge me, I did not play dirty. All intimate friends knew how many others I was seeing, protection was always used and there was full respect from all sides.]

*

Last year I read several books about sexuality, written by sex therapists. While the theory goes that sex is there to connect us, it seems that it also dissconnects us.

We have messed it up (like so many other things. All hail the human creativity of messing things up!). 

It is not a rule, but a lot of relationship problems are caused by sex. 

Classically men need pysical connection before they can share their thoughts and feelings, to realy open up, to talk with the partner. Women need the talking, sharing, being open etc so they would be interested in sex at all. You see the problem? I don't know if this is caused by the nature or nurture (there are different theories on that), but according to my humble opinion this is just pure evil. 

Not only are we humans, we are also animals. We have physical needs and mental needs and if there is deficiency in one of them, it will affect other areas. So just imagine being in a relationship while you cannot connect properly to your partner (she) as you are sexually frustrated. The only cure to it is to connect with partner so she would be interested in having sex as you need sex to be able to connect. Conspiracy theorists, is this something you can crack?

*

I felt how all my opinions about myself started to crumble.

True, I was seeing many girls. Not dating as such, but ... well. By the standards of many men I should have felt lucky and I did. I felt lucky that several girls saw something in me that I did not see. I felt as if they wanted my company out of pity for me and it was my job to make their time worthwhile. Why me? There was nothing special about me. While I did enjoy the company I also felt kind of a duty: duty to be in shape, duty to perform, duty to bring my guest as high as I could. To give something back for choosing me.

I am sure most of these girls would slap me after reading this and so would the person I am right now. Fortunatelly some of them slapped me then. Not so much pysically, but mentally. 

I remeber being awake and thinking about what had been said.

I had beaten (mostly) depression just some time ago, but my self image was still the same - I felt basically still a worthless piece of merde (pardon my french) wasting valuable space on the planet.

It was hard to digest but I started to see myself from another angle. 

From the angle of freedom, playfullness and sexuality.

*

I sometimes like to read bogs and there is also a sex blog I like to keep an eye on (never on a work computer). While there is so much nonsence around us, it talks about reality. I just like the honesty of it all. It is about relationships and intimancy without any make up - real and naked.

A few years ago I gave a lecture in Tartu and missed the last "normal" bus coming back to Tallinn. As I still had to work the next day I took the small night bus with highly overpriced tickets and small amount of seats. I sat down and as I did not want to fell asleep yet, I started reading the mentioned sex blog on my mobile. Someone sat next to me - it was only expected, the bus was small and fully filled up. 

After a few minutes of reading about sex, relationships and overall kinkyness I raised my eyes. Well, thats nice, the person sitting next to me was a nun.

*

I was home alone and crying - something that was really hard to do (and still is), but it was just a difficult topic to handle.

I had beaten depression (hopefully) and I had opened myself up for being really intimate and honest. However this meant that I had to accept what had been previously. I had worked on my thougths and thinking patterns in therapy several times, but I had not re-evaluated my memories from the new viewpoint. I had new experiences that changed everything.

I was doing the re-evaluation now, and it was hard to accept.

I had a really good female friend when I was a depressed teenager. A fried who was ready to listen, who was there, who was free and creative. During a year or so we had long discussions about meaning of life and pain. Only now did I understand that she had had a crush on me and all I did was talk about death. I just did not see it then. I did not see her like that. I was in deep darkness. And darkness was all I could share with her.

I understood it all now. It was about 10 years too late. 

There are no words to describe this feeling. 

"I am so sorry," does not even get close.

*

It was just good timing. I would not have believed it a few years ago, but now my life was different and I had had more experience in that topic. 

We had lecture about Gestalt therapy and were discussing the main emotions humans have. Playfullness and sexuality were put in the same box. I fully agreed.

*

I read the sex blog and discovered a site that was a thin line between art and porn.  It was called Beautiful Agony. It was a interesting concept.

"Beautiful Agony began as a multimedia experiment, to test a hypothesis that eroticism in human imagery rests not in naked flesh and sexual illustration, but engagement with the face. We wondered whether film of a genuine, unscripted, natural orgasm - showing only the face - could succeed where the most visceral mainstream pornography fails, and that is, to actually turn us on."

I read their idea, checked the free videos they had available and had to admit - it was the first sex related site ever where I felt I would be willing to pay for it. 

How silly it sounds in a way - just a video clip of someones face while they are having a real orgasm. All homemade. 

However there was so much intimacy, vulnerability and connection there. Just in the face. No need for nakedness or explicit close-ups of perfectly trimmed and coloured genitalia.

Later I showed the page to my girlfried and we watched a video together. 

She did not share my enthusiasm.

*

We were sitting in a small tavern, drinking coffee and talking about sex. We had been friends since I was eleven or so - I once even had a crush on her older sister - however this was the first time we touched these topics. True, we were doing it in our native language, hoping that no-one around us understands it. And if they did understand it, well maybe they could learn from it at least. 

It gave a new human connection to this long term friendship we had. It was about sharing.

*

We had been together only a few days. She had a sense of humor, the teasing and playfullness, her arms were experienced with touching. 

I had no idea where this was going, but it was fun. However I felt that something was still missing. I had not seen her true kinkyness yet (there had been verbal kinkyness, but not physical) - I was sure that everyone had one. Maybe it was hidden, but it was there.

Well you cannot force it, but you can lead the way.

Why go on a date if you can go to a sexshop together?

She did not protest, that was a good sign at least.

*

"And there is no gender or future in our language," I explain to an actor from France. 

He seems surprised.

"If I listen to you talk in Estonian, I do hear a lot of 'sex' and 'cock's' all the time," he remarks. 

Strangely enough I have to agree with it. Though, it is a funny thought that the language that inspired Tolkien to create the Elven language can sometimes sound so dirty.

*

And this is the unexpected ending (pun intended).

On a decade long relationship

It was the 31st of May 2006 and I was going to one of my biggest job interviews so far. I had been living and studying in Tallinn for a year and a half and felt that owning my own regular income was something that I really wanted. I wanted and needed more freedom in my life. Yes, having a job meant more freedom for me - I would not be living on my parents or scholarship money.  Also the summer was coming and I had no big plans for it.

I was sitting and waiting behind the door with other candidates. There were four of us, it was a group interview. There were a lot of people rushing by and doing what they had to do to keep the new startup company working.

I had already made my first friend in there - a local wiener dog called Toby. I remember that I was playing with him to calm my nerves. True, I had prepared myself a lot for it but I was still nervous.

I remember only little about the interview itself. I can call out a few faces and I remember that a fellow-candidate talked a lot about how he liked swimming and wanted to continue swimming (I am not making this up. Even then I thought how much out of context this was. Dude, if you want to get a job, don't talk about how much you like to swim, unless you apply for a lifeguard position). I knew already then that what they were looking for was not only the skills, but also the attitude - how you as a person would fit into the group.

They sent me (and I assume that to other candidates as well) a test task the next day. There were four scenarios, one of them was about explaining technical details to an old person. (No, I don't remember it. I found the email in my mailbox while writing this text).

Then there was the waiting. The long waiting for a reply. I really do remember the waiting and I also remember giving up on the waiting.

On 26th of June they finally replied and said yes, I was accepted to the company. 

Little did I know, when I started this journey, how long it was going to be. 

 

This Friday, 16.10.2015 is my last day in this company. It has been nine and a half years - almost a decade. It is one of the longest relationships I have ever had in my life. I have changed a lot during that time and so has the company. 

If you did not figure it out yet, the company that I am talking about is Skype. I started working there in summer 2006 as a Customer Support Person - English Language.

Here is a video about Skype Tallinn office in late 2006, you can also see the dog Toby running around there.

However, it is not the office where I had the interview or where I started working in the first place. When I had the interview the office was located in a section of the Tallinn Cybernetics House. My first workday was also the grad opening of a new small temporary office for a few teams (support included).

There were maybe 15 or so people in total doing all the customer support at that time. We got emails from customers and we replied to them as well as we could. If you did not know the answer you googled it or asked from colleagues. That was it - no first, second, third level of support with escalations and ping pong. It was plain and simple. There was a quick training about internal tools and processes and then you sat in front of a computer with a more experienced colleague who helped you out if needed. I do not remember the first email that I replied to, but I still remember the coaching part. We analyzed the problem together and before I replied my more experienced colleague said: "And now think like this: Dear Maria (assuming Maria was the name of the customer), how can I help you today?"  

It was plain and simple and I still think that this sentence should be behind every customer interaction. The willingness to help, the intention should in my opinion be more important than anything else. If you really, truly want to help, you will find a solution.

The attitude of the company was plain and simple as well. The contract said that you had to work 8 hours per day - you could choose how, when and where (this was applicable only when you had a laptop. I didn't at the beginning) you did the 8 hours. It was the flexibility I needed so I could continue with my studies at the university. Also there were a few times when I could not sleep in the night, walked into the office (the temporary office was not far away - the trolleys  were not working during the night), worked a few hours and walked back home to sleep. Truth to be told, there were also people who sometimes slept in the office and time to time overtime was needed to reply to all of the customer requests so we stayed there for longer hours.

As context, it was the year where the Skype user community reached the first 100 million and the Skype 3.0 for Windows and Skype 2.0 for Mac were released. There were no ideas for Skype on mobile or even for Skype on Smart-TV. The smartphone revolution was still to come and the world had not even seen an iPhone.

When I write this text, the latest Skype for Windows is 7.1 and about 40% of all the international calls are currently done over Skype. A lot has changed. Maybe you have even seen a red Skype logo that was used in the early days? It was blue when I started, but several of the back-end tools still featured the old red one.

This much about Skype at these days, but what about me? Well I had a hipster - rocker thing going on at that time; I had no idea who I was, even less who I wanted to be, I would even say that I was quite an introvert and kind-of nerd at that time.

Here is a picture of my first Skype badge (with name turned into blue blur) - a set of sunglasses and a wig and anyone could theoretically use it, but only theoretically. The company was small at these times. You knew most of the people in the office and we even had some Skype group chats that included most of the office - these were used for serious topics, but also for sharing bad jokes.

It was like a big family. We knew each other, we celebrated birthdays and other events together, we had random parties with colleagues. The spirits were part of the company spirit (you see what I did there?). There was even a sauna and a fun room in the new office (the one in the video) that were used for internal parties. I remember several times when I had some extra work stuff to do late in the evening, went to the office to do it and there arrived at a random party. There was one specific incident that I remember where I had to fast solve a payment case late in the evening (had to be in the office network for that) and while I was working there a few fellow skypers went by with a box of beer and gave a few to me as well - feeling sorry for me.

We worked hard and we partied hard. We had a feeling of connectedness.

* The emoticon (poolparty) is there to celebrate one of the really wild parties. The emoticon (heidy) is for one of the Skypers (who was like a squirrel ... in a good way) and there is a emoticon (toivo) that even has Toby included. Later some other skypers were also included in the hidden emoticons :)

What has changed?

 

I would say that almost everything. All though if you search for the biggest news of 2006 and compare it with 2015, it might look as if the global issues are still the same or really similar. (human nature is human nature and big headlines are big headlines).

The company started to change. While it was easy to solve the customer issues in the beginning - you just went to the right developer if needed and had a talk with him (it was your call to decide if the issue was big enough or not) - as the company grew bigger it was only logical that internal processes were set up for these kinds of needs. We went from free spirit and personal judgement to numbers, but it made sense if you count in the amount of employees and customers.

It was time to grow up and embrace the changes that came with it. However, I feel that something valuable got lost as well.

Some time ago I had a meeting about increasing the team spirit in one of the offsite teams and it was mentioned that having events together outside of the work time would have a positive effect (like drinking together in a pub or having a hobby together). It was then when I thought back to the early days of Skype. We had a common identity and team spirit. We wanted to change the world ... and we did. However, with the increase of people, it all slowly started to change and diminish. The newcomers did not have the same feeling or history as we oldies had. It was only natural - the group dynamics change when the group changes.

A month or so ago I bumped into a person in supermarket. A person who had worked in the company in the early days. We had not seen each other for years, but we remembered each other. We had not worked together too much, but we had had the shared experience. We had a short but really heartwarming and friendly conversation.

There  are not too many people left from the early days in the company - a lot have left. We are bigger and therefore there's more paperwork and more policies. I don't say it is worse or better, all I am saying is that it is very different compared to the beginning.

I am also different. A lot has changed in my life with this decade. I have grown a lot as a person (I hope so at least). There have been too many major events in my life to list all of them down, however here are some: took a cat, almost faced death, started and finished a bachelors degree, started with improv theater, bought an apartment.

Now this journey, this step in my life is ending as well. This writing is here to look back and write down some memories, to say Thank You to everyone I had the pleasure to work with and also a Thank You to everyone else who was part of this journey in whatever way. 

There were ups and downs in the company and also in my life, but next to that there were a lot of really great and amazing people.

And as I am the last one left in the customer support area (true, I am way higher than in the beginning, but still within the support section) from the original team that I started with, I will turn off the lights tomorrow when I leave, for all of you.

Thank you!

(this text is just my personal opinion and my personal memories that might not be fully accurate. All data used is from internet.)