Dealing with Bureaucracy and Depression
I
am not feeling up to much as maybe you can guess by the greatly reduced number of posts I am making lately. Every day is boring and I haven't really got much productive to do.
The Gemeente (city council) people looked into my name change situation, and gave me a letter to take to the DWI (welfare agency), and I did that yesterday and they said that someone would be looking into it. I don't know if I should have asked for an appointment to talk to someone, though the Gemeente has my phone number.
A little later after opening hours I am going to call the specific guy at the Gemeente I was dealing with. Hopefully they are not going to be too difficult with this.
The problem is they have the wrong name in the database compared to my passport, and can't therefore give me a payment and post address. But without an address they can't change the name in the database!
Classic Catch 22!
Dealing with bureaucracies they always, I mean always have conflicting rules. Solving problems is always far more complicated than necessary. And because you talk to a different person every time, they almost always think you are trying to hack the system somehow as though you would choose to have them make mistakes that cause so much shit.
I had money stuck in my dutch bank account last year I could not get because to get the emergency payment for when you lose the card, it has to be in the name of the account. I eventually got a friend to pay for a ticket back to do this, and ended up here stuck for almost two weeks because of the bank's rules.
Cost me €220 of the 680 I went to get. I bought the first M2 phone while stuck in Amsterdam and killed it on the way back in the bus by sleeping on it.
My plans for the near future
So, for the moment I am stuck on one hand waiting for the Bureaucracy to fix their own problem that is keeping me from having money, and on the other hand I have about 1100 Steem saved up and I will need maybe two more power down payments before I can get a laptop.
I was going to get just a bulletproof phone that I would be able to write better with, but after some thought, I think I need something I can program, and do graphic design work and the like with.
Because a) I don't know when I will have a post address and b) I don't know if I can get packages to this address, I decided that I should try and find something I can just pick up locally instead. Something with preferably over 4Gb of memory and a 1366 or better screen.
This is the current candidate for the task:
http://www.usedproductsamsterdamwest.nl/webshop/asus-k54c-i3-laptop-in-prima-staat.html
It looks like the bluetooth isn't well supported but that doesn't bother me so much. Wireless N is way faster for file transfers anyway (I swear Bluetooth is a sad joke that uses the wrong frequency and slow FHSS scheme, and barely beats dialup transfer rates). Other than that, it looks like 100% no problems running ubuntu.
https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201110-10073/
And since I am going to still, at least unless a better plan comes along, going to move to Serbia, I had a look and I found this keyboard label set that will let me learn how to write and type it better:
http://www.4keyboard.com/serbian/110-serbian-serbian-transparent-keyboard-stickers.html
I expect this is delivered in a padded envelope I shouldn't have any problem getting it once I have an address.
In the meantime, however...
I am doing my best impression of a vegetable. I arrive at 4pm at the winter shlter, and half the time I just directly go to sleep, and sleep until about 5am and then get annoyed at how eating has this after effect that wakes me up.
Then I leave early, usually not eating any of the crummy sandwiches they give (why can't we have eggs and sausages and croqettes and such? like normal people, or even, like, make the sandwiches! It is a bag with 4 slices of bread and single serve condiments), and I have found a few places on the way to the Oud West inloophuis where I often find discarded joints.
Then I arrive at the place and after about half an hour it opens and in I go. I am trying to eat enough, but I have really badly lost my appetite. Last night when I arrived in my bed, I was shivering, cold in a weird way I can't explain. Slowly I seemed to warm up. I think I don't have enough energy in my diet for the cold weather. But when you have no appetite, you don't care about it, you aren't hungry.
Right now apart from what I have written about here, very little else is going on. I would very much like it if I could just fall asleep until my Steem balance is enough for the computer. But that is not going to happen and I just have to do my best not to crack from this enforced idleness.
So, my apologies to my fans, but I got really nothing for you all right now.
We can't stop here! This is Whale country!
See if you can find some hacker spaces / maker fairs in Amsterdam. If they're anything like the one in Brisbane they'll have discarded laptops - and interesting, creative people to talk to.
I have checked it out pretty good. I haven't visited the bitcoin embassy yet. There isn't much happening here afaik. The one in Plovdiv was cool. I covered one of their events when I was there.
Cool Amsterdam , Middelburg hier.. I follow you now. Peace
And this is why when the govern-cement says they want to go to a cashless society, you should shoot first.
Because, in that statement, they are intending to kill quite a few people. The system works, mostly... if you fell through the cracks, oh well... Starve To Death quietly please.
Get out of your funk l0k1! And/or write about your depression.
It is complicated. I don't even really know how to evaluate my value in society. Maybe I am nothing. Maybe next time. I wish sometimes the question was not before me. why? what did I do to you all? go solve your own problems.
You are not alone l0k1.
You are at least, still working with the system. I can no longer do so.
After learning too much about what the govern-cement actually is and does...
Its like when you go to vote and you pull that lever, someone dies, literally! And that is the only thing that happens when you pull the lever.
The banking system is evil. Just remember, the banks do not want to have your money. That is only a front so that they can exist while robbing the world of money. They only take and hold your money because... wait, sorry, its not your money. You actually give your money to the bank. They have no obligation to give it back, nor any legal responsibility to give it back.
We are in a time of change. In our father's time, it was be a productive member of society. In our childrens time, it will be find your passion, the robots will handle all the manufacturing. In our time, we have no moral support, no society support, no nothing. It is hard. There is no map. The old system is dead. The govern-cements are dead. They just haven't laid down yet.
Imagine, advertising is dead. In a few more decades, there will be none of this push advertising, because you couldn't make money giving the shit away.
You are a troubled person in a troubled time, but you have the brain power to work through it. Be a map maker. I've read your posts. You can do it. Keep writing, just because it may help someone make their own path.
dealing with bureaucracies is a nightmare because they don't for one single moment ever need to be concerned about service/customer satisfaction. They could literally perform the worst job possible and they''d still be there.. funded by coercion.
hope it gets better for ya mate
I'm praying for you men. Good luck!
Stay strong and good luck ! Better times are ahead ! 😉👍
All that bureaucracy stuff, conflicting requirements, links that go to pages giving slightly different information than promised, ambiguous language, is all just a not so subtle passive aggression. And not so passive either. They're testing you, grasshopper, stay strong.
You seem to be going through a very rough time. I know its difficult but you need to focus on solutions so put all of your energy this way/ Hope everything gets better soon
I am thinking of you brother.