Two days ago I watched `The Tenant`, a movie in Roman Polanski's apartment trilogy.
The atmosphere summoned within this feature reminded me strongly of my youth.

Back when I still lived in Belgium, before I moved to the United States, I used to 
live in a (typical for the area) row home - it was actually 2 row houses which they
divided up in 3 apartments, so the neighbor situation was quite odd. They too would
bang on my walls with even the slightest sound I would make. They too were angry old
people. 

I remember this extreme claustrophobic feeling of being surrounded by a narrow minded
society - hidebound people intolerant of anything or anyone different from the norm,
it was maddening. Just like the character in the movie, the last thing I ever wanted
was to impose on anyone. I remember this one particular instance where I had already
turned off my music after hearing the end of an angry broomstick banging on my floor,
only to be greeted by the angry knocking once more later on for some reason or another.
I don't remember what I was doing, it's been too long - but I remember going out of 
my way trying to be quiet as to try and not disturb the neighbors to no avail.
- internal scream - "can't i fucking do anything"... It makes you feel like a prisoner
in your own home. 

Later, long after I moved, I still had nightmares of being in that room. Every night,
the wall to the neighbors' house would get thinner, until eventually it was like paper,
and I accidentally fell through it. Followed by my apologising profusely for fucking up
their wall. Then they would come in at night and fuck with stuff in my room.

But the feeling is broader than just the neighbor problem. It is society in general.

I would sit on the bus (or more often, tram) at the time, and feel like the world is
made up of a bunch of people who are moving in fast-forward, 1000x faster than me, but
I can only move in slow motion. With only half a clue of what's going on. 
- Can't keep up. I had this feeling in real life - everything looks sped up- but I also
had dreams where I could only move very slowly - perhaps related.

I don't have these feelings or dreams any more, or at least not with such intensity.
This movie was an interesting reminder.

Still, I often think of people who I've known from a long time ago quite often, who have
long since moved on from my encounter with them, and have started new lives, become 
completely different people. Every now and then I run into one of these people, and they
don't remember me, or refer to past events as if they were aeons ago, whilst to me it 
seems like yesterday. 

And now this is also reflected and amplified in my work and my relationship with technology.
The software industry has changed a lot, and I can't get myself to accept the new ways of
doing things a lot of times. Most of the time, the old way of doing things seems better, and
people refuse to understand it. It seems, people just want to accomplish a certain practical
task as rapidly as possible, by hook or by crook, no matter what mess or tech debt they
create in the process. Developers are commodity now. Technology is commodity. Gone are the
days of trying to do something right or taking pride in your work. What I find attractive
in retro-computing and such is not necessarily the old computers themselves, but the fact
that it's a haven where there is a community of people where these things are still valued
and appreciated. Lets do something cool and do it right, and take our time. Instead of the
'ol - oh shit, let me quick hack together this bit of shit code so I can have a shitty update
for the next shitty standup meeting.

It would appear that once again I couldn't resist a good rant. Aaaanyway - I liked the movie.
It was like an abstract painting.