Category Personal

Anette

Geir Isene 4 Comments

Now that Anette is headline news in both online and printed media, I thought I could serve the media hunger by adding a bit from an insider’s view.

I already did a blog post titled “Amazing person: Anette Iren Johansen“. At that time, we had been a couple for only a few weeks. After another several months, my understanding and love for this amazing girl has deepened considerably.

anette-iren-johansen

She’s a geek in a blonde wrapping. Being a student of chemistry and other natural sciences at the University of Oslo, she recently inspired me to take up a subject there as well. Today I attended the second lecture in Observational Astronomy. Since we are planning to start with astrophotography soon, and since I want to add a spectroscope to my telescope, this course should prove inspirational.

Anette is a multi-talented girl with skills ranging from a performing musician to chemist. Since the Church of Scientology managed to side track her from her university studies, she is now wrapping up the geek education she was coerced to leave many years ago.

Anette is always focusing on helping others, even to the detriment of herself – something the Church of Scientology knew to exploit viciously… as they so often do. But the girl has balls, taking on the church in several different ways. I bet she’s moving up on their harassment list pretty fast.

Most of all, Anette is fun to be with. Light and playful and a great “bonus mother” for my three boys. Although she experienced heavy suppression from her time in the church and an abusive relationship, she is on a path of recovery and life is brighter every day. It’s an honor to be able to help her in this progress.

If you haven’t yet visited her blog, you should. She’s an amazing photographer, and she’s got some interesting stories to tell – not just about her audition to be Tom Cruise’s next wife.

My “hashtag” CV

Geir Isene 5 Comments

I came up with this idea of using hashtags in my résumé or CV (Curriculum Vitae).

hashtag

I also toyed with making the whole thing into a HyperList, but that would probably be taking it too far.

It would be interesting to get my readers take on this – both the use of hashtags, the layout and the content.

Get my hashtag CV here (pdf).

Update: Reworked the CV using LaTeX for better typesetting and to more easily work with it in VIM (bliss :-))

“Be water, my friend”

Geir Isene 41 Comments

Achieving a goal requires opportunity, ability and purpose.

PAO

If the environment is fixed or unchanging, it can limit your possibility of reaching the goal. If your ability is fixed, you may only reach certain goals – and perhaps not the ones you want. If your purpose, your mind, your drive is fixed, it can blunt your chances of achievement.

Zooming in on the Purpose part of the above triangle. If your awareness is fixated, you may become unaware of your true goals, the barriers or dangers on the road, or what is required to reach the destination you desire.

purpose

If your desire is narrowed, it may serve to drive you in a specific direction, and that may be all well and good. As long as that direction is truly where you want to go.

And lastly, if you have set values in life, it may well serve as a straight jacket in your quest for real happiness.

Rather than “be firm”, “adamant” or “holding your position in space”… be water, my friend.

Did Scientology have a positive impact on their lives?

Geir Isene 283 Comments

“I want to make a story about the successful people in Scientology. Those people who became truly successful as a result of Scientology.”

It was 2005 and I was having a coffee down town with an old school mate of mine that was now a journalist for the national broadcasting corporation of Norway. He looked expectingly at me while I was desperately trying to come up with such people.

I was rummaging my mind while thinking “Crap! I can’t find any 😦 Let me think… let – me – think – – – Damn!“, and then I said “Interesting angle. I’ll think about it and get back to you.”

My friend was serious. He wanted to balance the constant negative press by a surprising angle on Scientology where he would portray the really successful scientologists, of which he apparently thought there were quite a few. I couldn’t think of any in Norway. Or Scandinavia. Or any I personally knew anywhere in the world. Sure, there were some with average success here and there, but no one that stood out as remarkable. None.

I never got back to the guy. Until I left the church in 2009 and told him I had a story for him.

This question about the actual success of Scientology bugged me for quite a while. I wrote a blog post three years ago titled, “Where are the amazing people?“. And the usual discussion ensued including justifications of how that is not a relevant question or what one mean by “amazing” and other nitpicking points. But the main point remains: Scientology does not seem to produce anything out of the ordinary in terms of good life or skills or amazingness.

Today I sat down, took a good hard look at the people I have known in Scientology. I decided to make a list of people I have known well in Scientology and how Scientology has impacted their lives. The first 50 people that popped to my mind, only the people I have known for years and where I could clearly see how Scientology has affected them. They come from all walks of life – from house wives and business people to former drug users and average Joe. I put the names into three categories:

  1. Scientology had a positive impact on their lives
  2. Scientology had no significant positive or negative impact on their lives
  3. Scientology had a negative impact on their lives

I was somewhat surprised when I summarized the results.

Scientology-Impact-on-Life

I then looked at categories 1 and 3 to sift out those who had life-changing gains from Scientology and those who had life-ruining crashes from Scientology. The result was pretty grim.

Scientology-Impact-on-Life-Details

A couple of notes about the above:

  • Of those that have had awesome improvements in their lives, 80% came into Scientology with a life in ruins
  • Of those that had their lives ruined through Scientology, 86% had an average life when they got in

Almost all (90%) of the list of people have lived a somewhat sheltered life on the fringe of the Scientology empire here in the Land of Santa.

From my experience, if you become involved with the Church of Scientology, there are some statistics you should be aware of:

  • There is a 20% chance that Scientology will improve your life overall
  • There is a 64% chance that Scientology will negatively affect your life
  • The chance that Scientology will dramatically improve your life is 10%
  • The chance that Scientology will ruin your life is 14%
  • You a have 40% greater chance of having your life ruined than dramatically improved
  • If your life is not already in shambles, your chance of having your life ruined is much greater than having it greatly improved through Scientology

While I do not know how the statistics are for Scientology delivered outside the Church, I suspect it is better. Simply because one does not have the Nazi regime, the thought police and the incessant craving for your time and money. I would be interested in hearing your own honest statistics, both from people you know having gotten Scientology in the Church and independently.

UZBL: Hardcore Browser

Geir Isene 20 Comments

I finally managed to migrate away from Firefox!

After having tried all the major browsers like Chrome, Konqueror, Opera, and dozens of minor browsers like Midori, Epiphany, Vimprobable(2), Jumanji, Luakit, etc… I found it!

Meet the hard core browser that gives you the ultimate control of your surfin’ experience: UZBL

As Firefox and the other Big browsers got bigger and bigger and steadily requiring more resources and becoming more sluggish, my desire to move away from Firefox increased. Until I decided to make a real effort and a final jump. Although I have tested many browsers over the years, I have only been dead serious about a migration in the past two weeks. Having been accustomed to many neat Firefox plugins, it seemed like a tough challenge to find a browser that could match at least my basic requirements:

  1. It must be fast
  2. VIM-like key bindings. I want my browser to be modal and act like my favorite text editor.
  3. Fully customizable key bindings
  4. Easily configurable and extensible, putting me in the driver’s seat
  5. Ability to edit text fields with VIM – like I do now, writing this blog post
  6. Tab-based
  7. Password manager
  8. Form filler
  9. Ad blocker

…and with UZBL I get this. And much more. It is dead easy to extend and customize almost every aspect of the browser in the config file or via scripts. And I can write scripts in any language and set uzbl to launch a script via a key binding. I can write scripts in Shell, Ruby or even Raven 🙂

Bliss.

Click for full-size image

Click for full-size image

My system is now finally lean & mean with Ubuntu Linux as the OS, i3 as the Window Manager (no Gnome or KDE), Conky as a notifier, Mutt as my mail client, Newsbeuter as RSS reader, VIM for any and all text editing, LaTeX for writing books and articles, ZSH in urxvt, and now UZBL for surfing the Internetz. My perfect setup.

I had to tweak and squeeze the browser to make it behave just like I want it to – small stuff such as hitting “ogs” and then some search words to make the browser open up Google with the search results, or hit “tbi” to open up my blog in a new tab. And more involved stuff like restoring a closed tab by simply hitting “u”.

Firstly, I run “uzbl-tabbed” with this config and this follow-links-style. I changed the undo-tab scripts to this and this (so as to make it run on the latest uzbl version). If you want to try this browser, make sure to check out my config file – it includes some nifty stuff.

Enjoy (as long as you run Linux/*BSD/Unix/Mac OSX)

“Why don’t you focus on the GOOD in Scientology?”

Geir Isene 61 Comments

That is a question I have been asked several times the past year.

When I was in the Church of Scientology I never allowed myself to look at the negative aspects of Scientology. I did read a lot of criticism on the Net as I was working for OSA (the church’s KGB). But I was quick to dismiss, play down, justify or explain away any negative viewpoints on Scientology, Hubbard and even the church.

In 2007, when I started my two-year research that led to my official resignation, I allowed myself to take a good hard look at what was wrong with the church. But I still did not dare to really look at what could be wrong with the Scientology philosophy or with Hubbard.

After I left and started blogging in late 2009, I criticized openly the church, but defended the philosophy and dismissed criticism of Hubbard as “Argumentum ad Hominem” and “irrelevant”.

After blogging and discussing and allowing myself to freely look at every viewpoint on the church, Scientology and Hubbard, I stopped defending, justifying and dismissing criticism.

During the past year I have allowed myself to also take a good hard look at what is wrong with Scientology itself and with Hubbard. After not letting myself honestly look at these for almost 30 years, I had a lot of catching up to do. I can finally look at and criticize Scientology without any knee-jerk reaction prompting me to defend or explain away shit. I am freeing my viewpoint on the whole thing.

It is a process. I am as usual following what tickles my fancy. And these days I am looking closely at what the root causes of the detrimental sides of Scientology really is. And that is what I am posting. How long with that last? Who knows.

I blog not to teach or convert. I blog to free and evolve my own views on various things in life. I appreciate that people follow me on my path to be free of Scientology. I appreciate all the comments by all the participants on this blog. I read the comments, even when it gets really busy here with more than 100 comments per day. I may not answer all the questions that I should. Because I also have a life outside the blog. A life I enjoy immensely these days.

Skills and arrogance

Geir Isene 28 Comments

“Could you explain what ‘Knot Theories in N-dimensional space’ is?“, I asked while we walked down the stairs to the ground floor and down the long corridor to the soda vending machine. The Chemistry Department at Oslo University was the venue for the weekly meeting in the role-playing association. It wasn’t much fun to have John Rognes as one of the players in my role-playing world. He was far above anyone I’ve known when it came to problem solving and getting the player characters out of a tight spot. It seemed to passify the other players. But that night I at least got to pick his brains about the passion that brought him mathematical fame. At age 18, he had won prizes in several European countries for his theories that only a handful of people would understand. He was a mathematical genius at the age of three and excelled in math and natural sciences since.

“Sure“, he said, “It’s easy“. He then went on to explain his theories in less than 10 minutes with a simplicity that even my grandmother could follow. I was stunned. I still am. And on top of his obvious genius, he was a fun and social guy. And bereft of arrogance.

I sometimes wonder why Brendan doesn’t display any arrogance. He has a remarkable background with amazing stories from Northern Ireland, plays golf like a pro, can easily make a living as a street entertainer with juggling and magic, competed in the World Championships in Foosball, beats the crap out of me at the pool or snooker table, is the most excellent instructor I’ve met, runs half marathons… etc. Everything the guy touches becomes a product. And he is a social and fun guy to be around.

Maybe the lack of arrogance is because Brendan doesn’t need to prove anything. Just like John. And so many other guys with great skills who are just confident at what they do. Not looking confident and having to prove it, but just being confident.

Bits of This & That

Geir Isene 11 Comments

It got real busy here the past few days with lots of visitors, e-mails and other communications. Final leg done on my book, and it’s heading for production. A new calculator on its way through the customs – a prime looking HP-65. And Stein Halvorsen and I will be on the air with another Midnight Magic show tonight (Radio Nova, Oslo). Enjoying an old book on particle physics from 1965. The kids are enjoying summer holidays and in two weeks we’ll be heading north above the arctic circle to visit my dad. Had a great chat with Brendan today – he gave me a new perspective on Scientology… you don’t join Scientology to remain or become a rebel. Conformity rules. And it may just boil down to Scientology’s stress on duplication. Chew on it and see what happens. What I want to see is people regaining and exercising their free will. More nonconformity, please. And more crazy. And on that note, I leave you with something very crazy (at least if you can understand Norwegian) – DJ Broiler: