Sunday, September 24, 2006

Sudden changes in personality

Recently, Ilkka has apparently had a sudden change in personality. When I still lived with my parents and siblings, my brother also had two sudden changes in personality. I'll describe them in order to provide perspective to Ilkka's case. Markku seems to know more, but doesn't want to tell.

Before the first change, my brother listened to metal (he had at least one Sepultura's record and Moonspell's casette) and had wrestling as his hobby. He was very hostile towards me and my parents. Once he spoke about a potential fight: He said that if the other party initiates it, he will be looking forward to beating the other person.

After the first change, he started drawing. He attended a drawing school, switched from normal class to a dedicated artistic class (there were 4 normal classes and one artistic class at each grade) and listened to electronic music. He related to the past personality with shame and embarrassment: Once when Metal Union started in Radio Mafia, he quickly closed the radio: "But it's metal!". He was still hostile towards me and my parents, so I have no idea what caused the change.

This continued until the second change. The first change happened in comprehensive school; the second change happened when he was in high school (in an artistic class). He switched from high school with an artistic class to the same high school where me and my sister went. He started to be interested in math and natural sciences, and spent much more time with homework. It culminated in him applying and getting to the the same math-oriented highscool which I described earlier.

Again, he condemned his past. He despised artists and art. At this time, my sister was going to study graphical industry, and he also expressed his dislike towards my sister's choice. As far as I know, the seconds change had a lot to do with personal chemistry; he got fed up with the strongly religous person that was running the drawing school.

He described as liberating the experience of leaving the drawing school for the last time and knowing that he will never again step there, which reminds me of Ilkka's comment that he is finally free.

Nowadays, the only trace from the wrestling period is his attendance to karate classes; but I'm sure he has a very different attitude towards the activity. The despise towards graphical art has also dissipated, which is most visible in his interest towards fractal art (here is his first production). The changes were genuine, but they were partially reversed, and the old traits and skills took a very different form.

He probably had a third change between high school and university, but I don't know about that since I didn't see him often.

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