Dear internet. I am Manuel Lains (spectral).

My soul is a father, a husband, a son and a brother.
My heart is a crypto-pirate freedom fighter, information protector, and gamer.
My body is a computer scientist, salesman, engineer and entrepreneur.

This is the story about me. It is written from an intimate and personal perspective, and by reading it you will get to know me as a person.

Early Childhood

I was born in Oslo, Norway, of a norwegian mother and a portuguese father. My parent’s turbulent relationship bothered me lightly, but my childhood years were filled with love, friendship, ambitions and success. In basic school I was liked by the teachers and classmates, and looking back on it now, I believe I had a pretty nice childhood.

Of course, everything was not a-ok, my parents got divorced when i was 4, but at the time it was hard for me to understand what was going on and I believe it didn’t bother me too much. A really bright point in my early life was when my parents decided to remarry, a decision accompanied by a younger brother for me. At 7, I was extremely proud of becoming a big brother, and I loved Christian like a son. As far as I remember it, I got to choose his name, although our mother may not completely agree on that. What do you think @clains? :)

Up until the age of 10, our family of 4 lived in harmony (not really, but at least we lived together), and home was a somewhat stable platform to live life from. Behind the facade, mom and dad were having serious issues, and decided to move to Portugal for a year, as an attempt to save their relationship.

Late Childhood

Portugal was great. I remember it as terrible to leave my schoolmates at the time, but once we started settling in, it was awesome to get to attend a private school in Lisbon, one of the best schools in Portugal at the time. I quickly learned the language, and within the year managed to finish best in my class in all subjects. I was on a roll.

Unfortunately, my parents didn’t manage to work out their issues during the year in Lisbon, and the next summer, my mother, Christian and I moved back to Oslo, Norway. Once again, I was pulled out of my comfort zone and thrown back into a school that was somewhat changed since last time.

At 11, life was becoming more serious, and things took a darker turn. I returned to my childhood school, went back to the same class with many of the same friends. But something was different.

Whether it was the disappointment of the “breakdown” of the family, the transition out of the childhood’s bright and playful colours into a more serious realistic palette, or even the changes in our neighbourhood, where successful families would move to a nicer part of town; at 1st grade, my class had 25 students. At the end of 6th grade, we were only 16 students left. It was really kind of an exodus.

Youth

Entering middle school, the safe bubble of parent’s love and child’s play had already slowly began to burst, anarchy of youngsters started becoming the reality of life. Having a strong foundation of love and ambition in my early stages of live, however, I started out doing what I loved.

While living in Portugal, I was lucky to got my first very own computer, a state-of-the-art Siemens 286 PC running at 12 MHz on 1MB of RAM, and with a whopping 40MB of harddrive space. It started out my career as a computer addict, and this and subsequent PC’s would become my companion in life. Between 11 and 14 I started hanging out with the “nerds”, swapping floppies and doing pen&paper D&D. It was one of the happiest times of my life.

Then I messed it up. I was not strong enough to handle one of Oslo’s worst public schools. Because of social pressure, I started trying to distance myself from the nerds and geeks, which was of course the most stupid decision of my life. Being a computer nerd myself, I essentially ended up in limbo, never quite making it into the “sphere of cool kids”, and at the same time losing my nerdy friends. The behaviour severely limited my ambitions, and eventually led me to enter the “dark ages” of my life.

By the time I was ready for high school, I had achieved my “goals”: I had been drunk at a party, I was no longer a virgin, and I had tried to smoke shit. Yay.

High School

At high school, my life really took a drastic turn. I still had a solid and strong foundation from earlier life, and managed fairly well with good grades the first year.

It must be said, the norwegian public school system was a joke at the time, and only now, at first year in High School, I encountered mathematics more advanced than the things I learned at 4th grade in Lisbon, Portugal. Looking back at my past, I tend to blame circumstances for my misfortunes, but have realized that the truth is complex, and we live in the world we are given. Many have had it worse, and no blames shall be placed, not even on myself.

Further pursuing my ambitions to become “a cool kid”, I of course, took it way too far. Building my reputation as a no fucks given-kid who showed up to school with eyelids half closed, partying hard at every occasion, not realising that this time, the school is actually for real. Youngsters from all over the east side of Oslo were here, building their foundation for adulthood, me still trapped in the narrative of middle school, seeking out the bad crew.

From there on it just went downhill, and by the third year in high school I had dropped out.

Family of three

My mother and brother were the two closest people in my life. At some point in my teenage years, I slowly began emotionally neglecting both of them. My mission to be cool damaged the relationship I had with those around me. The shame of this neglect is something I have been struggling with for many years after, and was one of the things that finally gave me the strength to pull myself out of the vicious path I was on. Mending these relationships has been a long process, is still on-going, and perhaps always will.

Work and travel

After dropping out of high school, I found myself in a place where I was completely free. Still having the computer skills at my side, I was lucky enough to get a nice job, and my life was at my feet. I spent a few years working and travelling, and it was at one of my travels that my life would take yet another drastic turn.

I have always liked travelling. From childhood, my little brother and I regularly flew to Portugal (alone) to visit our father, who settled in a new life over there. Come to think of it, this was the bond that we never quite lost, my brother and I. Even through my worst years of neglect, during the two-three weeks we spent in Portugal every summer and every other winter, things were magically back to childhood. Amidst the confusion of parent’s relationship and new lives, we would always have eachother. Tickledeath, Christian? ;)

During my final years in high school, I started a tradition of backpacking in Europe every summer (Interrail, free train travel in Europe). I guess that is one good thing emerging from my youth rebellion. Visiting big European cities, sleeping on trains and in youth hostels, going to festivals, visiting family and friends around the continent, it became an integrated part of my personality, that i still keep with me today, at the age of 36.

My wife, my life

It was at one of my trips that I first met my wife. This year I was expanding my horizon, travelling with a friend as far as Istanbul, Turkey. For a norwegian 20-year old, that is kind of an exciting journey, getting a taste of exotic Asia.

As usual, we stayed in a hostel, and by sheer luck, my future wife was staying at the hostel, working. She and her Estonian friend were tougher than us Norwegians with our comfy trains. They were actually hitchhiking across Europe, something completely unheard of for a spoiled Oslo-born.

At the time, she was set on the idea of hitchhiking all the way to Kurdistan in easternmost Turkey to visit some friends. I thought that was a completely insane idea, but was of course intrigued, and when asked to join them, there was no real choice in the matter. During this one week trip I fell head over heels in love with this brave woman.

Adulthood

Meeting the love of my life, my life quickly acquired new meaning, and the following years I spent travelling to Estonia to meet her at every occasion, while finishing up my school. One of the greatest experiences of my life we had together, the 6 months she and I travelled the world. We visited, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Iran. 14 years ago today, that is something we’ve been planning to write about and someday we will, perhaps here on Steemit.

While being a great experience that I will remember for the rest of my life, travelling to India was also a mind-altering experience. Coming from economically safe and cozy Norway to a world where a child with amputated legs suddenly crawls up next to you, pulls your pants and begs for something to eat. It was a complete shock to me, and I was dramatically pulled out of my apathy.

The world was not what I thought. The world was not a Disney game. I was taught the ugly reality of money and power. Following in the footsteps of other globetrotters I knew, returning home after that trip, I realized that I needed to up my game. I did that the way society told me, getting my shit together, finishing up my high school degree and beginning construction of my adulthood at the University of Oslo.

The return to childhood glory

The following years were tough. Living the life of a poor student, trying to keep a long-distance relationship with my estonian girlfriend warm, was taxing on the economy and every day was a battle. I had a holy grail of “decency” and love powering my achievements and guiding my choices. I entered a phase of “hyperspeed”, trying to prove to myself and to my wife that, despite my late teens detour to apathy, I still I had excellence in my blood and time left to fix my life.

I started on a path to destroy everything I deemed insignificant, like partying and destructive behaviour. Starting out on the path to “master of languages”, messing around with latin and scandinavian language studies, EU and politics history, I eventually grew tired of what I perceived as weak science.

I was drawn back to my life-long passion of technology-optimism, and it was only when I decided that I wanted to understand computer technology all the way from the atom to the Doom executable, that the velocity really picked up.

Hacking-and-slashing my way through tough studies of math, physics, electronics and informatics, I had firmly attached blinders to my sight. The race finally culminated in a M.Sc degree in Electronics and Computer Technology from the University of Oslo in 2011, and from there straight into a well-paid job as an engineer.

Overshoot

My blinders firmly attached, running in one dimension, again, I took it too far in the other direction. The “high purpose” that at first was proving to myself and my girlfriend that I could do it, somewhere along the way, the purpose was corrupted, and I had become a zombie. I was blind to the wishes and needs of my loving girlfriend, who in the meantime had moved to Norway to become a part of my life. Essentially, we were living my life, and quietly ignored her wishes of travelling the world and experiencing life. I pushed her into an A4 life of work and debt. Already at the point where we got married and had a kid together, the course we were on was headed for personal disaster.

Don’t get me wrong, I always had a deep love for my wife. When I proposed to her at the tower of Ascension in Jerusalem, in the moment, I was completely honest in my love for her and wanted to give her everything. I was lying to myself as much as I was lying to her.

Marriage and parenthood

After having our lovely son, which gave yet another meaning to my life, unfortunately things took a turn for the worse, and the relationship between my wife and I soured. As much love as a son brought into our life, the underlying truth of neglecting the clear sight of where we were heading, was a thorn in the side of our marriage. I was basically steering our great ship into an iceberg which we must have both seen, but that I didn’t want to acknowledge.

Our problems culminated in a crisis where we decided to move apart, roughly one year ago.

Aftermath

My wife and I are still married. We have gone through a year now of shared custody and cooperation ranging from ok to good. We still have tremendous love for one another, but there is a lot of pain and unsettled issues between us that we are trying to work out. It has not been easy, but the way I see it things are beginning to look up, as we are coming to grips with our past and seeing it clearly for what it is. We still have a long way to go, and a lot of work to do.

With the help of my good friend, mentor and brother, CLains, I am beginning to wake up from my own state of unconsciousness and spend all my free time searching for the right path and trying to rebuild a solid foundation for a life as a family.

I have never been so insecure about my future as I am right now, but I am convinced that there is Gold at the foot of the rainbow. I am deconstructing my blinders and raising my sight. The difficulty now is understanding what is compulsion, what is truth, what is culture, what is ego and what is happiness.

Freedom

My ultimate goal is freedom. Freedom for myself, freedom for my son, freedom for my wife, freedom for my brother and mother, and freedom for humanity at large. The first step against freedom is economic independence. That is what my brother and I understood a couple of years ago when we decided to take the leap and start up our own business.

With BitSpace, I am once again ready to enter hyperspeed. The challenge this time around is to learn from past mistakes and make sure that we are on the right course. Having a clear view of reality at all times is essential to success, and that is one reason I am so thankful to have my now adult younger brother at my side.

I am lucky to have a wife that still loves me, even after everything we have been through. Any path I choose together with her, must be based on truth and mutual understanding.
Finally I am lucky to have a great, loving, kind and smart son. And a great and loving mother who has always been there for me.

You guys are the absolute light of my life. My wish is to be free with all of you.

Afterwords

This is but one story of my life. Come to think of it, referring back to the heart, body and soul at the start, I suppose this has been the story of my soul. How I became a pirate, how I got into crypto and Bitcoin, that will be a story for another time. Thank you for your attention.