oOo

Australia has many positives; whether it is “best” depends entirely on the lens applied. Since the dispossession of Aboriginal culture, Australian identity has passed through multiple phase transitions, not merely political but geopolitical and governmental, particularly over the last decade as international power distributions have shifted. Its most pathological feature is also its most revealing though, Australian culture increasingly exists symbolicall, in newspapers, panels, branding, and mediated narratives, while being almost absent in the country’s most densely populated lived environments. Culture is archived rather than inhabited in a way, yet this same absence is also its latent advantage, especially for immigration policies heh. For those positioned to receive externally redistributed power, Australia functions less like a nation and more like an open operating system, lightly populated by myth, administratively flexible and unusually receptive to global reconfiguration haha. This is the only frame in which Australia’s trajectory makes sense to me, not as some declining national identity, rather, as a country in identity escrow. In an ideal resolution, one that currently feels no better than probabilistic parity, it may become the first genuinely global nation, no longer anchored to a single ethnocultural narrative, acting as an interface to indirectly help other countries burn through older national colours. The timing of this transition has been embedded for decades, even encoded in the national anthem, though rarely read as such. It’s actually pretty humorous, the same people decrying are the same people proudly singing the very same words that detail that pro immigration is like its biggest asset ———- I recommend reading the Australian National Anthem. Mass media instead rebranded the narrative into first- and second-generation jerseys, presenting demographic succession as if it were the final chorus rather than a transitional verse which is why it’s smoke gullibles but I’d argue most if not all good people, will just take the puff of. News media performed the primary work of this reframing, supported by softer propaganda systems, sport chief among them. Australian rules football for example, once a cultural unifier became a demographic amplifier ha! Concentrating identity anxiety and projecting it outward as concerns like “over-immigration,” confusing bait and switch momentum’s. On top of that though the First and Second World Wars were pivotal not only geopolitically but psychologically in creating the generational trauma bond, embedding habits of alignment, obedience, and inherited narrative continuity that persisted long after their strategic necessity expired. These habits shaped how Australia learned to sing itself, even as the underlying score changed. Australia is not self-annihilating per se. It is between stories and always was, it’s becoming always what it set-out to be (again, read the Australian National Anthem). Whether that interval resolves into decay or transformation depends on who recognises that the jersey was never the nation, the choir was never permanent, and the clock has been ticking the entire time on the change of hands heh. There’s a lot of humour in it, it would be satirical if not for all the people it genuinely wounds though which is sad. As people feel lost, and they can’t find the same grace because they’re not told that the truth was always just a puff of smoke they inhaled for existential relief they were told was “cool and hip” branded as “mateship, a fair go and Aussie Aussie Aussie! National pride”, totally oblivious to the fact that as soon as that lie was told, the lie recategorised the inevitability as an existential cancer that was going to take people emotionally from the inside out. A small externalised drip they were told was an internalised drip towards slowly deeper a slowly deeper truth the more one integrated into “TRUE Australian Culture! YEAH G’Day mate!” Until, well a lot of us have woken up now; just on different levels. But yeah, enjoy yourself as a tourist sure, it’s ur holiday when u make the trip and it can facilitate that in many ways; genuinely.

This is a genuinely fun exercise. But why are yal not creating images instead of just scraping them off the internet? Have fun being creative and decoding one another’s artistic farts! I just created this off the cuff with AI:

@Cred To add to my comment (third) directly above, after having read a bit more of your writing, I want to add a constructive challenge that I think sharpens the theory. In 50 words or less, what additional explanatory structure are you positing beyond (a) shared phenomenological clusters and (b) the epistemic point that behavior won’t reliably reveal profile? My move directly above after-all goes one level deeper by treating what you’re calling “modes” as stabilized trajectories of multiplicative convergence within an attractor landscape, where distinct genetic routing and epigenetic re-routing pathways repeatedly renew the same foreground. If you’re instead claiming irreducible genetic kinds rather than process-defined identities, I’m curious what would falsify that. Either way, the aim is refinement, not opposition. It’s good to see an example of this kind of theoretical exploration the forum could have more fun with, even if pure experimentation is the pastime.

@Cred only having just read the broader thread, this feels like a genuinely useful ontological slice. The way I’m reading it, you’re circling stable attractor states, so differences in internal generative architectures that foreground very different “worlds,” and then quietly bias what each system experiences as real, salient, or even worth searching for in the first place. Alongside the correlates you’re already tracking, there also seem to be more intrinsic attractor tendencies in play, things like openness to experience and latent inhibition (as I mentioned earlier), as well as dopaminergic tone and inhibitory control. Not as explanations of the foreground itself, but as parameters that make certain attractors easier to fall into and harder to leave. Big Five–style traits feel downstream here: they don’t define the world, but they clearly tilt the terrain. The only place I’d tread lightly is in letting correlates harden into essences. Very different bottom-up stories, autism, trauma, prolonged social masking, developmental canalization, pharmacological or psychedelic perturbation, can converge on remarkably similar foregrounds while having almost nothing in common under the hood. Psychedelics are a particularly loud reminder that “0% access” is dangerous language (as I noted in my first response); the foreground can reconfigure dramatically without implying the prior mode was ever ontologically sealed off. My hunch is that if you keep pushing bottom-up and stay curious about where adjacent theories refuse to line up cleanly, you’ll keep uncovering new structure, and won’t need to invoke “the map is not the territory” as a ritual disclaimer after the fact. That’s my compressed view on a brief afternoon break before heading back to my work.

Neurodivergence is interesting and spans different categories, with human neurodivergence differentiated from divergence at a species level, and with particulars across both cognitive, psychological and emotional dimensions, which also span various forms of psychism to telepathy. For this comment, I will reserve comment to neurodivergence through the lens of cognitive ideational divergence and imaginative absorption capability. These two tend to overlap with openness to experience (big 5 personality) which tends to cover its two hefty correlated qualities of lower levels of latent inhibition and dopaminergic functioning at the broader level. At scale neurodivergence presents communication across species, where closer similarities like those we share uniquely with dogs compared to cats, create localised potential for communication and outside that, unbreakable parameters of distance. Unsurprisingly, as we zoom in at the human population level, the same pattern emerges, where the “size of thee galaxy matters” significantly especially as it pertains to ability. People with more intelligence and creativity than those with less, the greater the gap is the more they are viewed with the same sense of mystery as stars in the sky, where often, those same people if they do not find the right circles can find themselves as just as lonely, with many generating various forms of psychological coping mechanisms with a sense of “specialness” being one of them. These are just correlations however, awareness often becomes the greatest mediator in a ballroom dance floor to move around correlations and establish one’s own unique track, however from birth inside of a societal system that was built for the mean of sustainability, the average and what worked for the economy, unless you grow up in a privileged family environment where the likelihood of being given a gifted route to prosper, it is likely going to be a long road to salvation however talented you happen to be. The ironic “specialness” then of neurodivergence is not special at all, as you have many more hurdles to jump over and societal traps to avoid as a cost of diverging from the genetic pack. Genetic anomalies are one thing, then we have those that are purpose built epigenetically, such as the many neural adaptations that are correlated with the right improvements in the areas I have cited through specialised psychedelic use. This unique example presents a very stark before and after reality that serves as an interesting case study even purely through the lens of the experiencer themselves and how they awaken new ways of biographical and life reflection. Psychedelics are not the only way, neurodivergence can be seen in other forms of positive and negative examples depending on the lens, from David Goggins to your average far and overweight American who’s brain first began to alter its chemistry only after 3 days of eating mc Donald’s to now 3 years later where underneath an fMRI it looks as though you’re looking at something that better resembles Mc Donald’s logo with Mc Donald’s television commercials than it does a human brain. Western societies fascination and subsequent case studies of various kinds of neurodivergence will continue to push the boundaries of of what is epigenetically possible, where psychedelics are used as a snapshot on creative pharmacological outgrowths. Often, neurodivergence is the antithesis to the thesis of the environment coming together for healthy cultural divergence. Our ecosystem then, like natural evolutionary adaptations, requires just as much, anomalous ways of browsing the internet of life and formulating new connections to share on the Facebook of one’s closest social environment. At the surface level, this looks fine and dandy, however the benefit of divergence as already stated depends on where it fits within the gears of the pre-existing systems it’s a part of. Neurodivergence in a time of war that doesn’t serve it’s adaptation, which in many ways it can depending on your outfit and respective divergence, becomes the very anomaly that is singled out and purpose ostracised, whereas during a time of entrepreneurial expansion, where one is less having to will themselves up a corporate ass pipe, doors don’t only swing open, you can make your own. So no matter who are what kind of neurodivergence you have, my best advice is self acceptance first and foremost followed by assessing the benefit you have of likely coming from a first rather than third world country to engender yourself with the gratitude that you can make a meaningful difference to your life with a far greater degree of freedom. The next is prioritising the clearing out of any “specialness” syndrome while at the same time the importance of understanding your differences at the practical level so you can make sensible social choices. This often accompanies housekeeping on any pre-existing trauma that usually carries as I stated that kind of compensatory baggage. There are many intelligent, creative and high consciousness people in the world, and our job isn’t to compare ourselves to them but to understand where it matters how we can work together to better carve through the edges of normality and play our role in expanding the cultural horizons of our respective creative and social evolutionary ecosystem.

My original logo is arguably red tie perfect, outside perhaps making it slightly darker to blend more seamlessly across a spectrum of celebrity lighting conditions.

If Winona Ryder of 20 yes ago had a c*ck I’d let her ram me. Even now she still looks pretty great for her age. Angelina may secretly have one, all those adopted children right. So I am open minded. It’s difficult to say who else, I don’t really follow celebrities just one’s knew growing up. Celebrity culture is clearly becoming an outside kennel now but, slowly. The red carpet has become tacky and awards ceremonies confusion whenever anyone is clapping, but they know they gotta do it to keep getting deals, dollars and their own roots, and not the homely one’s, although I’m sure it makes them proud. Unless you’re like Eminem’s mom; a complex mammalian familial engagement, I think he pushes the rapping not physical limit of saying he fcks her but I could be wrong, it’s just for rapping right? Transgender is an important subject, never touched another humans boat that hits the docking bay of a female. That said, for those interested Michael Levin’s work on bioelectriity and it’s overlap with genetic engineering and say softer techs like CRISPR, the idea of transforming to alternate biological genders not only more seamlessly but the ability to advance the selective parameters of those choices both internal and external to a traditional gender itself… I would say without a doubt somewhere, in some crazy lab, there’s a baby somewhere with a penis attached to its head and it’s eyes out of its ass cheeks. Sci-Fi, is yet to be fully even be spelled out by the movies, in fact it may in the future looking back be just seen as a chick flick compared to the landlines we’re going to have to traverse, just that Angelina’s dick may no longer be one of them unless anti-ageing advances flares up or her sexual appetite more, in which case, she may take over the whole planet with her c#ck swinging. There’s this scene in the film “Dude Where’s My Car?” that I remember with a giant female, reminds me of that. Irrespectively, I simply wouldnt believe a genuine man that would deny Angelina fully if she had a baseball bat swinging for home runs on his balls.

Admittedly, my song directly above is in a completely different weight class in terms of lyrics compared to other songs. Yeah, my “John Lennon” piano riffs made in 5 minutes didn’t payoff as much as I’d like, even though I’ll get better overtime, shares don’t really complement the once a week roster. To be more emotionally visible, I just wanted a marketing angle to out beg money likes over AI by saying “my lyrics came from the mysterious ether on the fly!”, which still has its jazz, but it’s admittedly a little contrived and comes out anyway through a crafted voice. I am still interested in a geo-cultural edge to my music, however it takes more research and time, but then we’ve got the informational complementary angle of simply making it about natural interests that cross over with medicine as I intrigued with the song just above, “Welcome to 2026”. It cuts off slightly at the beginning by the way relative to internet speeds (?) so if that happens and u want the full scope just consciously dial it back once after you click play. It will now be the benchmark for future songs to equal or better. The format of my writing will also now change, smaller weekly (as opposed to monthly) sharing 2025 integrations plus new experientially growth entries is a more efficient and enduring approach compared to just a “pump and dump” share March and April followed by moving on. I feel like I am lagging after reflecting on “Welcome to 2026”, so I am going to creatively reinvigorate a new pivot point. I also don’t like my logo, but that’s a matter that is like saying I don’t like the perm I never gave my hair but probably should have at least tried once, still both matter in a lifetime, and it certainly impacts the branding of the feminine. I will likely go back to the previous hairstyle of my logo, combined with minor shaves behind the earlobes and a shorter beard for a more visible afternoon shadow. Keep moving, we’re in the second month, now’s the time to shakeup your own pivot or re-inject energy towards the prevailing!

Back to posting once per week now. Still daily music creations, but upload/login times break time limits for everything in the day. Uploading my favourite of the wk only. Otherwise… A reminder of my song “Welcome to 2026” to have those new resolutions or analogous hit back into the bone marrow!

One of my March 1st insights: o————————O————————o Reflecting on yesterday’s thinking teaches more than today’s raw experience. Meta-processing, examining how you thought and felt, not just what, reveals dimensions consciousness missed the first pass. This recursive loop transforms fragments into clarity that otherwise would have coiled today’s lenses; aka yesterday’s examined feelings illuminate today’s unexamined ones. Phenomenological emptiness without recursion isn’t spiritual insight; it’s failed metabolization. Boredom signals collapsed memory processing, depression frozen temporal flow. Relief comes not from cathartic moments but accumulated recursive sediment, digested experience that teaches without effort. Solitary confinement survivors prove it, aka minds feeding entirely on their own examined states, sometimes for years. Most experiential poverty stems from interrupted recursive momentum, the self-examining physics that transforms what otherwise would become pathology into adaptive renewal. Evolution built us assuming this loop would run automatically. It doesn’t. The body awaits a process we must consciously maintain. Non-recursion is malfunction, and the regression that follows proves it. On a personal note, years ago when I struggled with existential depression surrounding finding permanence in the meaning of life, if I had of just become obsessed with how I was thinking and feeling while less on the what, starting with yesterday then slowly building to weeks, I would have solved the inner world within much less time than even a month. As a niche point, I emphasise feeling as well along with the feeling in the thinking, given people can due to a lack of broader phenomenological experience, can get caught up in mislabelling processes relating to both thinking and thoughts themselves. Usually a practice of being afraid of, stuck in or aware of ideas surrounding both needless thinking and feeling, rather than actually having mapped the nomenclature of what proper recursive learning in both looks like in way that genuinely re-builds our being. The mapping is much less important than the phenomenological memory of doing so that naturally builds the mapping, with automatic habit then becoming an after-thought and refinement upon reflection. o————————O————————o This will be one of my insights I’ll be expanding even further on in March. Best regards

Constraint IS content. Your interpretation orbits my intent.

Close, but poet DOES encode meaning. Impact emerges from state-dependent decoding. Orthogonal truths.

As cleanly as possible, I think the mistake here is in treating words as objects instead of consciousness operations.

@Tistepiste Hi mate, hope you’re doing well. There’s excellent points here worth digesting. To add mindfully, I recommend you checkout this episode of DemystifySci, a YouTube podcast/interview channel that is hosting an interview with Leo Gura in the coming weeks as well: Angus Fletcher models the relationship between emotions, perception of time and the story humans tell themselves in their head in an excellent way. I genuinely believe you will learn many interesting insights from this newly released episode, in March sometime I myself will be sharing what I have already remodelled following my synthesis of Mr. Fletcher’s insights shared both in this interview and his book which is available for free here, areas of my focus likely overlapping with your situation more deeply than what I can articulate in this moment : https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/narrative-creativity/42ACAF22808FB23473A6F13712B87138 Something I am sure everyone with the curiosity will no doubt derive useful information from reading as well. Briefly, the described core of Mr. Fletcher’s work shared in the interview encapsulates one of the fundamental aspects of human psychology: where personal narrative meets the narrative we build to handle meaningful challenges. This is the core of what you will be able to leverage towards the story you create around your present social influences and how they subjectively influence your personal narrative. Your challenge is unique, and these are tokens for your own making of your personal self-empowered solution.

@PolyPeter With the set of “Intelligence” defining all possible sets: I Identify extremely specific evidence based wants. I create a court-room as a thought experiment, then I have plaintiff, defendant and any other necessary ‘staffing’ lay their case followed by the judge making the final call. This acts as a “truth machine”. On what funnels out, I create an extremely specialised feedback loop around those wants using the scientific method for truth discernment, followed by a rinse and repeat. What is truth? Truth is simply the absence of falsity. What is intelligence? Intelligence is simply information more likely aligned with truth, in this analogy we have the operant and the operators. Within this analogy, operator and operant are both one with exclusivity to the former while irreducibility exists on scales that fall outside this conversation. Intelligence cannot divide itself in multiplication, however it can self-multiply from union, following the logic that strictly defines the parameter spaces reflecting interconnection. As in, symmetrical multiplication of opposites connecting, that’s in many ways how dualities become a system of one, division keeps opposites alive, and union kills them then leaves a system. Purely reflective of dimensional constraints in theoretical logic presently taught; not a container for infinity, just the intelligence thats used to commonly denote. Contradicting this process generally has zero utility for any meaningful method of falsification, and when the mind says it does, that’s usually but not always a good analogy for how people end up seeking personal coaches to help them answer why they can’t determine, meet or manage their wants. Irrespectively, outliers always eventually find their way to the same methodological technology but, like take telepathy, now past non-disclosures and scientific denouncement looks like a memetic psyop for geopolitically competitive reasons against the slowly growing evidence based unveiling. Life is an intuition and therefore a whiteboard to see and sketch dots presently not seen. Strategic revelation, geopolitically or in scientific outcomes, is an analogy for how success tends to link with the outcomes of converting blindness to sighted self-evidential reasoning. This closed loop alone, helps us remember that life doesn’t have to be and actually isn’t very mysterious, enough absence of evidence and enough evidence of absence are just cycles of light (sun) and dark (moon) that eventually become the sight we call the evidence of truth that reflects what we call reality. Analogously as well, sight begets more sight that is self-referential that never becomes an “other”, and it’s the same reason we only ever create one reality, even if it’s the One Reality that encompasses all other possible realities being the simultaneous container of God, Source, Love and Infinity; with the latter being corrective of any other denotation, as in God becomes contained by its own very Infinity, that is God itself. Our blindness, is reflective of any experiment on that division between the two, where the cycles we are bound by become the duality of multiplication and divisional chains reflective of the patterns sentience tends to want to reconcile into union. We act as those multiplications of God but only as subsets, bound to the superset of God. Drawing back to defining and chaining agency towards my wants in life; absences reflect the same pattern to achieve unity. And that’s done relative to the parameters of the set that encompass the logic of a human. Cyclical union is the operative pattern of life following successive patterns of iterative balance, and reflects the divisional multiplication you speak of across the animal kingdom and life as we presently know it. Non-division isn’t necessarily the goal of life, it’s just the present space of God relative to logic, and our healthiest operative movement as life. These are not truths I believe, but tools and patterns that survive falsification and are retained only while they continue to sharpen agency toward my wants within the frame I call God. And, it’s the only judge and courtroom I trust. For everything and everyone else: potential delusion, falsifying of evidence, memory and belief biases, conformity dynamics obscuring truth, paid off witnesses and testimonies, even if the monetary means is merely figurative, good will persons but are more shoulders in Isaac Newton’s “standing on the shoulders of giants”, even if all of us here, are just all the cells in unity coming together to forge said projective giant. A ‘want’ of sentience as a set, even when controlled for its divisions (i.e. anti-curiosity) which only reflect the pathway of the cycle that meets the unity that speaks it’s opposite language of truth multiplication. intelligence converges toward truth through falsification, remains self-referential in use, and never collapses into identity with reality, contained by its superset, God; and truths only at the edge of falsification, the unknown we all return to, One Courtroom, and it’s up to us about what kind of defendant to plaintiff we want to be on Gods superscript. Best wishes good sir.

Beautiful story, very heart warming. You are the voice that inspires another. It’s not about being remarkable, it’s about being remarkably oOo/You (above song). Stay strong.

Repost - Cleaned up journal: Consciousness transition from hours of training each day; to be expected I guess. 8 hour training days paying off; customised meditation. More to come March-April. New music direction firmly established, and with that sadly has come, the dissolution of earlier songs now no longer available. Goal is simple, create songs especially lyrics that genuinely raise awareness. Not through beliefs, through architecture. Beliefs and stories get old, architecture always can re-refine, recalibrate and be foundational lyrics for redesign. To begin, the song that set off the rebranding oOo’s Rhythm. https://on.soundcloud.com/ifFRgRjz5QfEwTVXto I tried revamping it with new lyrical direction primarily focused around consciousness patterns and their augmentation but it hasn’t panned out well yet, perhaps by March-April. Lyrics for oOo’s Rhythm are at the end of this post. ————————————————— Unamazing, but reposts nonetheless. Reposts - Surveying: Better to value your own truth discernment and it’s refinement over battling up against projections of another (or others) bounded by an absolutism that is better handled with perspectivism. If there is a fold towards sincere refinement, including the intention, it doesn’t matter who the person is outside of someone that is genuinely malicious, entertain them, and the reflection becomes its own lesson outside either one’s present self and another. “Malicious” comes from many places, most often it’s just ignorance leaning on projection. Usually however it’s a confluence of factors, some coveting in the arm-rest of ancient tribalism, others straying closer towards potential disorder or a genuine trait of someone. Truth discernment and its refinement becomes humanities redemption on every level, everywhere else it is leveraged to disempower the weak and over-inflate the grandeur of another, usually they strike in different ways at the same time. Irrespectively, it is a weapon in as much as the person themselves and even a group at large, refuses to genuinely move the needle on their own enlightenment, where it empowers everyone, for the better cause of what level we each individually to collectively find ourselves on. Minor subject switch but related: In the context of higher cortisol, the amygdala is activated towards threat vigilance, this disengages the prefrontal cortex but arms the person for short term war, especially when coupled with higher testosterone. Cortisol is a natural inhibitor of testosterone overall however, and in combination with a dual restriction of dopamine centers especially with men, it’s the greatest unknown silent killer of men’s lust for life and a natural leading cause for depression. Because this operates as a feedback loop, depression becomes a feature of the same infection, leading to many other disorders like dissociation, depersonalisation, PTSD, CPTSD that could be better treated simply via more sophisticated time as of lowering cortisol alone and in time combined with other practices, ameliorate consequences as they present themselves. Personally I haven’t researched enough relating to how it unravels for women, and as such my thoughts are limited to men outside of the overlap with related disorders noted. Every person is unique, but so is the subtler blueprint beneath inflexible thinking within psychology, psychiatry and broader science. No body needs to explain their presence anywhere in a place where truth refinement is meant to be reflective of the environments design itself. This is where absolutism becomes progressive by both protecting it from the flavours of dogma while protecting its ball-sack in knowing where to draw the line. As for another’s genuine obsessions on any particulars, they’re treated as above. As for my journal, I hope it at most attracts kindred spirits and at the very least, doesn’t attract those without similar dispositions. Otherwise Recommendation: Explore beyond the boundaries of present psychic energy to restore and own your own. Phenomenology is often tied to environmental conditioning, a box most people stay imprisoned within inside ordinary daily life while keeping secretly expressed in private life outside of social norms at most. The causality of that balance spells out subsequent identity, its locks and opportunities beyond the fixedness that defines its baseless self-confidence. In the case of my previous now gone satire, simply exploring the opposite gender within consciousness opens up a completely different purview into the thresholds that define one’s own perception of the world around them. For something more focused on exploring the pros and cons of being a male or female then switching between, dating matrixes especially become more interesting to model. Imagine being a stunning male or female and then the lives lived on opposite ends, the amount of insights you will get on how to have a good relationship or be successful in dating, just minimise or maximise benefits is genuinely explosive. Gender transitions then, open up a conversation that extends far further than mere sexual dynamics and humour therein. We’re opening up a world of where consciousness fluidity meets identity fluidity and therefore the preface by which simply empathising with another form, provides the consciousness awareness and self-insight to become the potential you were always meant to explore through your own freedom to imagine, understand and… transition to the life that better reflects who you are at the finer details. That’s what travelling is all about, whether it’s physical travel from culture to culture across the world 🌎 which I love, or consciousness travels where you can literally go to thousand of novel destinations within a given day, reflect and generate wisdom on in your nightly journaling meditations. In other news, I will be sharing how to self-derive one’s own experimental martial-arts; without being primary to discussion, one of the arms to energy mastery being raised. Aka oOo’s Rhythm as above/below. Scientists divide with heart-mind-body interconnection is now a decade into being resolved and in another decade, a very stock standard clinical go to in many, especially niche, preliminary assessments. Preliminary means it should never be taken as an all in one solution where there are gaps between practice and (i.e. absence of positive) results. Suits both sexes, and all transitions from bats to gargoyles; empowerment starts not with identity but a deeper interconnection that raises intrinsic identity as a given scientific, and slowly becoming, medical result. ———————————————— Now… oOo’s Rhythm I don’t raise my voice I raise the floor Let the room decide what matters more Shadows swing but I stay still Truth curves slow where force gets killed Some wear crowns made out of fear Some draw lines and call them real I read the pressure before it breaks I feel the fold before it takes I don’t collide I recalibrate Let gravity do the separating ⸻ Round and around I don’t fall out oOo’s rhythm keeps me loud without sound Round and around No hands, no crown oOo’s rhythm everything else breaks down ⸻ Some fight ghosts with sharpened names Some burn bright then curse the flame Short wars feel holy in the blood Sirens sing like they’re love But breath comes back the mind returns Slow fire outlasts fast burns I don’t push I don’t defend I lower the threat and reign again I don’t dominate I align Watch the chaos lose its spine ⸻ Round and around I don’t fall out oOo’s rhythm keeps me loud without sound Round and around No hands, no crown oOo’s rhythm everything else breaks down ⸻ Not every blade cuts outward Not every king needs war Stillness bends the room That’s what the heart is for ⸻ Round and around I stay inbound oOo’s rhythm that’s how power’s found Round and around No up, no down oOo’s rhythm say it now oOo… round… around… oOo… oOo… oOo… oOo… oOo… oOo…

I will be sharing how to self-derive one’s own experimental martial-arts; without being primary to discussion, one of the arms to energy mastery being raised. oOo’s Rhythm as above. Scientists divide with heart-mind-body interconnection is now a decade into being resolved and in another decade, a very stock standard clinical go to in many, especially niche, preliminary assessments. Preliminary means it should never be taken as an all in one solution where there are gaps between practice and (i.e. absence of positive) results. Suits both sexes, and all transitions from bats to gargoyles; empowerment starts not with identity but a deeper interconnection that raises intrinsic identity as a given scientific, and slowly becoming, medical result.

It’s the whole forum in general. With the exception of the Mental Health, Serious Emotional Issues section. But you can use that as an analogy actually. As humans, most of us are emotionally driven even if we say otherwise that by and large defines the culture, as that’s what this is, it’s not a research community, it’s not on a community centered around the search for truth. It’s just a bunch of everyday people like myself coming together to centre around a feeling for where it’s search can begin, not end, but at least begin, irrespective of the level someone is on. For those that protest they’re not emotionally driven especially on this site, I would love to know what their long term exponential analysis was on their choice for posting and every post thereafter. Naturally, we will find no such analyses. Humans are crappy thinkers, humility is just as difficult for us. Even though we will find no perfect reasoning on the site, many people have positive intentions but all of us are caught in our own consciousness feedback loop the same way people are stuck in the noted section of the forum dealing in issues in personal well-being. To improve the forum, I would make slight incremental adjustments to the system that improves empathy, that is usually far more effective at improving reasoning rather than focusing directly on reasoning itself which is usually too tiresome for most of us 😅, including empathy, meaning blunt changes in rules or adding more warnings is usually far less effective than an environment that naturally fosters prosocial and more self-reflective behaviour. For anyone that is more interested in more direct training concerning any area here I will be going in depth on the science I’ve pretty comprehensively put together on each of the areas here concerning what focus one may like to explore March-April 1st. It’s fine to feel a bit of anger, it’s healthy, and this is the right area of the forum to express it then follow it up with wherever else you believe you can make a difference on your own appraisals. Being caught in any ideological vacuum is tiresome for any balanced person, including protests against the people stuck in the ideological vacuum itself. So make sure you measure your own body lengths before taking to skinny dipping. All in all, this is a “vibe centric” forum and not much more, there simply isn’t the infrastructure for it, and although that can be a recipe for many positive outcomes, like Facebook, many negative outcomes can result as well. Thankfully, and this is sincerely a good thing, this site is much more bland than Facebook with the absence of features like the like/dislike button genuinely adding to the authenticity of commentary, even if that absence also contributes in part to the lack of putting in any effort towards adequate systematising of knowledge. The latter should never be expected however at the broader level outside of say more socially centric value based relationships where the inherent value of the information being shared itself is the catalyst for the relationship, this is where the forum may be more well-rounded towards and where how people behave on the forum becomes its own filter and funnel for determining who is right to share those kinds of discussions with, which a solid group always caters for. The problem however is when the ratio between credible and less credible information being shared becomes skewed towards the wrong end, especially where criticality and longer range thinking lacks towards the end of reaching into becoming the very ideological vacuum that reflects far too much congestion in the collective not just individual consciousness feedback loop of a give human system and the ideologies it’s unconscious mind moves the rest of the system with. The forum is quaint, and almost cute, that to imagine it much more would be to bestow on it the responsibility it was never meant to handle, while on the other end, it does just enough, to maintain its image. That’s stability, not the inevitable vacuum it will need pulling from, the cost of its present equilibrium though is that it both enables all kinds of people to join and influence the forum and disables people too far on extremes including less people that are more devoted towards truth without the ideological pressure hose. “Vibe centricity” isn’t just fluff though, as much as it is therefore more likely to be catering towards people from all walks of life along with taking the good and the bad with that, because it is a personal development forum, and because of Leo’s own value adherence, it autocorrects by maintaining that described stability, otherwise the forum simply wouldn’t have lasted as long as it has. Yes “vibe centric” also equals “vibe equilibrium” and therefore makes the system itself individualistically self absorbed in this regard, the very lack of seeking to design the system better forces the intelligence within it to only improve via autocorrections where collaborative efforts either fail or are otherwise non- existent; this very grooming however is it’s own double edged sword, where the dismissive avoidant kind of ‘individualism’ and hands off approach defines its own inevitable future exit sign when it’s action as any one kind of funnel, of whatever kind, has reached its conclusion. Any slogan of ‘teaching’ the forum provides is hardly emphasised through any meaningful action and it’s very dismissiveness acts as its own protection from critique or dialogue that genuinely leads to meaningful progress. Irrespectively, this described autocorrection makes the forum at least one tier higher then compared to any extremist religion and given where humanity is, and the many difficulties inherent in avoiding all the kinds of corruptions within any given system of humans, combined with the age of the forum itself, thats a history lesson that shouldn’t be trifled with, the forum has so far stood the test of time. There are many ways in which the forum could be made incredibly worse, but relative to its developmental level, the very dismissive and shallow relationship it has with subjects on many areas, combined with its individualism, becomes its own self protection from steeping into auto-regression, or at the very least especially from any auto-regressive tendencies that last for too long that it becomes a systemic problem. Irrespectively, this pattern becomes its own collective ego that the environment becomes groomed on, by and complicit to, and whether or not the pattern continues to positively autocorrect indefinitely versus reach a final dissolving end to the forum itself becsuse of the ego becoming its own systemic issue thats become too big of a problem, is an open question at this stage, and possibly, many stages thereafter. But yeah, it’s why I don’t presently see any long term future wherein I start posting in the regular section of the forum, even though I genuinely would like to help more people in the Mental Health, Serious Emotional Issues section. For any environment we choose to place ourselves in however, the choice implies we’ve accepted its design flaws or have at least thought about them and have taken responsibility to the point where future actions equal future sovereignty not just for ourselves but also respect for the environment we decide to be a part of. Best wishes @Optimized Life.

Diary: Medical School Journal. Chapter: 2025 Core Reflections. Date: 1 Jan entry. Type: 2025 Synthesis - Part 1 of 4. Part 1 > Introduction. Entry: #9. o————————O————————o January 1st Welcome to the new year. In the last few days I have, for the first time in over 12 months, been able to translate my experiences into long-term memory. I have been training on a technique that many are probably at least familiar with: the method of loci. This has changed my life. My unique process, although I am sure others share a similar way, isn’t the use of known locations prescribed by the method but the generation of intensely imaginative creations. Intensity translates into memorability, as well as being a greater exercise of long-term memory itself, which when someone is instead using known locations, although faster to do, requires less use of. Including other aspects of the brain, no doubt. Integration and interconnectivity is what I try to practice across all areas of life, and by establishing the right long-term memories across important life domains it makes it much easier for me to achieve that, and much more, consolidate my experiences. The beauty with the overlap between imagination and intensity with long-term memory is the cross-wiring it has with emotional memory, something that gets injected into the cells that play a role in our overall emotional makeup. When the conversation on emotional memory shifts from being hardcoded to malleable, the more practical techniques that genuinely support the latter give the chance for people to make genuine life breakthroughs. This is of course in part the overlap with specialised and cautious psychedelic practices, that without methodological rigour may be much less likely to create changes people are hoping to see, and where hope may translate into danger if they only approach it with the mindset of more equals better. This especially rings true if pre-existing issues that may otherwise be dormant are exacerbated. By the end of 2026, I hope to have mastered many different approaches for advancing the areas of mind that I wish to, including my stated preparations for psychedelic use. Early 2027 will mark the opening of my first experience of psychedelics, and my experienced construction of methodologies with similar and interconnected goals, without them. Outside of method of loci, I have designed and created a game for the restoration of the areas of my brain that have been most affected, the results of which I will surely have consolidated more permanently by the sixth month mark with sensible caveats: stability from anti-epileptics, physical exercise, better diet, and marked improvements from the creative use of other techniques, like the method of loci. Irrespectively, observations over the last month to learning into the new year so far indicate extremely positive results, complementary to other areas of my training, rendering doubts that have now reached psycho-cybernetic obsolescence. That said, I have forgotten most of the year (suspense now over of coming philosophical theatrics). Most of the hospital stays, even where I was living at different stages. Question to self: where was I at the beginning of the year? Oh right! I expect to have many moments like that throughout this journal. Thankfully, those moments, albeit sentimentally saddening, will come to an end having now officially moved into my new humble abode of being able to integrate every single day and date of my life. Handy for the drive forward in areas that hardly need a mention. That said, as a test of my own will and new practice, I am setting myself the challenge of seeing just how much I can recall and turn into wisdom by the end of these next four entries. ‘Four’ is to really drive home the reformed habit of reflecting on the past, learning from experiences and applying new solutions to practical life. Let’s start off with a definition of wisdom given that’s what we’re about here. However, before embarking on this journey to screen, “Philosophical Anaconda”, a cinematic linguistic film set in the intergalactic Amazon jungle of the mind, a side sequel to the original “Anaconda”. And that’s given my inspiration has come from the newly released film “The Anaconda”, which in Jack Black’s paraphrased words in the film itself was not just a sequel but a ‘spiritual catharsis’. My best imprint of the term wisdom came upon learning the model “Knowledge > Understanding > Wisdom”, or some close variant therein, in a book that had many Buddhist ideas, later finding out that the formalism came from 1989 when systems theorist Russell Ackoff formally described a hierarchy that included “Data > Information > Knowledge > Understanding > Wisdom”. For me I find it much easier in general to learn about the origins and formations of models as much as the models themselves to more easily understand how they integrate with the thing itself from the perspective of another person’s take. Without doing so, for me at least, there’s the lessening of what the phenomenon itself is outside of the person and with that a less embodied whole in how it acts with the mind. A clear example is nearly any word of any object, like a cup. Without contemplating its historical roots, the immediate utility of the connection between the word and the object becomes too dominant, even with perceptual flexibility in how we imagine cup and many other forms we can transform one to be. And with that said, I’ll also include knowledge and understanding in the discernment. Knowledge, usually like many others, I limit it to facts and data without any philosophical underpinning. Previously however, I’ve broken it down to “know” and “ledge”, and that seems to be exactly its roots as well with less so far found on the reason behind the use of “ledge”, where together with “know” I’ve just characterised it as the edge of knowing a thing in and of itself. Personally, breaking sensory perception away from being included is really only needed for a more formalised model, as per Ackoff. The Buddhists on the other hand seemed to meet my own practicalism for the unity between the three. It’s interesting, so many scientific models especially in psychology are made off the backs of basic cultural understandings for me. It feels much more like a thumb-printing competition, or taking a long piss somewhere just to mark your territory on a bush and name it after yourself when it’s already been mapped by the zeitgeist. Understanding: “Under” in this case, “under the knowledge”, like rocks beneath the water, mapping the patterns within and through a thing, while “standing” is to be abstractly over the top of it, thus “to stand over”, and not conceding until this point is reached for y area, even if x that reflects its greater nature is still to be fully encompassed. Full encompassment though, like a cup holding water, is how I would holisticize its breadth. My conception seems to be intuitively aligned with its formalism here as well, thus so far the roots are within the words themselves. Wisdom, however, has been a word that I haven’t fully conceptualised in the past outside of “the integration of knowledge to instinctual-like action”, and that’s precisely because I haven’t had a deep enough conception of it, something which has evolved over time. Interestingly though, my own intuition in the moment just now aligned with the roots I’ve just confirmed with research, less so with “Wis” however. At least I didn’t have a particular word for it, but I did have an intuitive grasp by breaking down “Dom” in my head. “Wis”: to see. “Dom”: immediately I thought of “kingdom” as I thought it naturally connected with my earlier understandings. Initially, I was going to call wisdom abstractly the “bridge over the water” in my previous analogy, however now it makes more sense to have “stand” be reflective of this when it includes walking over the bridge. Walking over the bridge which, of course, can be to the first gate of a kingdom. “King” dually pairs with “see” observing abstractly, where “King” is the seer on how not only to build a kingdom, but to oversee the knowledge and understanding on how to do so. At least, the best of kings do so, even if equivalents for modern times are far from being representative of this “ledge” of “knowing”. There’s also the connection from “Dom” to “dominance” of course, and with that, “dominating all corners to understanding”, and that can be an added layer to the engineering which I think is a cool way to understanding it geometrically, with each thing we understand having x number of indices across y number of dimensions and with z lines connecting to them. That pretty well connects with many cultural understandings about the many ways and lenses we can see through to understand a thing itself, like whether there are aliens or whether the moon landing was a hoax. Yeah! Ha! Heh, reflecting now it’s funny how understanding this triad has now stumbled into me realising how crucial it is in my overall road to recovery and greater work, and yeah, so far in completing this entry it’s really newly hit me at the emotional level. Where emotions, as I’ve more and more come to realise with greater experience, are truly the currency of generating long lasting change all the way to complete transformations within us and our society as a whole. And for the latter, that’s for better and for worse where through the lens of this triad, less beautifully most of the time, that involves the manipulation of mainstream thought in the most dominant countries, including the addiction to that mainstream thought. Something which at least now is connecting as no surprise of course for most readers. At the same time too then, seeing the fact that millions of people’s attention are being controlled and regulated by the memetic structure that those two veins connect to… It becomes too obvious when you start counting the number of conspiracy theories with the amount that it occupies the public’s attention, like Jeffrey Epstein, links to deeper entrails that lead to a pre-engineered vending machine that brands new soda can releases as the stories themselves evolve into new stories. Circus and bread, circus and bread, the wisest of philosophers of old told this story of their times. Something which the surface of things “overseeing a kingdom” in practical reality hasn’t grown too much in sophistication and is perhaps worse. Undoubtedly, this is the scope of understanding that I’d say needs to be accounted for to fully encompass the many related subjects themselves. What many people miss is just how much more sophisticated “kingdom” is at dominating the ability to control the attention of its occupants in any which way of its choosing. In the land of the free and respect for the nurturing process that goes into growing the sovereignty of the individual, it makes total sense that by that same strength, imprisoning the ability becomes just as much a legal defence of the government and any interested parties thereto. Sometimes for the better, and other times for the worse. Not all the time. That said, I want to be more scientific and impartial in my observations concerning taming my own process of understanding the fuller picture of the world in a wiser way. I see too many examples now, including how I’ve arrived at this entry’s junction, how our own cynicisms and on the other end, our own naiveties, through emotion, leave just as much of an imprint on our psyches, and with that the stored emotional energy within our cells, on our future beliefs, behaviours and the people that we impact. Something which in today’s age just requires far more impartial leadership compared to the kind that reflects how absorbed one is within the memetic tree of modern cultural life. To the contrary, we have the wisdom of bonsais, where every cut in stillness and patience… matters. Honestly, I thought this journal entry was going to be a train wreck given my time constraints but I’m teaching myself in real time as I’m writing this that are so far pretty useful. That said, I still haven’t arrived at the meat of the endeavour yet heh, perhaps by part 3 we shall see heh. Otherwise ‘YEAHHHHH!’ I saw the film “The Anaconda”. A friend of mine and I just did so on a whim, including right now in terms of using this film as an example of the scale of experiences I want to turn into wisdom, given it’s just a comedy and they’re less thought of through the lens of what wisdom can be created through them generally unless you’re in some way connected with the film industry. The lighting, the visuals, the acting, the set, the storyline, however bad or good, they become the subject of analysis for most people in the area. Just maybe don’t go see a film like this with a film critic; they’ll likely even criticise the popcorn by the end of it ha! I believe that by analysing the patterns of thought, and even greater consciousness, of many different people from a widespread of areas, it creates a polymathic bridge that perhaps isn’t traversed as often. As well as this being a good intersection for the first new opening of my entry on Empathy. It marks in digital stone the intention I want to set for the rest of the year in my understanding of the world around me, how my experiences intersect with longer-term wisdom that come off the back of a whole year. And, as I incrementally get better, perhaps my whole life and more: a level of integration that I will have to definitely work and train hard for relative to what reaches the personal standards that I set for myself. By understanding the cognitive life of another, the mental fragility that comes with the world upon us reveals itself with markers that define how we can better learn to manoeuvre in the world. By understanding their emotional life, the pendulum of suffering to wholism redefines the contours we write our own biopsychosocial internal signature of self with. Helping us arrive to peace at the corner of balance within that pendulum by seeing how they create their art of self, like our earliest ancestors, some against the stone walls of caves that evolved to campfires with folklore parading around them in song that became the swordsmanship and gunpowder of both revolution, protection and the aspects of ourselves that have yet to fully become whole, or at least reformed. The beating of the sounds of wartime drums evolving to cloaked espionage married from outfits learning the ways of other tribal groups to more developed societies. By understanding the invisible lines that connect the dots to forge the patterns of enough people from enough places, the architecture of the rest of civilisation unfolds by itself without the need for as many questions, and more evolved resolutions for social integration across cultures with respect for the preservation of each whole, and the person’s sovereign journey, and their homeland, to that unity. That… sounds like a wiser path of understanding to dominate. One other recent connection I made between the use of those words: humorously in Western culture there’s a clear difference reflected in the example often relating to one another, with “I know this person” in the negative sense (i.e. I know what they’re like!), which is often juxtaposed with “I understand this person” in the empathic positive sense usually. Revealing, if only half correct, how I brought up before regarding the existence of the underlying patterns of models already embedded in a culture’s social grammar before a model, and too biasing, how a model is finally named. o————————O————————o Right now let’s get to some of the drafted lessons: 1. Cross-Cultural and Generalised Social Management: Authentically act towards your highest understanding of others, because the more pre-existing misalignment exists, the more keen discernment is required. Pure instinct is the authentic rapport but that’s only when it works so it’s only one puzzle piece, nearly every other time a person can run this risk of coming across as conceited and suck in their own bubble. The misalignment between one and a villager from the 15th century is very different from the misalignment one has between themselves and a colleague. These aren’t just disagreements that need to be resolved: these are sometimes the deepest parameters of underlying realities and completely different models of the world that need to be resolved. Like male worldviews vs female worldviews, on average. Men, can you speak womanese? Gals, can you speak mananese? It matters. It’s scaffolding to inevitable worldly travels that come with the modern human’s life and the cultural differences they’ll need to integrate, not to mention being a failsafe from nearly any kind of indoctrination if combined with genuine long-term self-reflection on one’s own life experiences. I read one of Leo’s comments recently I found useful while contemplating the year over these past two days. He said it two days ago in response to one of the forum’s members, Joseph Maynor: “The mind/self needs some way to explain why it exists and how it should survive. Rather than doing the work to discover that through truth-seeking, the mind/self just adopts beliefs that are useful for its survival. Once that is done, the mind/self is in a constant adversarial relationship to Truth, because no ideology is true and dropping the ideology is too threatening to the self’s survival. Philosophy is the mind/self’s grasping at making sense of itself, but constantly failing because the mind/self’s true nature is God, which is incomprehensible to a finite mind/self.” It’s a great analogical example as well reflecting how it applies to nearly any and all areas to personal growth. Stages of ego development representing the ceiling by which a consciousness can differentiate between life understandings purely driven by it’s need for survival vs it’s more free open driven consciousness towards a greater state of awareness and way of being. Anyhow, I started researching Kriya Yoga, mentioned in the same discussion thread, starting at the same time I noticed the quote. The very first video I’ve seen so far: https://youtube.com/shorts/LQgWlz6U4_4?si=61vLtVJO4VjLFoDY Ha! I’ve also in the last week or so been working on ‘Box Breathing’ something that I believe along with another practice I do can creatively intersect with what I’ve read so far on Kriya Yoga. Next… 2. Live independently of _____ but live in wisdom of x as well: - For example, the emotions of others. It’s their emotion. There is a difference to living independently of and allowing one’s natural empathy arise, where the nuance exists is the former directs the sophistication of the latter. In the modern Western culture, we’re socially conditioned from a young age to absorb and respond to the psyche of another in a way that infects our own. However this is through projection that we unconsciously do this to one another. We haven’t lived one another’s experiences, and yet literally millions of times a day people act like they have lived the person’s life that they’re trying to impact. From marketers to salespeople and beyond. In the clinical setting, both worlds need to be mastered: clinical objectivity and genuine empathy. Irrespective of how one believes these worlds do or should clash, it’s a must requirement in a world that is bleak for most patients. 3. In a relaxed way, always feel like there’s something exciting about to happen and that you’re going to be a part of it. While staying at the resort my friend and I met fellow travellers. In the urgency of approaching the new year, I felt the anticipation of one of my roomies vying to head out for the night, one night before New Year’s Eve. I said he should save his energy until then and he’s like “I have got to catch a plane at 8 am!” About 15 minutes later it clicked in me about the hidden uncalibrated wisdom beneath the surface of his response. Life was moving, and a life only a night away was slipping through his hands. Rehearsing the emotional reactions of his, combined with the underlying patterns of his thought process and the meaning he put behind that, is how I want to live my life every day of my life, and I will treat my discipline towards daily memory integration precisely like this. When you’re in the middle of the work year, it’s so much easier to find oneself in less than exciting conditions that can distort perception by viewing time as dredged rather than precious. By consolidating many interconnected memories that reject that, this can carry over to a finely tuned positive disposition towards life. We spend so much time entertaining brain patterns that create thought patterns that lead us absolutely nowhere, and only come from not receiving enough of the right energy in a given day or however many days. That dulls perception so much that it becomes the myopia of the masses that we share in our lack of wise urgency, where the wisdom here can mean any level of calmness. 4. Hidden emotions need to be named otherwise they will reveal themselves in thought patterns. Thoughts always predictively reveal the underlying emotional life. Protecting ourselves from either truth is protecting ourselves from living life fully. 5. Daily practices are an art form, not a chore. “And so as the painter strokes, he practices that stroke a thousand times before, bringing…” 6. Always act, leave and create as a gentleman - Disclaimer: not as an identity, as a methodology for being, “Huh-hmmm…. Let me continue!” No matter the problem, no matter the experience, in five years time or even less, you’re simply not going to care if you purely focus on making up ground over further complaining. Doing otherwise is the first indication that you believe the world is greater than yourself. The networks, the belief systems, the cultures. They’ve been evolving for thousands of years and before that too. Your purpose, your role, in any unfairness, is to be the fairness that is displaced and equivalent. Your issue in that particular moment with a situation is a pattern that has arrived and never something that has randomly formed; all one can do is intelligently respond to the situation to the best of their ability. Preparing towards life in this way is the very definition of always maintaining self-respect despite the challenges at hand. Read the obvious signs before engaging. Listen to your emotions, intuitions, and think through the situation in a rationally integrated holistic way. A gentleman knows how to defend, disarm and honour the situation at hand. They’re not interested in conceit from any party, or overdoing any sense of defence. It’s not about being a pushover; it’s about situational management. This is where leadership is needed, and where it’s not provided, one needs to not only know how but do so without either self-glorification or power over others. The situation. Following this creed brings greater truth and reality to social situations, even if that is just about minimising the damage more than breaking even. Empathy and objectivity will be preserved towards all other life situations outside of relationships. Combined objectivity and empathy have their geometry of training just like any other virtue. The goal is identification of the terrain at hand and strategically conquering every entry and exit point towards the goal’s centre. The opposite of what the ego wants when it’s over-connected to stagnation, including prior personal beliefs formed that are contradicting reality’s feedback. A doctor requires an absolute response to a medical situation relative to the level of mastery reached. Millimetres away from balance, over time, may eventually become lives lost at the hand of the doctor’s lack of attention to detail in their development. Moreover, “may” is always treated with the same seriousness and responsibility of “will”. Where “will” becomes “must” and through this practice, teaching the urgency that makes one’s life purposeful, which eventually not only breeds the meaning that grows one’s own life but eventually, the meaning a doctor gives and shares with a patient, and the relationships that intersect. In the wise of a philosophical doctrine of doctors, the butterfly effect is: milliseconds are seconds, seconds are hours, and hours are lives lost or less than optimal outcomes. Just as there is a geometry to this virtue and the rest, there is a geometry to a doctor’s circumference of impact. Research and development, patient care, the relationships formed, worldviews and inner compass, the mentors one has. Every corner impacts every other corner of the shape that makes the doctor whole. That’s strong-mindedness which speaks from its own historical record, not a feeling one has about oneself independent of past actions in the moment. Patterns interdependently overlap with each other; no patterns exist purely independently. Wiser patterns followed over time generally result in wiser answers in the moment. Minimalism paired with a maximal approach: this gives the Hippocratic oath of “Do no harm” wings, but with strong gravity, and a nesting ground for every other important area of one’s life. Mastery is not mysterious; its results are the symptomology of black and white system effects. Diagnose and correct like a gentleman. 7. Unnecessary stress costs way more than money. Pay the bill, foot the cost. Meditate through the dollar signs. I would also apply this analogously to many other situations, let’s take opportunities for example. Opportunities: they come and go like money, but no matter how much money you make, those opportunities will never come back in the same way. Also, the positive stress of truly embracing a challenge relating to any one opportunity is very different from the unnecessary stress centred around and/or related to worry. One promotes anti-ageing, and the other, ageing. That said… Let’s dig a little deeper into opportunities, and remember to calibrate anything stated in this journal relative to your own personal development, rather than as a static universal. 8. ‘Fail’ at difficult things that advance mastery more strongly than easier opportunities. When you’re fighting one on one with a master as they’re training you, it becomes repugnant for them to always let you win. When you’re looking back in years down the line you’ll never be able to buy your time back after you wish you had traded your ego for a bit more grind that gave more shape to your strike. Next. That said, to complement… 9. Internal confidence through energy balance rather than ego therefore becomes imperative for managing confidence levels. The ego is a projective mirror, designed to protect the self based on past experiences. “Experiences” is a very general term to describe a set of categories of phenomenology encoded within memory that are closer or further from the truth. If the seeds of experiences are not being leveraged towards growth, they’re being leveraged towards the death of any garden of consciousness. The only way to lessen the ego’s reflexive grip is by putting in the time to learn how to manage one’s energy towards a higher level of sophistication, so that reflexivity becomes fluidity that meets the solidarity of true intentful action. Confidence derived any other way has a shelf life and the trail of skeletons left in its wake is its own evidence. Outcome dependence is the opposite to meta-emotional goal management. Don’t get your confidence from the world; imbue the world with confidence. This year’s a huge year for me. I have more milestones to complete than I have ever set myself up for. Past completed objectives, however I got there, and failed projects reveal the symptoms of what constitutes the path I must lead on year after year now. 10. Break an addiction like you’re skydiving out of an aeroplane. Allow the gravity of goals to outpace the cravings and difficulties to come, managing energy towards a result that leads to the positive stress that brings the strength to push all the way through to being ready to release the parachute and re-pivot priorities. 11. Investing your time in smart ways comes from seeing yourself over the span of years from the past and years into the future. And thus complementary to that, a lesson on reflection and perspective in the context of all of 2025 heading into 2026… 12. Perspectivism isn’t possible without the cognitive maturity meeting the psychological development to do so (including emotional/energetic management). Adages like, “Imagine our solar system as a grain of sand among all of the beaches of earth representative of the entire universe, with each grain being its own solar system.” The perspective gained from thought experiments like these isn’t easy to do generally speaking, because even as it becomes straightforward most people still fall into either one of two categories: there’s the difficulties in imagination or there’s the difficulties in imagination being leveraged for positive behavioural adaptation. This is where when someone says it’s “too abstract”, you’re meant to have gratitude for this very ability that you may take for granted, and empathy for the consequences of others not being able to emulate. Cognitive maturity multiplied by psychological development therefore gives perspectivism a scale to measure ability, and thus always providing the space for one’s own further advancement. o————————O————————o I felt a bit daunted in light of everything over 2025. That said, it’s time to start thinking about research placements by mid to late March, giving me enough time with at least mid-February as a stop-point to judge much more cleanly where I am. However, having consolidated what I have over 2025, relief gained feels very much like how The Last Supper would before rebirth at this stage. I won’t spoil the film (“The Anaconda”), but right at the end just before the final credits, one of the characters in the film screams “I’m Alive”, and I feel that this is very much the only final sentiment that this 1/4 entry should end… and begin with. Something or something like it is a pretty solid life affirmative expression of our limited time on this earth, making it worthy wolf grunts to strive to the front of the pack for. Earth exists among a network of planets within our solar system, God knows how many other solar systems, not to mention dimensions beyond the 3D. 4D, 5D and more planets may even exist. Don’t get me wrong, I have no well thought out idea about how they may exist and in the way that they do, but the possibility is unquestionably very real. And cool. And thus so is, life. Purely as it is, its simplest form, going back to that spc of sand called earth, only viewable from outside of the universe when an ultra-sophisticated microscope is used. Figuratively speaking. Me being able to integrate all of this unexpectedly over the past day or so, it’s… brought a tear to my eye honestly. Reflecting on how just for so long, my memory and attention had been too impaired to even properly contemplate the present moment, much less be able to integrate a full year in preparing for the next. Recalling my most defeated moments, if I could just hug and tell myself that it’s going to be alright, I would. Even though I didn’t need it, it would have quelled the things I was either too silent about or oblivious towards bringing more awareness to for the sake of just accepting my fate as the present moments created me. Intimately understanding the weakest parts of ourselves, and having the strength to reform them. It’s a blessing for everyone else that is impacted by you, the reader, as your greater empathy and objectivity reaches through your solutions to another’s humanity. Reaching into the soul’s depths to only bring the gunk to the surface and dump into the garbage before returning. Eventually, you’ll only have the truest parts of yourself left to dive down and visit, bringing up to the surface only what’s helping you live your life to the fullest for that particular stage of your life. This is a real signpost in feeling for the first time in a while like I’m actually making the footprints in the ground that I want in moving forward with my life. There’s many challenges ahead, and I look forward to being able to see the track I’ve left behind for next New Year’s Eve where I’ll complete another entry like this a little earlier, with way more preparation, and having achieved far more depth in my personal training and mastery. And so, as Jack Black’s co-conspirator in the making of The Anaconda signing off, may this entry bode well with the wisdom I integrate for my 2026 integration 12 months down the line. Part 1/4: Complete. Happy New Year. May your year be blessed by your own wisdom.

Diary: Medical School Journal. Chapter: 2025 Core Reflections. Date: Dec 29th entry. Type: Priming next syntheses - Entry # 9: > Deep Cognitive and Emotional integration of the years lessons for 2025. > Post-seizure epidemic self case study, meta-mapped to world synopsis. Entry: #8 - (full disclosure #9.) Solitude. Party. Balance. Deliberation is the only choice we truly know. Gratitude and salutations. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Diary: Medical School Journal. Chapter: Scientific Research to Philosophical Rigour - Mapping Their Bridge Date: Dec 22nd entry. Type: Research Introduction. Entry: #7. o————————O————————o Research on Psychedelic to Philosophical Bridges: Psilocybin the Primary Jiang et al. (Cell, 2025) chemically silenced the retrosplenial cortex during psilocybin administration; that region alone showed zero connectivity change while 560,000 surrounding inputs reorganised, proving plasticity is gated by activity, not merely induced by compound. The implication is pretty exacting: a circuit active during the window rewires; a circuit silent during the window does not; attention is therefore not metaphorically but mechanistically the variable determining structural outcome. This converts the therapeutic question from "does psilocybin help?" to "which circuits do we activate or suppress during the window to produce which functional engineering?" 30 plus studies below trace the maze to this question, the path I did not expect to intersect so directly with the empathy mapping I outlined in my last entry (part 1). Enjoy your preparations for 2026, it’s... going to be a big one for all of us in our own unique way. Talk about a definable backflipping ripple effect for humanity. From John B. Watson's blank slate hypothesis redesigning babies to the modern 21st centuries psychedelic switch to doing it with rabies (see study 4 below), the question is, did that idea come before or after the experimentation with psychedelics and was it during psychosis? I'll be able to easily design an experimental therapeutic path by the end of the year for those with epilepsy or worrisome dependent conditions to be able to experiment with psychedelics, something which isn't as nearly remarkable as it is the wave of improving scientific capabilities we're able to ride to make such designs. This, is the more hopeful conclusion to the implications of this work to prioritise in outweigh forces that will invariably use it for purposes that fall outside the structural integrity of what defines a safer society for us all in the future. o————————O————————o Core studies PEER-REVIEWED: Jiang Q, et al. "Psilocybin triggers an activity-dependent rewiring of large-scale cortical networks." Cell. 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.11.009 Shao LX, et al. "Psilocybin induces rapid and persistent growth of dendritic spines in frontal cortex in vivo." Neuron. 2021;109(16):2535-2544. nih DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2021.06.008 Wickersham IR, et al. "Monosynaptic restriction of transsynaptic tracing from single, genetically targeted neurons." Neuron. 2007;53:639-647. Callaway EM, Luo L. "Monosynaptic Circuit Tracing with Glycoprotein-Deleted Rabies Viruses." Journal of Neuroscience. 2015;35(24):8979-8985.Osakada F, Callaway EM. "Design and generation of recombinant rabies virus vectors." Nature Protocols. 2013;8:1583-1601. Psilocybin neuroplasticity mechanisms PEER-REVIEWED: Ly C, et al. "Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity." Cell Reports. 2018;23:3170-3182. DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.05.022 Moliner R, et al. "Psychedelics promote plasticity by directly binding to BDNF receptor TrkB." Nature Neuroscience. 2023;26:1032-1041. DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01316-5 Vargas MV, et al. "Psychedelics promote neuroplasticity through the activation of intracellular 5-HT2A receptors." Science. 2023;379:700-706. DOI: 10.1126/science.adf0435 Hesselgrave N, et al. "Harnessing psilocybin: antidepressant-like behavioral and synaptic actions of psilocybin are independent of 5-HT2R activation in mice." PNAS. 2021;118:e2022489118. Cameron LP, et al. "A non-hallucinogenic psychedelic analogue with therapeutic potential." Nature. 2021;589:474-479. Olson DE. "Psychedelics and Neural Plasticity: Therapeutic Implications." Journal of Neuroscience. 2022;42(45):8439-8449. Default mode network and brain connectivity PEER-REVIEWED: Carhart-Harris RL, et al. "Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin." PNAS. 2012;109:2138-2143. Siegel JS, et al. "Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain." Nature. 2024;632:131-138. Gattuso JJ, et al. "Default Mode Network Modulation by Psychedelics: A Systematic Review." International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology. 2022;26(3):155-188. Carhart-Harris RL, et al. "Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression: fMRI-measured brain mechanisms." Scientific Reports. 2017;7:13187. Preller KH, et al. "Psilocybin Induces Time-Dependent Changes in Global Functional Connectivity." Biological Psychiatry. 2020;88(2):197-207. Lebedev AV, et al. "Finding the self by losing the self: Neural correlates of ego-dissolution under psilocybin." Human Brain Mapping. 2015;36:3137-3153. Effects on specific brain regions PEER-REVIEWED: Kraehenmann R, et al. "Psilocybin-Induced Decrease in Amygdala Reactivity Correlates with Enhanced Positive Mood." Biological Psychiatry. 2015;78:572-581. Roseman L, et al. "Increased amygdala responses to emotional faces after psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression." Neuropharmacology. 2018;142:263-269. Sage Journals Stoliker D, et al. "Neural mechanisms of psychedelic visual imagery." Molecular Psychiatry. 2024;30:1259-1266. Kometer M, et al. "Activation of serotonin 2A receptors underlies the psilocybin-induced effects on α oscillations, N170 visual-evoked potentials, and visual hallucinations." Journal of Neuroscience. 2013;33:10544-10551. Clinical studies and therapeutic mechanisms PEER-REVIEWED: Davis AK, et al. "Effects of Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy on Major Depressive Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial." JAMA Psychiatry. 2021;78(5):481-489. PubMed Carhart-Harris RL, et al. "Trial of Psilocybin versus Escitalopram for Depression." New England Journal of Medicine. 2021;384:1402-1411. Sage Journals Goodwin GM, et al. "Single-Dose Psilocybin for a Treatment-Resistant Episode of Major Depression." New England Journal of Medicine. 2022;387:1637-1648. Griffiths RR, et al. "Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer." Journal of Psychopharmacology. 2016;30:1181-1197. PubMed Central Gukasyan N, et al. "Efficacy and safety of psilocybin-assisted treatment for major depressive disorder: Prospective 12-month follow-up." Journal of Psychopharmacology. 2022;36:151-158. Comparative psychedelic studies PEER-REVIEWED: Li N, et al. "mTOR-dependent synapse formation underlies the rapid antidepressant effects of NMDA antagonists." Science. 2010;329:959-964. Moda-Sava RN, et al. "Sustained rescue of prefrontal circuit dysfunction by antidepressant-induced spine formation." Science. 2019;364:eaat8078. Morales-Garcia JA, et al. "N,N-dimethyltryptamine compound found in the hallucinogenic tea ayahuasca, regulates adult neurogenesis in vitro and in vivo." Translational Psychiatry. 2020;10:331. Raval NR, et al. "A Single Dose of Psilocybin Increases Synaptic Density and Decreases 5-HT2A Receptor Density in the Pig Brain." International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2021;22:835. PubMed Central Critical Analyses PEER-REVIEWED: Vollenweider FX, Preller KH. "Psychedelic drugs: neurobiology and potential for treatment of psychiatric disorders." Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2020;21:611-624. Van Elk M, Fried EI. "History Repeating: Guidelines to Address Common Problems in Psychedelic Science." Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology. 2023;13:20451253231198466. Calder AE, Hasler G. "Towards an understanding of psychedelic-induced neuroplasticity." Neuropsychopharmacology. 2023;48:104-112. Carhart-Harris RL, Friston KJ. "REBUS and the Anarchic Brain: Toward a Unified Model of the Brain Action of Psychedelics." Pharmacological Reviews. 2019;71:316-344. Aday JS, et al. "Great Expectations: Recommendations for Improving the Methodological Rigor of Psychedelic Clinical Trials." Psychopharmacology. 2022;239:1989-2010. o————————O————————o GOOD LUCK IN YOUR PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR. o————————O————————o

o————————O————————o Previous journal Entry (Entry: #6) continued. o————————O————————o Out of respect for the lives lost and injured, as well as all too, family and close ones affected. Bondi Beach, Sydney, on 14 December 2025. It happened during a Hanukkah celebration. Authorities confirmed 15 innocent people were killed in the attack. One of the shooters was also killed, bringing the total reported deaths to 16 (15 victims + 1 shooter). To add, about 40–42 people were injured and taken to hospitals, including at least two police officers. These numbers reflect the updated counts from official police and health sources following the incident. As a tribute to Jewish tradition, I wish to share a solid take on Ashkenazi faith (dominant sect), helping dispel some of the many falsities projected onto the tradition itself. The following further below is directly quoted from Claude 4.5, where it very artistically allures the essence of all eyes with the will to understand. As a final sentiment to those lives truly affected from me, “Sacred violence is an act of violence against the sacred alone. All they that are strong with only the sacred, have collapsed the need to require strength at all, as all sacred are One and therefore the strongest of All. Love.” - my personal sentiment. o————————O————————o The Architectonic structure of Ashkenazi Jewish theology Ashkenazi Jewish theology constitutes one of the most sophisticated and internally coherent religious-philosophical systems in human intellectual history. From the absolute axiom of God’s existence, an intricate edifice of derivative beliefs unfolds with remarkable logical necessity—each stratum presupposing and building upon those beneath it. What follows is a systematic reconstruction of this belief structure, tracing the chain of theological dependence from first principles through cosmology, revelation, covenant, human nature, theodicy, eschatology, and religious practice. Level 1: The necessary existent as absolute foundation The entire theological system rests upon a single axiom: **God exists necessarily**. Maimonides’ First Principle of Faith establishes this as the metaphysical ground zero from which all else derives. In *Mishneh Torah* (Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah 1:1-4), he writes that God is the “Necessary Being” whose essence is identical with existence—requiring no external cause. Every other existent is contingent, deriving being from this First Cause. Without this foundation, the entire superstructure collapses. From divine existence flow the essential divine attributes that determine everything that follows. God’s **radical unity** (*Yichud Hashem*) is proclaimed daily in the Shema: “Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4). This is not merely numerical monotheism but ontological simplicity—God admits no composition, no parts, no distinction between essence and existence. **Divine simplicity** means that God’s will is identical to God’s wisdom, God’s knowledge identical to God’s essence. The Kabbalistic elaboration of this unity distinguishes *Yichuda Ila’ah* (Upper Unity)—God’s transcendence surrounding all worlds—from *Yichuda Tata’ah* (Lower Unity)—God’s immanence filling all worlds. Maimonides’ **negative theology** represents the epistemological consequence of divine simplicity. In *Guide for the Perplexed* (I:50-60), he argues that positive attributes would imply composition or limitation in God. We can only say what God is *not*: “God is powerful” means “God lacks no power.” Each successive negation brings us closer to understanding, though the divine essence remains forever beyond human comprehension. This apophatic approach shaped Ashkenazi philosophical theology for centuries, though mystical traditions would develop complementary approaches. The Kabbalistic tradition introduces **Ein Sof** (literally “without end”)—the absolutely infinite, unknowable aspect of God prior to any self-manifestation. The term originates with Isaac the Blind and Azriel of Gerona in the 12th-13th centuries. The Zohar states: “Before He gave any shape to the world, before He produced any form, He was alone, without form and without resemblance to anything else” (Zohar II, Bo, 42b). Ein Sof is so transcendent that prayers cannot be directed to it directly—this creates the theological necessity for the **Sefirot**, the ten divine emanations that serve as the “connective tissue between the infinite God and the finite world.” The tension between divine transcendence and immanence produces one of the most significant theological debates within Ashkenazi thought. The **Vilna Gaon** (1720-1797) emphasized God’s transcendence and separation from creation, while the **Baal Shem Tov** (founder of Hasidism) taught that divine presence permeates all existence—even inanimate objects contain holy sparks. **Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi**, in his *Tanya*, systematized Hasidic panentheism: from God’s perspective, only God truly exists; the apparent reality of creation is merely concealment (*tzimtzum she-lo ke-pshuto*). This debate over literal versus metaphorical divine contraction would define the Hasidic-Mitnagdic controversy. ----- Level 2: Creation’s dependence on divine nature Beliefs about creation derive necessarily from prior beliefs about God. Because God is absolutely one and simple, creation cannot proceed from pre-existing matter (which would imply dualism); therefore, **creation ex nihilo** (*yesh me’ayin*)—creation from absolute nothing—follows logically. Maimonides accepts this as Scripture teaches, though he acknowledges it cannot be demonstrated with certainty against Aristotelian eternalism. Nachmanides provides the clearest articulation: creation involves bringing “something from nothing,” yet in Kabbalistic thought, this “nothing” (*Ayin*) is paradoxically “more existent than all the being of the world”—it is the hidden divine source. Because God is infinite (Ein Sof), the finite cannot simply exist alongside infinity—hence the necessity of **tzimtzum** (divine contraction). Isaac Luria’s revolutionary teaching holds that before creation, only the infinite light of Ein Sof existed. God “contracted” this light to create a *Chalal Panui* (Vacant Void), into which a ray of divine light was emitted to begin creation. The interpretation of tzimtzum became theologically decisive: Mitnagdim initially interpreted it literally—God actually withdrew His presence; Hasidim interpreted it as concealment rather than absence. Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s paradox captures the Hasidic view: from our perspective, creation appears real; from God’s perspective, only God exists. The purpose of creation connects divine attributes to human existence. Kabbalah teaches that God created to **bestow goodness** upon creatures capable of receiving and appreciating it. Creation allows God’s attributes to become fully actualized—the attribute of Kindness (*Chesed*) finds fullest expression only when there are recipients. This establishes human beings as the *purpose* of creation: only humans possess the capacity for moral choice, Torah observance, and conscious participation in cosmic repair. The **Four Worlds** (Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah, Asiyah) represent the graduated chain of emanation from Ein Sof to physical reality. Each world involves greater concealment of divine light: Atzilut (Emanation) maintains pure divine unity; Beriah (Creation) is the first level of creation ex nihilo; Yetzirah (Formation) is the realm of archetypes; Asiyah (Action) contains both spiritual and physical dimensions—our material world being the lowest point where God’s presence is most hidden. The Hebrew word *olam* (world) is etymologically connected to *alam* (hidden), teaching that the world exists through the concealment of the Divine. ----- Level 3: Revelation presupposes a God who communicates The doctrines of revelation depend on prior beliefs about God and creation. Revelation requires a God who is personal and capable of communication—contra the Aristotelian Unmoved Mover who thinks only about Itself. It requires a Creator with purposive will for the world. Without Level 1’s establishment of a personal God and Level 2’s purposive creation, revelation becomes conceptually impossible. **Torah min Hashamayim** (Torah from Heaven) constitutes the foundational doctrine of Level 3. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 99a) declares: “He who says the Torah is not from Heaven has no share in the World to Come.” Maimonides’ Eighth Principle states that even one who claims a single verse was inserted by Moses on his own authority is “a denier of Torah.” This is not merely a historical claim but a metaphysical one: Torah represents divine wisdom communicated to humanity. The debate between verbal dictation and inspired transmission reveals significant internal diversity. The maximalist position holds that God dictated specific words to Moses. Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his monumental *Torah min HaShamayim BeAspaklariya shel HaDorot*, traces two paradigmatic approaches within the tradition itself: Rabbi Akiva’s approach emphasizes divine immanence and every letter’s significance, while Rabbi Ishmael’s approach holds that Torah is written “in human language” (*ke-lashon benei adam*). Heschel argued for a “participatory theory of revelation” where the Bible itself is “a Midrash”—divine encounter mediated through human understanding. The relationship between **Written Torah** (*Torah she-bichtav*) and **Oral Torah** (*Torah she-b’al peh*) demonstrates the organic unity of revelation. Maimonides opens his *Mishneh Torah*: “All the mitzvot given to Moses at Sinai were given with their explanation. ‘The Torah’—this is the Written Torah. ‘And the mitzvah’—this is its explanation [the Oral Torah].” The Written Torah mentions commandments only in passing; the Oral Torah fills the gaps. Shabbat prohibits “work” without defining it—the 39 categories of prohibited labor come from oral tradition. The Talmud (Gittin 60b) declares: “God only made a covenant with Israel for the sake of matters transmitted orally.” The **613 commandments** (*taryag mitzvot*) structure the content of revelation. Rabbi Simlai taught: “613 commandments were revealed to Moses—365 prohibitions equal to the solar days, 248 mandates corresponding to the limbs of the human body” (Makkot 23b). This anthropological correspondence suggests that Torah addresses the complete human being. The commandments divide into *mishpatim* (ordinances with evident rationale), *edot* (testimonies commemorating events), and *chukim* (decrees without apparent reason). This categorization raises the question of *ta’amei ha-mitzvot* (reasons for commandments): Maimonides argued that virtually all commandments have humanly discernible rational purposes, while Kabbalists viewed mitzvot as having theurgic effects on the divine realm—“conduits for drawing divine energy into the world.” ----- Level 4: Covenant transforms revelation into obligation Covenant (*brit*) creates the binding relationship that transforms revealed content into obligation. Without revelation (Level 3), covenant has no content; without a personal God (Level 1), covenant partners are impossible. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik distinguished two covenant dimensions. The **Covenant of Fate** (*Berit Goral*) corresponds to natural identity—the shared historical experience binding Jews together through collective suffering and solidarity. This is the covenant of Egypt, of common destiny. The **Covenant of Destiny** (*Berit Ye’ud*) is the vocational covenant of Torah and mitzvot, established at Sinai. Neither covenant is complete without the other: “One may observe the Torah and mitzvot and be fully within the covenant of Sinai, yet at the same time profane the covenant of fate” through abandoning communal solidarity. **Chosenness** (*am segulah*) has been persistently misunderstood. The term in Exodus 19:5—“you shall be my am segulah”—means “treasured possession” rather than “chosen people.” Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch clarified: “This designation does not imply that Israel has a monopoly of the Divine love and favor, but on the contrary, that God has the sole and exclusive claim to Israel’s devotion and service.” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks elaborated: “To be chosen does not mean that others are unchosen… God, having made a covenant with all humanity, then turns to one people and commands it to be different in order to teach humanity the dignity of difference.” The principle of **collective responsibility** (*kol Yisrael arevin zeh bazeh*)—“all Israel are responsible for one another” (Shevuot 39a)—derives from the covenantal structure. Individual transgression affects the collective; collective merit protects individuals. This mutual responsibility extends both horizontally (among contemporaries) and vertically (across generations). ----- Level 5: Human nature enabling covenant participation Beliefs about human nature logically depend on prior beliefs about God (Level 1), creation (Level 2), and covenant (Level 4). Without a Creator who intentionally designs with purpose, human distinctiveness has no metaphysical ground. **Tzelem Elohim** (image of God) establishes human dignity and moral capacity. Genesis 1:26-27 declares that humans are created “in Our image.” Maimonides argued emphatically that this is not physical resemblance but refers to intellectual capacity—consciousness, abstract reasoning, and speech. Saadia Gaon interpreted it as “figurative language for God bestowing special honour unto humankind.” Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook connected it directly to free will: “The essential meaning of ‘the image’ is the complete freedom we find in man.” Kabbalistic interpretation sees it as a “spark of the Divine” (*Nitzotz Elohut*) unique to each person. The soul’s structure reveals the layered depth of human nature. Genesis 2:7 states that God “breathed into his nostrils a breath of life” (*nishmat chaim*). Tradition identifies three primary soul levels: **Nefesh** (life-force, animating breath), **Ruach** (wind/spirit, emotional self), and **Neshamah** (breath, intellectual/spiritual self). Kabbalah adds two higher levels: **Chayah** (life, supra-rational will and faith) and **Yechidah** (singularity, ultimate unity with God). The Zohar teaches that one earns access to higher soul levels through divine service: “When a person is born, he is given a Nefesh… If through divine service he makes himself worthy, he is given Ruach… With greater effort, Neshamah.” **Free will** (*bechirah chofshit*) is the indispensable foundation for Torah, commandment, and covenant. Maimonides declares in *Hilchot Teshuvah* (5:1): “Free will is granted to all men. If one desires to turn himself to the path of good and be righteous, the choice is his.” The paradox of divine foreknowledge and human freedom prompted Rabbi Akiva’s famous formulation: “Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given” (Avot 3:15). Maimonides’ resolution appeals to the incommensurability of divine and human knowledge: God’s knowing is utterly different from human knowing, and we cannot apply our categories to determine that divine foreknowledge necessitates events. The **Yetzer Ha-Tov and Yetzer Ha-Ra** (good and evil inclinations) structure the moral life. Crucially, the evil inclination is not simply evil—Genesis Rabbah (9:7) teaches: “Were it not for the yetzer hara, a man would not build a house, take a wife, have children, or engage in business.” The yetzer hara represents ego, desire, ambition—necessary forces for civilization that must be channeled rather than destroyed. The Talmud teaches that “the greater the person, the greater the evil inclination” (Sukkah 52a), and that Torah is the antidote that enables mastery. ----- Level 6: Providence and theodicy presuppose human moral significance Beliefs about divine providence and the problem of evil depend logically on beliefs about human nature (Level 5) and covenant (Level 4). Free will theodicy requires genuine human choice; soul-making theodicy requires souls capable of refinement; covenant theology provides the framework for understanding divine-human relationship including its disruptions. **Divine providence** (*hashgacha*) exists in two forms. Maimonides taught that providence is graduated according to intellectual and spiritual development—a tzaddik receives detailed divine supervision while an unreflective person operates within natural causation. Nachmanides mediated: all events reflect God’s direct will, yet natural law represents God’s default mode of operation. The Hasidic revolution, beginning with the Baal Shem Tov, reasserted **individual providence** (*hashgacha pratit*) for every creature and every event. Rabbi Schneur Zalman linked this to continuous creation: since God creates the universe at every moment, God is necessarily involved in every detail. The **problem of evil** receives multiple responses within Ashkenazi thought. The punishment/consequence theodicy holds that calamities result from failure to follow God’s law—the classical prophetic model. Soul-making theodicy, articulated by Soloveitchik, argues that “afflictions come to elevate a person, to purify and sanctify his spirit.” Free will theodicy, developed by Eliezer Berkovits, holds that evil results from God’s gift of free will—if God intervened to stop every tyrant, human freedom would be nullified. Skeptical theism maintains that divine purposes necessarily exceed human comprehension. **Hester Panim** (hiding of God’s face) provides a distinct theological category. Deuteronomy 31:17-18 links God’s hiding to human sin, but Job and Psalms present inexplicable divine absence. The tradition distinguishes: hester panim does not mean God is absent—like covering another’s eyes, God remains present but temporarily unperceived. Rabbi Norman Lamm categorized four levels: absolute hester (for individuals), survival hester (national preservation despite catastrophe), intermediate hester (moments of intervention amid hiding), and nesiat panim (full revelation in the messianic era). **Holocaust theology** represents the most severe test of theodicy in Jewish history. Emil Fackenheim argued the Shoah was an “epoch-making event” without precedent. Responses divide sharply. Rabbi Soloveitchik, in *Kol Dodi Dofek*, rejected explanatory theodicy entirely: “In the face of catastrophe we cannot ask WHY, since that question is unanswerable. Instead, we must ask HOW we can grow.” Berkovits maintained traditional categories while rejecting punishment theodicies as morally outrageous; God’s hiding enables human freedom. Fackenheim proposed a “614th Commandment”: Jews are forbidden to hand Hitler posthumous victories—they must survive as Jews, remember, and not despair. The **Piaseczno Rebbe** (Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira), writing in the Warsaw Ghetto, produced *Esh Kodesh*—unique sermons wrestling with faith amid ongoing catastrophe, discovered in milk canisters after the war. ----- Level 7: Eschatology as the telos of theological history Eschatological beliefs depend on all prior levels: without a just, powerful, faithful God (Level 1), eschatological promises have no guarantor; without providence (Level 6), reward and punishment lose meaning; without covenant (Level 4), messianic promises have no grounding. **Olam Ha-Ba** (World to Come) encompasses multiple interpretations. The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 10:1) establishes the foundational principle: “All of the Jewish people have a share in the World to Come.” The term refers both to the messianic era following the Messiah’s arrival and to the spiritual afterlife where souls reside after death. These are not alternatives but sequential: individual souls experience Gan Eden after death, but ultimate fulfillment comes with collective resurrection and cosmic restoration. The debate over **resurrection** crystallizes the Maimonides-Nachmanides controversy. Maimonides understood resurrection as temporary: bodies rise but eventually die again, with souls returning to purely spiritual existence in the World to Come—“there are no physical forms or bodies—only souls… enjoying the radiance of the Divine Presence” (*Hilchot Teshuvah* 8:2). Nachmanides presented a radically different vision: resurrection leads to *permanent* physical-spiritual synthesis—“a body luminous and of more subtle material than our current bodies.” Kabbalistic and Hasidic thought sides with Nachmanides, citing the principle that “the higher something is, the lower it can descend”—ultimate divine perfection must be expressed even within physicality. The **Messiah** in Maimonides’ *Hilchot Melachim* will “restore sovereignty to Israel, establish peace with the other nations, and lead the world in the study of science and philosophy.” Crucially, “the Messiah will not make people rich, introduce changes in the Torah, or be required to perform miracles.” His primary function is pedagogical: creating conditions where more people can pursue wisdom. Maimonides’ 12th Principle states: “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and though he may tarry, still I await him every day.” **Tikkun Olam** possesses both original Kabbalistic meaning and modern reinterpretation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, it refers to the cosmic drama: divine light was too powerful for its containers; vessels shattered, scattering sparks of holiness throughout creation. Human task is to gather and elevate these sparks through mitzvot and proper intention, eventually completing the cosmic repair. The 20th century saw this term reinterpreted as social justice activism—a significant semantic shift from mystical cosmology to ethical-political engagement. ----- Level 8: Practice as the embodiment of theological truth Prayer and practice presuppose the entire theological structure: a personal God who listens (Level 1), revealed liturgy (Level 3), covenantal community (Level 4), human dignity enabling divine approach (Level 5), and eschatological hope animating petition (Level 7). What is prayer? The tradition holds both poles in tension. Prayer is **communication with God**—the Talmud identifies it as “service of the heart” (*avodah she-balev*). But prayer is also **self-transformation**. Soloveitchik distinguished *ma’aseh* (the act of reciting prescribed words) from *kiyyum* (the internal fulfillment, the existential experience of standing before God). He wrote: “Through prayer the individual discovers himself; he reveals his true ‘I.’” **Kavanah** (intention) represents the inner dimension of worship. Maimonides instructed: “The mind should be freed from all extraneous thoughts… The one who prays should realize that he is standing before the Divine Presence.” The tension between *keva* (fixed statutory prayer) and *kavanah* (spontaneous heartfelt intention) structures liturgical experience— tradition demanding both external form and internal meaning. The **Shabbat** exemplifies how practice embodies theology. Abraham Joshua Heschel’s *The Sabbath* (1951) argues that Judaism sanctifies time rather than space—“the seventh day is like a palace in time with a kingdom for all.” Shabbat commemorates creation (God’s rest), exodus (liberation from slavery), and covenant (eternal sign between God and Israel). It anticipates the messianic era—“a harbinger of the age-to-come… the transmutation of time into eternity.” Heschel’s formulation captures the essence: “Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.” The **mitzvot** function differently in rationalist and mystical frameworks. Maimonides argued that “all of Jewish law aims at two things: the improvement of the body and the improvement of the soul… the former is in every case a means to the latter.” Commandments have rational purposes and moral-intellectual benefits. The Kabbalistic view sees mitzvot as having **theurgic** power—affecting the divine realm, releasing holy sparks, creating unity between the sefirot. The *Tanya* synthesizes: through mitzvot performed with proper intention, humans participate in tikkun—the cosmic repair that prepares for ultimate redemption. ----- The rationalist-mystical dialectic across all levels A fundamental tension runs through every level of Ashkenazi theology: the dialectic between **Maimonidean rationalism** and **Kabbalistic mysticism**. This is not a simple binary but a creative tension that has enriched the tradition. Maimonides represents systematic philosophical rigor: negative theology, rational purposes for commandments, intellectual immortality, rejection of anthropomorphism. His *Guide for the Perplexed* attempts to reconcile Torah with Aristotelian philosophy, arguing that *ma’aseh bereishit* (Account of Creation) corresponds to physics while *ma’aseh merkavah* (Account of the Chariot) corresponds to metaphysics. Kabbalah represents theosophical depth: the sefirot as divine emanations, tzimtzum as cosmic drama, mitzvot as theurgic acts, the soul’s mystical journey toward devekut (cleaving to God). The Zohar, Lurianic Kabbalah, and Hasidic thought develop elaborate mythical frameworks that complement and sometimes challenge rationalist approaches. The Hasidic-Mitnagdic controversy crystallizes this tension. The **Vilna Gaon** opposed Hasidic teaching on multiple grounds: panentheism that blurs the distinction between holy and profane; the doctrine of the tzaddik as intermediary; devaluation of rigorous Talmud study in favor of emotional fervor; disruption of fixed prayer times. Yet remarkably, the Gaon himself was “the greatest Kabbalist of his time”—his opposition was not to mysticism per se but to its popularization and certain theological implications. **Chabad Hasidism** represents the most sophisticated synthesis. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi’s *Tanya* “unifies Kabbalah and Talmud to explain the mechanics of Creation, the infinitude of God, and the structure of the human personality.” The name “Chabad” is an acronym for *Chochmah* (Wisdom), *Binah* (Understanding), and *Da’at* (Knowledge)—emphasizing intellectual contemplation as the path to mystical experience. This synthesis demonstrates that the rationalist-mystical divide is not absolute but dialectical. ----- The question of dogma and acceptable diversity Maimonides’ **Thirteen Principles of Faith** represent the first systematic attempt to define Jewish belief. Listed in his Commentary on the Mishnah (Sanhedrin, Chapter 10), they include: God’s existence, unity, incorporeality, and eternality; that God alone is to be worshipped; prophetic revelation; Moses’ supremacy among prophets; the Torah’s divine origin and immutability; divine providence, reward, and punishment; the Messiah’s coming; and resurrection of the dead. Yet this formulation provoked centuries of debate. **Hasdai Crescas** proposed only six fundamental principles, criticizing Maimonides for minimizing the requirement to accept all 613 commandments. **Joseph Albo** reduced the fundamentals to three: God’s existence, divine revelation, and reward and punishment—from which eight derivative principles logically follow. **Don Isaac Abravanel** argued that each of the 613 commandments is itself fundamental. Menachem Kellner’s scholarship reveals that the Thirteen Principles “were ignored for much of the medieval period” and that “Maimonides was the first Jewish thinker to make being Jewish dependent on belief” rather than practice. This represents a genuine tension within the tradition between creedal and practical definitions of Jewish identity. What binds Ashkenazi Judaism together despite this diversity? Several elements: shared commitment to halakha as binding and divinely revealed; common textual heritage in Talmud, Shulchan Aruch, and classical commentaries; the framework of mitzvot structuring religious life; historical memory of persecution, exile, and survival; and the principle of *elu v’elu divrei Elohim chayyim*—“these and these are the words of the living God”—that sanctifies disagreement conducted for the sake of heaven. ----- Conclusion: A living architecture of faith Ashkenazi Jewish theology constitutes not a static system but a **living architecture**—each generation building upon foundations while adapting to new challenges. The foundational axiom of God’s necessary existence generates, through logical necessity, beliefs about divine attributes, creation, revelation, covenant, human nature, providence, eschatology, and practice. Each level presupposes and depends upon those beneath it. What distinguishes this theological system is its combination of metaphysical rigor and practical orientation. The most abstract beliefs about Ein Sof and tzimtzum ultimately ground the most concrete obligations of Shabbat observance and daily prayer. The tension between rationalism and mysticism, far from weakening the tradition, has enriched it with multiple voices exploring the same fundamental questions. The internal debates—Maimonides versus Nachmanides on resurrection, Hasidim versus Mitnagdim on divine immanence, maximalists versus minimalists on dogma—demonstrate a tradition confident enough to contain profound disagreement. As Rabbi Soloveitchik taught, Judaism requires both the Covenant of Fate (shared historical experience) and the Covenant of Destiny (Torah obligation)—neither complete without the other. From the absolute foundation of divine existence through eight ascending levels to the practice of prayer and mitzvot, Ashkenazi Jewish theology presents a comprehensive answer to the fundamental questions of human existence: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the purpose of creation? What are human beings? How should we live? What may we hope for? The answers form an intricate tapestry where metaphysics, ethics, mysticism, and law are woven together into a unified vision of reality oriented toward the service of God and the repair of the world.

Diary: Medical School Journal. Chapter: Life in Experiential Recursion. Date: December 21st entry. Type: New Years Resolution Time Stamp Entry: #6. o————————O————————o Early New Year’s resolution, I think it’s a great idea to actually just start mapping them a few or more days out to mark January 1st with a deeper foot in the mud you kinda want to be in. So after analysing different videos on YouTube I came to the realisation that my empathy, something which I always took as a trait I could take pride in, isn’t actually as good as I thought it was. To that end, I want to mark it in the cement in time for it to be walked on that 2026 is going to be devoted to identifying every weak point that exists, mapping the different kinds of empathy, how empathy influences societal an cultural trends, where I measure against all different kinds of benchmarks there, and the various roles I need to start understanding more deeply that empathy plays between me, all of my relationships, and the world in general across different levels. This is what my first next post will be dedicated to and I will probably cement this mapping first before I begin with any other aspect of a previous journal entry or any future entries I create, just because of what a massive role I believe empathy plays in both the unconscious and conscious construction of self that empathy plays, how we feel and feel with the word around us, and the constructions of the world, each other in that process and the dynamics that interplay there. I have a few areas off the top of my head that I’d like to dig deeper into actually gauging where I am in my empathy, however it’s an area I believe I need to have more reflection on before I community my perceptions. Empathy is such a core part of medicine in many unseen ways both with respect to where it is and needs to be acknowledged more, along with its absence and needs to be corrected. Medicine more and more is selecting based on natural empathy and although this is good, the more we believe that something is already there, the more blind we will be to potential improvements. Very minor, but even though Nietzsche may habe been a grandiose narcissist, i was a little peeved some days later about how I didn’t encompass my thoughts through the lens of the many life difficulties I recall hearing that he had, including sicknesses nonetheless, that whole box that I am yet to put a proper research phase into. Arguably, irrespective of any grandiosity related to a mental disorder which deserves its own kind of empathy, any grandiosity at all from any one human being depending on the circumstances, can be activated more purely as a response to the suffering itself as its own survival mechanism. And without understanding narcissism on a deeper level, I can see how the disorder related narcissism, can in some ways be attributed to being a survival mechanism. Lastly, in part this entry comes from a recent tragedy that happened on a city that I know which I don’t want to put light on in this entry, however it shook me pretty heavily, and still kind does, and even right now I want to understand those roots, and understand why I haven’t yet understood in a way where it’s truly life changing as a cliche way of putting it. There’s a lot I’m yet to fully understand on many levels, and I don’t like the passive way in which my existence’s confidence just goes over it in a way in which I feel is too surface level, despite the depth at which it’s impacted me. So I’m sensing this possible generalised disconnect within regarding the internally felt experience and the way in which this impacts my behaviour, worldviews and empathy in my relationships along with the greater world that I feel I need to interconnect, at least better than I presently am. Anyhow, The Island? 🏝️ Super cheap, super beautiful and just perfect laid-back atmosphere. Processed a lot of emotions I didn’t realise were there in the slower pace. Put on the backfoot a little earlier about life skills I need to master in 2026. Now prepping for the coming years celebration, looking forward to the new experiences. Super simple. Super straightforward. Just many phases to stay resilient on. I’ll see where I am February 1st. Enjoy the coming days! Get your reflections in! 🏝️🎧🎆🎇

Diary: Medical School Journal. Chapter: Life in Experiential Recursion. Date: December 4th entry. Type: End of Year Entry: #5. o————————O————————o Completing an entry earlier this cycle: Weekend getaway to an exotic island. o————————O————————o The month of December is entirely devoted to calibrating the signal for the beginning of next year. As a side-note, interestingly I recently heard Jordan Peterson use Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche as an example of how he was able to condense what would take an entire book for most people into a single sentence. Well, I haven't read it, I've just read the first page and so far, I can condense the entire page into a single single sentence. Presently, I am not interested in sharing the surmise. Personally, I see Friedrich as suffering from the same plight that many intelligent people suffering from, raising obviously important questions that to others seem inconsequential; the outcome resulting in his book coming across as more grandiose than it needs to be in order to stress-importances that are otherwise needless in the right social company. Because to a genuinely intelligent person, not only does Jordan Peterson's remark fall far from reality, his pages read more like a philosophical soap opera more than the level of cross-domain syntheses the subjects deserve (its not merely philosophical masturbation), so much so that if you were not a careful observer you could even call it pseudo-intellectualism. I of course and I imagine my reader does as well outside of quantum time-travelers (UFO's of the 'alien' sort have been aroudn for however many years we don't know so temporal variations there are very possible), come at his work as a modern viewer, capable of traversing the globe city to city on a whim to re-contextualise my experience week to week, giving my own short-sightedness time to breath through the influx of purpose-driven multicultural 'indoctrination'. It isn't that his work is outdated, work is evaluated for the prominance of its genuine dinosaur teeth not its expiry date. Anyhow. I'll give it a gander more before the end of the year, ""Philosophical Soap Opera's"" are better than todays AI slop after-all, with double quotations used for Stardom-Punch! As an affirmation to myself, every day needs to be treated as if I am entering a cathedral of daily prayer, centering myself with the deepest and most most profound aspects that make me. The heart. The mind. The core. The drive. Intensifying the synergy of my energy through every centre and ever more greatly even hour by hour so I can open the door to January 1st as imminantly as possible. Time for this month will become who I obey, worship and honour, reuniting with the sacredness of time itself. With the incubation of all of life's wisdom that is possible for one mind to experince, for one body to endure and for one heart to connect to, through and beyond the pain to a story that is worth teaching and learning from deeper into the seconds. It's the seconds that come to mind in this moment when I think of the missing rapture that has infected me most and what I believe to be mirrored by the least of what civilisation has accomplished. And that isn't limited to the practicality of Seneca, at the visceral felt level is where 'moment to moment' sentience speaks the greatest of its untruths, and who a person is in the 'blank slate' of the present moment more than who or what we are fighting for inside the dream that is imprisoned by those seconds. Case and point, mismanaging the mastery of regulating my energy has resulted in a heart that has pulled back, gone too close or just off-centre from the greatest of a joyful balance that from that competence. Of course, meta-consciousness ego-aware is required to be able to contextually map one's present state compared to who they otherwise could be or should have been if they had of instead done x, y, z relating to their wisdom, with exercise being the most common "go to" relatable example, and this is all I mean analogically, with certain specialised practices I do for example that fall outside common consumption where I'm unhappy with the personal resolve to date concerning. Aka, I don't want to start January 1st where it feels like I'm entering into the year that starts off as a philosophical soap-opera when it comes to simply getting all of my clearest signals through the noise under-wraps when all it required was for me to day by day synthesise those track till completion by the end of the year. But its fascinating you know, most of people's lives and I would include much parts of my own as I didn't know any better during those periods, is filled with just so much absolute bullshit full stop, and yet we call that 'good cinema'. And that this is all people should be trying for in their lives. "As Long As It's Good Cinema" is the turn of the flipped coin, not anything close to "The Will to Truth" (returning back to the first page of Friedrich's book, Beyond Good and Evil), and so I suppose we get to juggle multidimensional ironies in this single sentence here when that's all held in context. And on top of the obvious ironies, the one no less being that I plan to stretch myself as theatrically throughout each of these days till January as modern day representations reflect Friedrich through serious facial expressions, attire, oh and of course how could we forget the "Just-as-serious" affirmations of Jordan Peterson. Which we of course need by the way, otherwise we wouldn't sell nearly as many tickets that are sold based on 'passion per x number seconds'. Painting another irony. That is, the passion that Jordan maintains is the exact minutia I am looking for in my own second to second being when it comes to the particulars of the interconnection of parts of my nervous system. Because I have passion, but its the particulars. The way the wind moves against the hairs along our eye lashes kind of particulars, with the depth of understanding how it impacts the moment to moment rapture of our soul as it traverses the layers of life's narratives. A sentence that proves at least relative to my own narrative that to at least some degree, 'soap opera' even 'philosophical soap opera' is necessary if we are to have a "Will to Truth" that is truthful to the embodiment of experience that encompasses the raw felt experience the way both the lyric and the voice weave another world with the finest of attention to detail only to its furthest authenticity. So this is my terporal lock towards the end of the year, and I want it so much that I'm deciding with such INSTANTIATION that I will wait until the second weekend of January given how close the first week is to Jan 1st, before I complete my next entry; likely concluding the earlier part 2 of a previous entry as I said I would. That is, if my consciuosness streams take me there, I do after-all have many areas that require consciousness integration. And there's just so much that I haven't fully mapped yet, wow, its endlessly fascinating, in this moment I have an echo I'm receiving about the private hospital I want to create within the next decade, following my deep research interests in many areas that combine to a whole. It is SUCH a PIVOTAL time in history where how we view the medical profession, and with that what the definition of a medical hospital encompasses, inspires so much reinvention that it becomes an obvious path for me to vehemently pursue. The most beautiful aspect here is that it is actually possible for me to do, albeit requiring an unsurmountable effort in so many areas from myself to actually accomplish to the limits I want to achieve. The fact that it is a potential that genuinely exists in the universe for me to bring to life, it should only be pursued by those who devote themselves to "The Will to Truth" that in the end, tells a story that cannot end with somoene not having treated their life with a sense of sacredness that carries over into everything they do. And that they "Will To Do" into those finite "Seconds of Truth" that get a reading on 'Being' relative to its soul yearnings, seconds which are entirely invisible relative to where there is the "Ache of the Zombie", which lives like an umbrella across so many demographics of humanity in these modern times sadly, the mask worn to hide as well the absence of any philosophical truth serum's working to any great effect there, unless you're a 'natural'. Of which no one is despite 'natural strenghs' as all true virtue therein, must be carved naturally, as falsity that is anything but always reveals itself in our blindness of the whole, which as a rule of thumb can be measured in our denial of the absolute or the delusional fervour in which we weaponise it in speech or act. Just look after yourselves. Focus on the practicals of life, and treat the end of year that is purely true to the Will of Your Truth, as Friedrich would say despite my slight contextual rephrasing. Here's to the coming New Year! Let's allow the Soap Opera... To continue.