Journey to Nothing

[LastThursday]

What is attention and focus?

Attention is what leads us. Some of that attention is innate like being intensely gripped by anything to do with people. Some of it learnt like being excited by the latest console game.  All our decisions and motivations are governed by attention. And we try to manipulate attention so that we can shift into newer more elevated states of being. Procrastination, motivation, desire are all driven by attention. Most of our attention is uncontrolled and uncontrollable: that's our humanity, our curse and our blessing. We are mostly attentive to what our ape biology wants.

The fraternal twin of attention is focus. If attention is the grip then focus is the strength of the grip. Focus can expand and contract, be tight or be wide, intense or light. When we lose ourselves in a film, our focus is warped into the world of the plot. When we're in the zone or in flow, our focus glides without friction. When we're threading a needle our focus is at a pinpoint. If attention leads, focus keeps us there.

But focus is also the the thing that remembers and forgets. If we focus in the right way we can forget who we are whilst playing Bach - and when we stop, we remember ourselves again. Focus allows us to slow down and sleep and dream, focus snaps us back when we wake up again. Focus is the ultimate superpower. We and the world only exist when our focus says we do.

What happens when we reduce attention, when we meditate for example? Then focus is let loose. We start to notice it wildly fluctuating, growing and shrinking, constantly in motion. Our attention chases it, instead of focus chasing attention. But eventually it can be tamed and it becomes still. Only then does it start to seep into everything, colouring all of our attentions with the same essence. That essence of serenity, calmness, bliss, beauty and love.

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

:: language didn,t originate ::

:: the production of sounds for the purposes of communication # coevolved like our tongues and vocal chords :: the one thing that all languages have in common are that humans speak them with tongues in their heads :: speech is part of a system along with tongues # vocal chords # and brains :: tongues and vocal chords are part of a system with faces and windpipes # and on it goes until the entire human organism is involved ::

:: if the tongue evolved to improve the chances of ingesting food # then it also evolved to improve the chances of speaking :: it doesn,t take a linguist to see the survival value in efficient communication between members of a close knit community :: just as it is impossible to say when the first human hand appeared [[ because each successive hand was only minutely different from the one before ]] # it,s equally impossible to say when the first word or sentence was uttered :: no # a word is inseperable from the non=language sounds that humans make # where each successive generation,s sounds became more and more wordlike over the entire evolutionary history of humanity ::

:: the structure and nuance of language is as intricate as the %bandwidth% of the tongue # brain # human system allows :: and # language is an intricate part of the human system :: future language will evolve into ever more complexity and efficiency # until that is we no longer need to speak to survive ::

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

What on God's Earth are people?

First things first.

Why do you identify so heavily with people? Why not place your trust in cats or magpies?

Second things next.

How is it possible to even recognise a person? Are we born with a template of an "average" human imprinted into our DNA, which then expresses itself in the intricate connections of our neurons? Or if it is indeed a blank slate, then how do we first distinguish the form of a human from all the other noise in our environment? Puzzling.

There is of course the blindingly obvious template of our human bodies. But arguably the most important feature of a person is her face. And yet we have no idea what our own faces look like; so the self-template idea is a bit shaky. But I wouldn't say it's without merit. We can at least see everything below our shoulders. That should be enough to provide a template for what to look out for in our environment. Still, it's problematic. For one how do we learn to distinguish between "our body" and "all the other stuff" in the first place? You see how relative all this knowing is? How would you get enough of a grip on knowing, to distinguish both yourself and other people from everything else in consciousness?

Third things last.

You could flip your viewpoint and just accept the relativity. So that it's not possible in actuality to distinguish people from everything else and from you yourself. Instead You is a hybrid entity. You are both you and them (and everything else including the cats and magpies). After a while it makes perfect sense, but You have to let it sink in.

Everything in Your experience is a chaotic mess, but the one thread linking all that mind boggling consciousness is that it's Yours. You are the common denominator for all experience. Every person, every cat, every black and white bird and blade of grass goes through Your filter and your prejudices and interpretations. Yours. You. You are the ground in all the relativity.

So for every boss that irritates you, every mother that treats you like a kid, every brother that loves and hates you and every friend that doesn't want you to change, there is a You behind them. You not separate from them. You are them. They are you.

There is no template and there is no blank slate. There is only You.

Edited January 10, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

I've never been one for schemes for understanding life. My sister was very much into Tarot when she was younger, maybe she still is. I never understood the appeal. I think this reluctance stems from two sources: being comfortable with the mystery of life, and not wanting to be tied down by faith in a particular system. I learned early on that life was freer and more fun if you didn't live it rigidly.

A lot of New Age thinking is about systems for understanding life and I get that a lot of people find solace in that. The mystery and unknowable nature of reality can be too much for a lot of people. People need certainty, control and stability in their lives - a grounding for existence. There is of course no such thing, which is why exposing yourself to the harsh glare of reality can be terrifying. There is a sense of vertigo as we look into the groundless abyss of reality and we shy away from it, instead clinging to our systems and rituals and beliefs. 

Of course to continue living in this reality there is a constant fight against entropy, by using the weapon of energy. Otherwise known as survival. We have to keep intact the machinery of our bodies by constantly taking in chemical energy and having big brains to avoid all sorts of dangers. So in order to keep on existing in this particular reality we have to ground ourselves in survival. So like it or not survival is the informal ground of existence. 

Naturally, being humans nothing is simple. Survival is so intricate and nuanced that most of us don't even realise we're doing it. When you walk that well trodden path across the park instead of taking the pavement around the edge, you are practicing energy conservation: survival. When we're scared to confront the boss because we're unhappy with him, that's survival: the potential loss of employment could directly impact our ability to survive. We are totally beholden to our instinct to survive, so much so that we would rather lead a mediocre and lacklustre life than upset our survival chances. We are forced into ways of being by Entropy herself.

But again being humans nothing is simple. Against the ground of survival we are also spiritual beings. We believe in fanciful notions of something greater than us; magic; systems of divination; knowing what can't be ordinarily known. This is in complete contrast to survival; there is an inbuilt friction in our natural makeup. We become sad and despondent precisely because a part of us knows that there's more to life than pure survival. So which part is truer?

If there is a system for living life it's this: spirituality and survival. It's not one or the other. If we authentically want to be human we have to intermingle the two and not be ashamed of it, this is our true nature. We should strive to unleash our potential as spiritual beings, but also unleash our potential for being skilled survivalists. Both go hand in hand.

Edited January 12, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Here's an exercise to try: Imagine making love to yourself.

Bear with me, this is not some narcissist's wet dream, I'm not that way inclined.

It all starts with loving yourself. There's a lot of talk in self help about loving yourself. This is probably something to do with some sort of symmetry which goes like this: how can you genuinely love others if you can't bring yourself to love yourself first? It's walking the walk so to speak. So sure, you can chant affirmations every morning and perhaps this acts as some sort of proxy for a loving mother. But it's weak sauce in my opinion. What about something with more kick in it?

For those visualisers and touchy feely types why not lie down, close your eyes, put on some mood music, and then let your imaginary alter come into the room and join you with intent. The alter's intent is to literally make carnal love to you. If you're not into imaginary gay sex with yourself, then you're not ready to really love yourself. One notch down, would be to imagine yourself as the opposite sex and let your mirror alter play ordinary you.

Approach. Kiss. Work out who goes first. Let the alter unbutton your blouse, let yourself fumble with their belt. Keep kissing. Press bodies, let breast and muscle collide. Be vigorous if necessary: you should feel something, if you're turned on just give into the pleasure of it, if you're turned off keep going anyway. Get naked, let your mind's eye find a comfortable position and start the heavy petting.

One way to improve the experience is to match your imaginary mirror self with your every move. If you touch their behind, they will touch yours and so on. Again, feel into it. Feel the hands, the breath, the contours, the unpleasant bits, the pleasant bits, all of it. Explore your alter as much as possible. And let them explore you, and go to places you would rather not. It is only your imagination after all.

Make love. Make love. Make love.

Afterwards, make note of anything that came up. What surprised you? What repelled you? What did you like most? Would you go on a second date?

Love thyself properly.

[LastThursday]

Reading isn't enough for being more enlightened (small e).

How is it possible to read several hundred pages of a book and retain all that information? And even more importantly how can you put that new information into action? How can you, when faced with a novel situation, think back to that particular piece of wisdom you read about and use it? The answer is you can't - not easily.

So is consuming a large number of books worth it at all? What actually happens when you read a book?

When reading, the words on the page generate sensations in your imagination. If the words are good they will generate novel arrangements of sights and sounds in your mind's eye. To that end you may have spontaneous realisations, or insights, and some of these can be long lasting. But most will be forgotten. More importantly than the words themselves is the overall gist or direction of what is being said. Most times if the writer is good they will guide you through their thinking, and if it clicks this can stick around long enough in the memory to be useful. Other times you have to think for yourself and go meta and try and understand what is being pointed to. Arguably thinking for yourself when reading will be more useful long term.

One of the things that happens when you read many different sources of material, is that broad themes start to emerge. So you go beyond the style and content of a work, and realise that there is commonality with other stuff you've read. This is the most useful feature of reading. For example it may take 300 pages to explain how a nuclear reactor works, but the gist is that it boils water, to make electricity. That tidbit of information is really what you will remember.

One useful thing to do is take notes (not for me personally!). The essence of note taking is precisely that condensing down of information into tidbits you can remember and use in future. There are myriad ways to take notes. But I wouldn't say it was useful to just summarise a book as you go, but actually put down the insights you believe will be useful to you in future. The main thing with notes is to re-read them. If realistically you're not going to revise your notes, then there is an argument for not bothering to take notes at all. If this is the case then you will need a good memory!

What should you do with insights? You shouldn't just collect them to show them off. You need to actually embody them and use them day to day. If you have an insight that to attract someone you must first love yourself, in itself is no good, if you don't in fact try and love yourself. There is a gulf between just knowing something and actually embodying it, that takes work and often rote learning: if X then Y, if X then Y, until it becomes automatic.

That process of embodying knowledge is actually the end goal of reading. It should be 80-20 or even 90-10. 10% reading, 90% trying to embody. It takes effort.

Personally, I don't read many books, and I've never been a good note taker. But I do consume and think about vast and varied quantities of knowledge, constantly, and some of it sticks. And I can see myself changing over time as I embody these new insights and I'm better off for it.

[LastThursday]

I think I've always been looking for serenity in my life. There's a small boy inside me that is easily overwhelmed by the real world and wants tranquility and peace. That feeling of overwhelm still dogs me as an adult. The adult me is incredulous: how can some of the simplest things overwhelm you, man up will you? 

Instead of manning up, the fixer in me has a different idea. It's recently become aware that emotions are held as tensions and sensations in the physical body. I mean I've read as much in the past, but not really paid it much attention. But in my continuing exploration and fascination with self hypnosis, I've come across a particularly effective video that pretty much paralyses my body and thoughts. 

When I'm in that paralysed state for over an hour, and also without the normal internal running commentary, certain things have started to become very clear. The feelings of overwhelm are 100% represented in the body. In that hypnotised state I can watch the overwhelm flick on of its own accord, and track exactly where in the body it expresses itself. For me, it's mostly tension around the chest area and I have been doing some visualisation to move or remove that tension (as if it were a physical object) away from the body.

I think even realising (embodying lol) the fact that all my negative emotions are just tension and vibrations in different parts of my body is curative. It means my awareness is heightened as to when anxiety, fear and overwhelm grip me, and I can bring on the trance and dissipate the negative energy. As a consequence I can stop the body->thoughts->body feedback loop which keeps me overwhelmed for long periods. Magic indeed!

My aim in the middle term is to "man up" and eliminate the anxiety and overwhelm that's plagued me my entire life; and have some of that serenity instead.

[LastThursday]

Some of the most rewarding things I've done in life have involved communal activities. For example I remember a work trip where we made willow fencing for a play garden for disabled kids. The sheer act of doing something physical for the communal good is magical. Some of my most rewarding holidays have been where I went with a bunch of friends and just hung out together.

I think many of us are missing this communcal aspect of living in the modern world. There seems to be an inverse correlation between the richness of a country and how communally they live. Don't misunderstand me I'm not advocating a political system here. I just thinking that there is a missing piece of the humanity jigsaw in modern Western societies. As well as a strong emphasis on individualism there appears to be an island mentality within family units. That's not to say that there aren't bridges between the islands in the form of friends: but that doesn't constitute communal living.

Of course if you don't have much money for rent in Western society you can go and flatshare. You may or may not get to choose you share with however. I'd say that in general it isn't conducive to living communally. What is missing is the sharing of resources, ideas, meal times, child care and generally "pitching in together" that communality entails. Perhaps it isn't for everyone and certainly we are so inculcated in the myth of individual consumerism that deviating from that is impossible for most. It's a cultural attitude and mindset more than enything.

It isn't a complete panacea of course. Any society of people at whatever scale will have its inherent problems both organisational, relational and in terms of self policing. Long term communality requires rules and regulations and probably a strong element of routine, so that everyone knows where they stand. As an extension to the communal tribe that you belong to, you would also have to fit into the bigger tribe of society at large. So largely there would be an overlap of values: there is no point living communally if that community shuts itself off from everything else. Even the Amish are not completely disentangled from American society at large. You see how difficult it is not to veer into a political system.

How difficult is it to live differently in Western society? It appears that communal living entails living in communes which by definition are somewhat separated from mainstream society. Often there is a strong element of religion and or idealogy involved. I believe that just provides a shared basis for living from the outset. But I also think it's possible to do it the other way around. Start living communally and over time work out what the best rules and policing strategies are. After all most of us are employed to work communally, often we have to "work out" the culture of the workplace, there are no explicit rules given to us from the outset: i.e. it can be done.

So why is employment not a good surrogate for living communally? It certainly has some of the aspects of working together for the common good (of the business) and of sharing values. But there are other aspects which don't work so well. Most businesses have a strong hierarchy where the people higher up the echelons are distant and don't interact much with the lowly workers. The emphasis is also wrong: making money, instead of sharing. And if you don't belong to a union of some sort, there is generally no safety net if you get ejected from the workplace or you need your child looked after. In other words working in business is at best token communal living.

If I were to set up some sort of commune then the following is a must:

• Regular shared spiritual practise (non-religious) and high consciousness activites in general
• Shared physical activities - building, constructing, gathering food,
• Shared preparing and eating of food,
• Ready and open discussion of ideas of any persuasion,
• The use of technology as an enabler for communal living,
• Some system that stops certain individuals dominating the group: no kings or big-man mentality,
• A strong attitude of self sufficiency for all members,
• An attitude of doing things for both the common and individual good, altruism and reciprocity.

I'm sure there are 101 other points I could add.

Edited January 20, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

What's the revelation that life is a dream?

Is it that it's insubstantial?

Is it that once it passes it becomes a whispy memory?

Is it that you can actually wake up from it?

Is it that it's full of weirdness?

Is it that it's all an illusion?

Is it that you can actually become lucid?

Is it that night dreams and waking reality are the same?

Is it that given the right magic, you can suddenly end up being someone else entirely?

Is it that the dream is fantastic and incredible?

Is it that dreaming is the natural mode of the universe?

[LastThursday]

For every measure of ugliness, there is beauty.

For every worry; fear; a happiness.

In every loneliness, a yearning for togetherness.

For every dream destroyed, some kind of bliss.

In the abyss of my despair, there is a shining light.

In every wrong; there must be some right.

For I'm no longer that kind of man.

Far grander than some thought am I.

Because: In every waking moment, I must die.

 

[LastThursday]

In the old days you would occasionally be taken over by the need to rummage in old drawers and garages, just to see what you could find and be nostalgically surprised by the past. Nowadays, it's the electronic paraphernalia of the past. In a cascade of internet dominoes where one thing leads to another, I was reminded that I'd recorded a version of me playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata many moons ago.

If remember rightly, at the time I was going to make a series of these videos as and when I learnt the pieces. But it ended up being a passing fad. Anyway, here it is:

It's not bad. It's a bit fast and too legato, but it has a certain momentum to it. I wish I'd recorded the second movement. The third? Forget it, beyond my skills.

The point of this post, other than showing off and exposing my identity to the world? Well, it's that it's often good to go over the things you did in the past, even just to remind yourself where you used to be and where you are now in relation to it. And also it can be quite surprising how good you were at things, and how much you've learnt since. It's an uplifting experience. And that, can only be a good thing.

[LastThursday]

I went through a phase over a decade ago where I would cry at the drop of a hat. I would be in the car say listening to some music and I would have tears streaming down my face. Some would say that I was having a nervous breakdown, which is obviously not a DSM recognised condition, but it would have summed me up nicely at the time.

In my insanity at the time, what was making me blub? It was really about feeling an intense beauty in everything. It was like electricty coursing through my body which I couldn't subdue, sometimes it was overwhelming. I've always been more sensitive to music than other modalities, so that would often tip me over the edge. Obviously, socially, it's not the done thing for a grown man to start crying for no reason, and the worst place was work. I would be working, and suddenly I would just be overwhelmed. I often had to leave the room and just walk and breathe to keep myself under control. At home I would just let loose. Films especially were bad. It was intense and awkward at times.

What was going on?

The flipside is that I also had a real drive to both fill my environment with beautiful things and to create beauty in my world. It was the only time I bought prints of famous paintings and had them framed. I still have them hung up.

In hindsight I was having some sort of enlightenment experience. The side effect of that was that my emotional body was re-calibrating. Before that point I had always been very controlled and distinctly un-emotional, it simply wasn't in my repertoire to feel or express strong emotions. I was confused for a long while, like suddenly the emotional lights had been turned on and I was dazzled by them.

The crying and the desire for beauty slowly faded over time, and the re-calibration had run its course. Occasionally I still cry at films or an emotional tune, but it doesn't overwhelm me any more. And I've become a more balanced and caring invididual than I was in my twenties and thirties. I can also see that the world is still a beautiful place, you only have to look.

Edited January 31, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Who is King? Knowledge or intuition?

I think it's safe to say that we all lie somewhere on the spectrum between cherishing knowledge or going with the flow of intuition. On the extremes of the spectrum it can be difficult for one type of person to understand the other. Knowledge hoarders are happy to pull out information and science and "hard truth" to advance their arguments. The intuitive types will gaffaw at the ridiculousness of relying on the word of other people that knowledge implies. Maybe I'm caricaturing for effect a little bit.

I do suspect that those who rely on intuition don't see knowledge acquisition as a prerequisite to being able to get on in life. Dare I say, that these are the artists, actors, healers and earthy dreadlock wearing types? On the converse the knowledge mongers are the stiff analytical libriarians and accountants of the world. The average Joe is somewhere inbetween.

Really, knowledge and intuition are not diemetrically opposed forces, it's possible to be in touch with and encourage both. If you believe in evolution and a 15 billion year journey to get from the Big Bang to you, then your body innately has a nearly infinite amount of knowledge. This has been accumulated in your DNA and its expression in matter over that time period (ok, DNA is not 15 billion years old, but DNA had its precursors). Is it possible to consciously tap into that tacit biological knowledge (a.k.a. intuition)?

One way to tap into intuition is through a process of priming. This is where knowledge comes in. Knowledge in itself is just a web of connecting truths (facts) about the the world. In a sense this is codified explicit intuition. By explicit I mean consciously generated and investigated. The taking in and learning of facts is on the whole a mentally labour intensive process; whilst it comes naturally to learn certain things, such as walking and language, other things such as Quantum Mechanics are hard and unnatural. It's no surprise that we give people awards and certificates for the acquisition of knowledge: it's hard and takes a lot of time.

Given enough mental - or even physical - effort, knowledge can become automatic. After nearly 40 years of programming I can honestly say, that my fluency in it is close to that of my English speaking. This is the priming I'm talking about. That hard work has paid off in my ability to "intuit" programming solutions. And so it is with other areas of intuition. Knowledge may be scary and hard and pointless, but get over the hump of learning and it gets transformed into intuition itself.

Naturally things work both ways. Intuition primes the acquisition of knowledge. Really, intuition guides attention. I became a programmer precisely because my childhood intuition guided my focus into all things symbolic. A virtuous loop got set up. 

For a proper balance and an ever upward tractory both the acquisition of knowledge and a strong reliance on intuition are a must. One informs the other.

Edited February 1, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

This is more of a note to self than anything else.

I thought I would thematically list all the sources of knowledge I'm currently consuming, or at least give a flavour of it. Mostly, this is to see what my biases are and if there are any areas I could explore more deeply. My number one reason for consuming knowledge is interest. I find it hard to investigate anything that doesn't get the juices flowing. I'm also strongly into nostalgia as a vehicle for time travel, but that's really more about emotion and feeling and re-inhabiting old versions of myself for the purpose of escapism and comparison to my current self; it is also a tool for self-healing.

 

You Tube

This is my new TV. By theme:

Ancient history and mysteries surrounding ancient civilisations.

All sorts of music, mostly 80's and 90's nostalgia, but also electronic music to work to, classical guitar (got very into female guitarists lately dunno why) and piano music. Rick Beato, Paula Hermosin are great. Also, reaction videos for some reason!

Self help and spirituality. I have my favourites here, maybe I'll go through them some time.

Trains, especially London tube trains and history - I've always found trains fascinating, super nerdy.

Anything to do with languages ancient and modern.

Science related videos, especially if there's something I've never come across. Physics, astronomy, maths, computer science.

Russell Brand, Joe Rogan, Brian Rose (London Real), Leo Gura alternative type content. This is more about getting a different slant on things, than actual conspiracy type bullshit.

Retro-computing in general. I still own computers and from the 80's (and program them) and there's both strong nostalgic and interest value here.

Young lifestyle and self-help bloggers, Matt D'Avella, Lana Blakely, Isabel Paige, Nathaniel Drew and others. I was young once, and getting youthful vibes and viewpoints is refreshing and useful to keep me optimistic. Plus nearly everyone is younger than me, so it can't be helped.

Engineering and electronics. ElectroBoom and Fran Blanche. I have an engineering degree, so this has always been an interest of mine.

Technology reviews. I don't really buy gadgets, but find these interesting nonetheless.

Historical clothing. Priorattire is a good channel for this. I find history fascinating in general.

House building and the tiny house movement. Mostly for ideas about alternative lifestyles.

Odd and random content such as Tom Scott and a few others.

The odd foray into pickup videos: but mostly for entertainment than instruction.

Psychology, especially about human behaviour and thinking.

Self hypnosis. I find these quite powerful for inducing altered states.

Esoteric and fringe science and paranormal and UFO. Stuff that could be true, but no-one really knows. I like a good mystery.

(What's missing here is art strangely)

 

Wikipedia

My main goto source if I want facts or history about a subject. But mainly:

Maths, history, music (bands, release dates etc), music history, computing, art and artists and art history, languages, religion and spirituality, engineering, philosophy.

 

Quora

Maths, languages, ancient history, physics, some politics.

 

TV

Mostly as entertainment to kill time, so I won't list those. But also:

The arts and art history,

Science and environmental and nature documentaries. I was very into nature documentaries as a teenager.

Music history (any period).

 

Books

I hardly read books any more. I was a bigger reader in my younger years, but electronic content is a lot easier to consume and more immediate, so it gets a greater slice of my attention. But:

Science fiction, futurism (looking to read Stand on Zanzibar next).

Classic fiction, you know, the famous ones.

Neuro Linguistic Programming and self-help and philsophy and psychology.

Some computer books, but the internet is a LOT better for this.

 

Real Life

I'm lucky to live close enough to London that I can do day trips:

Museums. You get to see the real objects rather than just reading about them. The British Museum, Natural History, and Victoria and Albert are amazing.

Art galleries. Tate Britain and Tate Modern are my favourites. But the National Portrait Gallery and so many others are just amazing spaces. I have seen a huge amount of both Salvador Dali and Picasso art: but then again I'm half Spanish so I'm biased here.

Physical places, London and surrounding towns and villages are great sources of history in physical form.

Bookshops. I could easily browse and read for hours in any bookshop.

 

What's missing?

I'm a huge art fan, but my other interests seem to take precedent. For me I guess it's more about aesthetics than actual thought, so I don't think deeply about art and I don't practise it. Both my father and sister are really good artists, and I was good at it in school; but I never pursued it that much. Certainly, seeing art physically is my favourite way of interacting with it.

Politics and news. I purposely avoid news like the plague, because I know how negative it can be for my own mental wellbeing. But as a side effect this means I also avoid hearing about politics. I am political to a degree, but not strongly so. But getting to grips with political theory would be something that would make me more well rounded.

One from the forums: dating. This is an odd one for me. I'm certainly interested in the meta perspective and psychology of attraction and procreation and relationships. I'd say I'm mostly interested in how relationships work. Again it's not something I think deeply about. But it would be good for my character to expand my knowledge in these areas. Maybe I should participate more in this area on the forum.

LGBTQ. I have a vague interest in this area, more from a human psychology and lifestyle perspective. I do find alternative ways of being and living interesting (by which I mean different from mine), and I pride myself on being able to understand and get on with most types of people. But this is one area where my knowledge is thin. My half brother is gay, and I have also dabbled in my younger years, but more out of experimentation; so there is some interest here.

Philosophy. I know the main historical players and some of what they stand for and are famous for. But the older I get the more I realise how much wisdom there is to mine here. The main problem is accessibility, it's arcane and presented in an old fashioned way. But Alain de Boton and a few others have brought it up to date. Certainly more juice to be had here. The Self Help and Spiritual sections of this forum - where I mostly hang out - are basically philosphy.

Psychadelics. Until Leo this wasn't even a thing in my universe. It still isn't, but I've certainly had many incursions into altered states of consciousness, and I liked it. But using altered states to gain knowledge? That's new to me. I'm extremely curious about trying psychadelics, but, they are basically illegal (for better or worse) and getting hold of them is not frictionless. I keep an open mind.

Edited February 3, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Lately I've been getting snatches of a weird kind of dissociation. It always happens in that inbetween state straddling wakefulness and sleep. It's the odd realisation that I'm just inhabiting this shell called Guillermo with all his baggage and history. In that instant there's a kind of distance as if I were thinking about another person. The implication being that there is separate entity that is making this observation. This is so out of my normal experience that I find it jarring, but it's always followed by unconsciousness.

This doesn't stop in my dreams themselves. I have had dreams where I had breasts, that was definitely an odd sensation in retrospect. There was a weight and tangible feeling to them; despite being a bloke, I think I could explain what it was like to have breasts. I have also looked in a dream mirror and seen a female reflection. Basically I was a young Keeley Hawes, but with shorter hair (and a shameless excuse to show one version of an ideal looking woman):

Also in that hypnogogic state I get glimpses of old feelings. This is hard to describe. But think back to yourself ten years ago say. Notice that there is a definite feeling of being you at that time, and that that feeling is different from the you of now. But it's more acute than that, it's more of a feeling specific to a definite situation in time.

All these sensations are always annoyingly fleeting. The impression I get is that if they weren't fleeting, I would effectively be able to re-live them in their entirety. What all this pontification shows is that the very character of Guillermo is a fantasy and completely malleable. Given the right nudge and impetus I could suddenly become someone/something else, with the real possibility of not being able to "go back". Or instead I could just wait another ten years.

Edited February 4, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

You wake up and find yourself here. There's a rushing stream of sensation, tick tick, every second. None of it makes sense at first, but bit by bit there's a seeming clarity. Years pass and things are crystal clear: you are a person in this ape body, living in a society of apes all chattering at each other. Not only that but there is this immensity that you're suspended in. Everything is big and so so complicated and intricate and it all runs by itself.

You're so good at chattering that you have lead all your life believing in it. See, not only are you in the middle of seeming infinity, but you - the entity - are able to conjure up different worlds and dramas and dreams, and magically deliver these enchantments to the other apes. You just love to confuse yourself and blur the lines between what you sense and what you dream: it's something to get lost in a spiritual drug you're addicted to.

You imagine a giant machine of parts is running the show. You imagine an ineffable supernatural ape is running the show and call it God. You imagine hundreds of Gods. You even imagine yourself to be both real and unreal and alive and dead and a thousand other things. You think yourself to be all alone and pine for company, and dream yourself to be in a world of 7 billion other apes and fancy yourself hiding from them all.

You know that you are part of all that is happening, yet want and know yourself to be separate from it. You marvel at the strangeness of it all, and how bloody unbelievable it is that you're on a pin-prick of a planet in an infinite cosmos, without any other other pin-pricks to talk to. No other animal walks on two legs, no other animal communicates like you, no other animal inhabits all places on this planet. No other animal dresses to impress, makes televisions and flies to the moon.

Surely, this is all some hugely elaborate joke?

What the hell is going on?

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Sometimes events happen that suddenly change your worldview. Or at least destabilizes it until it re-adjusts itself. You may have held a particular worldview for decades or a good part of your life. After some time it seems like you don't hold a particular worldview, instead you think you have a neutral standpoint on how you orient yourself to the world - but it's just autopilot.

The trigger for the change can be the sudden removal of tension or worry or expectation. For example when I graduated from university the constant need to study and the duty to turn up for lectures suddenly evaporated. Instead of feeling instant relief, I felt a strong disorientation for a few months. I would get pangs of anxiety about needing to be studying something, and then immediately realise there was nothing to do and feeling a kind of loss or emptiness. You could call it a bereavement of sorts, but it wasn't exactly like that; I had become accustomed to the stress of being at university.

I have had the same disorientation a number of times since. It never gets easier because each time it's about different circumstances or triggers. But each time after the period of disorientation ran its course I would see the world in a different light. The peculiarity is, the change in worldview itself often precipitates a drastic re-organisation of circumstances. So the process is something like: trigger -> change in worldview -> re-organisation of world. From this the realisation comes that the view of the world you hold, moulds the circumstances in which you find yourself; this can be both mental and physical. The other realisation is that yes, the change happens because of the trigger, but the change itself is organic and usually uncontrollable.

The most common trigger is changing jobs. Work takes up a huge chunk of waking life. It takes up both mental space and also the daily logistics of preparing for work, and of interacting with colleagues, let alone doing the work itself. In a sense it forces a certain perspective, dependent on the factors and people involved. When you change jobs, you are suddenly exposed to the worldview you held (company culture) and it becomes apparent that it was just an illusion: and you are not that person anymore.

I've learned to just let the period of disorientation run it course without forcing anything. It can often be quite unpleasant and you want it to end as quickly as possible, but being stoic about it is best. Eventually a new perspective on the world asserts itself, and all is good again. But just remember you are not that perspective, it will pass and another comes along; you are something else, something without a perspective or worldview.

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

People surprise you.

For example on this forum people I thought were shallow and looking for attention and could hardly put a sentence together, suddenly come out with well structured and thoughful prose. I'm guilty of the same. I spent a big part of my life dumbing myself down to fit in. I have to keep reminding myself that first impressions or even second impressions are not always correct. Just a few seconds of contemplation should make this obvious.

Imagine you are thirty one years old today. But everyone thinks you are shallow, needy and uninteresting. One day, someone who cares enough asks you to recount every day you have lived. Wow. How much depth is that? Thirty years of depth. And that's just what you did. What about what you thought and felt as well? See, we are all exactly like that. What makes us shallow, needy and uninteresting is purely an opinion, not an actuality.

Being patient and unjudgemental from the moment you meet someone new, gives them breathing space to show you just how deep and interesting they are. It's a prerequisite for loving others both equally and unconditionally. But you should also love yourself unconditionally, and that means not dumbing yourself down to fit in and be loved.

Love is being able to express and expose your hidden depths and letting others do the same.

[LastThursday]

I think I've mentioned before in this journal that I'm not big on schemes for living life; because it's too rigid. Saying that even I have a loose set of values, guiding principles and foundations. Some nominalisations are:

Respect

Minimalism / Simplicity

Automation / Routine

Self reliance

Openness / Approachability

Optimism

Pragmatism

Intuition

By themselves the above don't mean much. Even if were to explain them from my relative standpoint, it still wouldn't mean much to you. So you are free to fill in and interpret the list above. I can say that these ways of approaching life have been picked up over time. Although a few such as optimism and openness I feel I've always had.

I have also probably taken all the above to extremes at one point or another in my life.  So mostly its been a struggle to regulate all these things so that I'm not too minimalist for example. They can all be bad or addictive taken to extreme. Sometimes I've had to learn the hard way, too much openness can put people off or being too optimistic goes against being pragmatic.

I think a large part of my maturity is due to my improved ability to keep all my built in tendencies in check. To do that requires some amount of negative feedback learning and also to be aware enough of my own internal state to stop myself going too far or being impulsive. But at times self-regulation can fly out of the window, and so I've learnt to have better coping mechanisms in the aftermath of bad decisions or extreme behaviour. In turn this has improved my social skills and emotional intelligence.

I still have some way to go with the list of my guiding principles. Some need their setpoint adjusting up or down; say, a bit more optimism, or being more open to help and advice from others. Other aspects I would dearly love to add: leadership and organisational abilities and strong motivation. I can step up and do these things when needed (such as at work), but they have never sat with me comfortably. My only friend here is more experience in these areas.

[LastThursday]

From the outset this journal has been a dumping ground for ideas. Really, just another way for me to introspect. I love symbols and writing and languages, so I wondered if there was a way to re-invent writing itself.

The alphabet is truly a wonderous invention. The fact that it allows a faithful representation of spoken speech, or at least enough to capture most elements of it is astounding. For example written Spanish is very close to spoken speech. What it has in its favour is a small vowel inventory and straightforward consonants. These are relatively easy to transcribe - although there is a small amount of variation between Spanish speaking countries.

Another wonderous invention is the Chinese character writing system. Its main feature being its compactness in print. However, it also has a large aesthetic component to it: it has partly evolved over time to be able to be drawn well in ink. As such each character is composed of a number of strokes taken from a small set. Another feature is that each character has to be able to be distinguished well enough to avoid confusion with other characters. This feature it shares with spoken language. Spoken words have to be distinct enough from each other so that they are not confused. 

I believe Chinese writing has a huge number of characters. But only around 2000 characters or so are needed to read a newspaper say. 

My main idea is can we better Chinese writing? Yes and no is the answer.

One scheme would be to encode each spoken word in say English using a unique number. So for example "the" would be 23 and "cat" 127 and "dog"  is 56. What's the best way to encode these numbers? Well, we could actually write the numbers in decimal: 23, 127, 56. But that's less efficient than just using an alphabet.  Another way is to use a different number base, base 2 or binary. That would seem even less efficient: 10111, 1111111, 111000. But the idea is to assign one stroke to each binary digit position. Now we're getting somewhere.

Imagine a square. This has four sides. You can remove sides in different combinations. There are 2x2x2x2=16 ways of arranging the four sides of a square. So one square alone can encode up to sixteen different words. Not too many, but there's more. If you join opposite corners of the square that would give two extra diagonal strokes: 64 words. So the last word in this list would look like a box with a cross in it and the first word would be a blank character with no strokes.

Now, there is a minor point about ambiguity. How would you distinguish a word with one horizontal stroke (top of the box) from another (bottom of the box)? The simple solution is to place a dot in the middle of the box. Now you can tell which side of the dot a stroke is. We can use this dot to actually break up the two diagonal strokes into two parts each, so we increase our total inventory of strokes up to 8. This gives us 256 words. It's starting to be useful.

The final piece is to stack two boxes with a gap between them. This would give up to 16 strokes (8 for each box). This would in fact give 65536 words. That is probably more words than most everyday speakers of English know. 16 strokes is probably less than some Chinese characters use (I'm happy to be corrected here). 

Again there might be some ambiguity when stacking boxes about which strokes are being represented. But some system of dots could be used to remove the ambiguity.

In terms of actually using the system, I envisage more common words using less strokes. So the first 256 most common words only need up to 8 strokes. At a guess that's probably about 80% of words.

Of course the system suffers from the same problem as Chinese characters in that it requires rote learning, but so do alphabetic characters and English spelling to a degree. It would also be possible to encode the IPA symbols in this system. So words of any language could be alphabetically spelt using my system. This reminds me of Japanese using both Chinese characters and Katakana. 

What the system lacks that the Chinese writing system does have is both aesthetics and an inbuilt semantic component (i.e. radicals). But it would be possible to map certain phonemes in English more closely to certain strokes for a hint at what the word might be - making learning slightly easier. It's a work in progress.

I think it would be possible to use an evolutionary algorithm or neural network to both map more common words to use less strokes, but to also have some correspondence between different strokes and phonemes. Obviously with only eight strokes per box, mapping to 40 odd phonemes that's a tricky thing to pull off. But this is really only for hinting purposes.

Edited February 15, 2021 by LastThursday