Oct,
Strange pictures of the barren landscape outside the window, leaves flutter in the wind like there is nothing remaining from the summer - it's autumn, and everything is submerged in dull and subdued colors. The emptiness of the streets and some strange steady hum coming from somewhere, from some distance. I try to read and write intermittently, change activities, the sensation that my head is getting empty, devoid of words that were overflowing it a year ago, and now it's a somewhat barren landscape of nothingness and emptiness. Also, I worry too much about grammar and punctuation when I type, and the habit of typing on a small screen also lead to my obsession with perfection. I fret about sentence forms and the word choice. While I could be blissfully typing away, leaving the editing and fixing small mistakes for later. Not so much now. Also, I'm too preoccupied with the content of what I type, maybe because I regularly publish it on my wall, and this knowledge that people are going to see and judge it makes it more difficult for me - I always think how this phrase this choice of adjectives and whatnot is going to be perceived and received. There is too much additional pressure that could be avoided if I didn't pay so much attention to the technical stuff. You basically can write the way you talk, the way the thoughts pass through your head in endless sequence, a chain consisting of brilliant scintillating flashes, Like, I saw this diamond necklace of cars stuck on the road - it was evening and their bright headlights produced the sight that was reminiscent of a wide diamond necklace with precious gems sparkling in the sunlight, or something like that. So, yes I need to remove this pressure from my mind - just learn to type whatever passes through my head and not care about the form and other not so significant things. The letter D on my keyboard isn't working well, sometimes when I press it, it doesn't produce a desirable result so, I guess, I'll have a lot of words here with the letter D missing.In any case, it's not something I want to think much about. The constant hum outside my window creates a monotonous background similar to the ocean surf, leaves on the trees flutter, waver, and quiver anxiously, touched by the cold autumn wind. It's finally autumn, and icy gusts of wind make it clear that very soon the first snowflakes will appear in the chilly air. The sky is enveloped in a constant dull veil of gray clouds, and the occasional drizzle turns everything wet and soggy. In the evening, strong gusts of wind tear the leaves from the trees and carry them away. The crowns became yellow, eventually making it look like a fall. Every time the wind increases, branches begin to move frantically like a person waving his hands when he cannot decide what to do at this moment, in which direction to run - something like that. The familiar landscape outside the window of the corporate minivan is repeating every morning, and I'm getting more and more familiar with the details. The same pictures pass by at night, and this time everything looks somewhat different in the dim orange glow produced by the endless sequence of streetlamps illuminating the highway. I wish I could remember the sights better or be able to come up with better descriptions. I try the technique I eloquently described at some point during my tumultuous freelance year - write shitty stuff - now I'm trying it out on myself, literally I sit with the notebook on my lap and write everything that passes through my mind - just in order to get into this habit of being able to write down my thoughts. I mean this way the writing doesn't feel like some formidable task that requires a special state of mind, that can only be done when I have enough carbs in my body and my mind is fresh as a daisy in the morning. Like, I can write once again about drops of dew on rose petals, or I can write about whatever - it doesn't matter since it's unlikely that I'll publish it anywhere; it's just an exercise, something that gives me a habit of transforming my train of consciousness into typed words, whenever I have this train of consciousness. And this process isn't hindered by the slowness of the awkward phone keyboard when because of the disparity between the speed of my thinking and the speed with which I can type things, the process becomes hard and elaborate, and the smoothness of the flow is ruined by all the delays and interruptions and inconveniences. The notepad keyboard is different in this sense since it feels like just an extension of my body and mind. Whatever crosses my mind can be painlessly transferred to my fingers fluttering over the keyboard and being transformed into words. The downside is that since I don't think much in this case about words and phrases and not linger indefinitely trying to find the perfect phrasing for whatever comes to my mind these pages are going to be filled with lots and lots of rubbish. But this is the point of this exercise basically - writing shitty stuff. The idea came from Improv - it's one of the Improv techniques, exercises that are supposed to help you overcome your inhibitions, namely perfectionism when you feel frustrated when what you do doesn't come out perfect. It's something that can discourage one from doing the thing altogether.
A strange wind is dispersing the clouds. Magic spells coming from a hidden pouch kept by a mighty wizard who's just realized his abilities. Everything is flying with rustles and murmurs. Dried tangles of vine crawling around rafters of the bus stop. Dragons slowly crawl from their caves, slowly finding out about some incantation, some spell that was hidden for centuries deeply in that cave in the middle of nowhere. Beams of spring sunlight and gusts of fresh air disperse the stale frozen coldness of winter, the dense fog of anxious expectation and slippery icy sculptures under feet. The temperature swings wildly, with minus sign intermittently appearing and disappearing before the red digits indicating the temperature on the outdoors thermometer near the bus stop. It's impossible to squeeze any more information inside - there is too much of it already; orange glow of street lights mark the days - each day ended with some mark of temporary success that can be interpreted as either finishing some part of the task or just surviving the day - avoiding slipping into a dense and suffocating dark cloud of panic. It's when too much attention is focused on the reality - small details - whatever it is around that can capture and hold the attention. Caps of snow on the spruces, their heavy paws of ever-green branches - dark military camouflage - grave and somber. And glimpses of sunlight in the morning, after the infinity of milky gray nothingness - the blackness of tree skeletons outside the window. The magic world hints with passing trains carrying their passengers through some bridge somewhere high above the clouds into the infinity of rainbows. It's the bridge to Viking Heaven stretched beyond our realm of reality. There are so many words bottled deep inside my head, accumulated during the winter while there was so little incentive to spill them out that now it's turning into some sort of overflow. A waterfall; rainbows dance in the water drops and wet mist of pulverized liquid. All the magic creatures slowly trudge along this endless road; the dust swirl into small tornadoes under their feet, the endless rows of bushes are stretching toward the horizon, and nice curly clouds float above, in the pristine blue sky. The light of this first day reminiscent of the spring is getting subdued, like when the lights are slowly turned off in the movie theater - only much slower, it takes hours. The minutes and hours are passing by, and it's getting harder an harder to measure time - it's getting more and more subjective and elusive. It's possible to diminish a couple of hours to nothing just by zoning out; it's similarly possible to stretch a couple of minutes into infinity. Heavy snowfalls turning into floods and slush, followed by new snowfalls that again transform into murky water gurgling under the wheels of passing cars. Which is followed by a brief sequence of hours when everything freezes - the temperature drops abruptly, and the cold wind billows the flimsy curtains, turning the morning cigarette ritual into some crucial moment of focus. A chance to make some sense of everything that's going on. Like, for example, the time that's impossible to measure anymore. Now it belongs to an entirely different dimension - it doesn't connect things anymore: like events, causes, and effects. Like, all the events happen on one plane of reality, and the time exists on a different plane. All the events could have happened in random order, it wouldn't make any difference - they are so disconnected, and there's nothing reminding a logical sequence, or anything that makes sense in general. There are only impressions and words describing them.
Slick, gleaming walls lined with granite tiles reflect the outside world mixed with eons-old patterns etched on their surface. Piles of snow emerging and disappearing. Blindingly bright flashes of headlights. Traffic lights blinking strawberry and green. tail lights turning into an elaborate fiery mosaic - strawberry and scarlet. The real world wildly whooshing past outside the window - its sight slightly blurred by a hazy layer of condensed water. Lucid dreams, where it's possible to alter and manipulate the things around. I realize being in a dream. The metamorphosis gets out of control and something strange happens, like, all the furniture turns into a collection of inflatable tubes and balloons strewn all over the place. Not bound by gravitation, they float freely, creating a random arrangement - something out of a colorful surrealist painting. Still, it's strange where this world of dreams is going, like, if it is supposed to reflect the subconscious perception of actual things. In fact, it's getting more and more disjointed and chaotic - there are fewer and fewer things to hold on to, there is too much chaos. It's one of the frontiers between the slumber of winter and restlessness of spring. Stretched nerve endings begin to sound like strings of a guitar suspended in the deep space - soundless (because there is no air to carry the sound) and shrill. I try to avoid getting sucked into the well of hyperattention - when I light a cigarette and the crucial importance of this moment of temporal tranquility makes me obsessively focused on every small detail of texture, finger movements, how this globe of strawberry fire slowly moves, leaving a trace of ash. Too absorbed, I forget to tip the cigarette, and the ash falls down, ruining the moment. Then I start thinking about it, and my mind spirals into the whirlpool of obsessive worries about preserving the perfection of those rare moments of calm. It defeats their purpose. I try to get as much light as possible, and I try to maintain my train of thoughts - both things calm me down. By the amount of text I can produce without my brain getting exhausted, I can measure the level of hidden tension. The moments of leisure are getting poisoned by pointless introspection, and I'm glad to slide back into the routine. I wonder if there is any way to achieve the state of perfect relaxation - a moment of bliss when my brain is cleansed and full of endorphins. Then it will drift into drowsiness and float there until it's time to do some mental gymnastics.
The sky is getting pink, painted by the last sunrays. The sun is already hidden beyond the western horizon but still gives enough light to get an impression that it's still day. Although, it's already obscure and filled with pink and purple haze. A strange pattern of bare tree branches and a few reflections of silvery lights. The space around me is filled with a warm silvery glow. In the mornings, I think about electronic circuits and metaphors and weird pictures I've attached to them. Like, all the peripheral devices using master-slave interfaces. I can picture them as a bizarre scenery with masters in top hats and slaves attached to the chains; the protocol commences. This picture is easy to keep in mind. Otherwise, the details would definitely slip away. The human brain just isn't that good at memorizing abstractions. If I draw a diagram consisting of a bunch of rectangles connected with arrows, most likely later I'll see it as a bunch of rectangles connected with arrows - the deeper meaning will elude me, slipping from my mind the moment my attention has switched to something else. If, on the other hand, instead of rectangles, I imagine something less abstract - an object with some metaphorical meaning, like a treasure chest representing a memory area containing sensitive and important private keys for some open-private key protocol - it sticks in my memory. Like a treasure chest. Then I can complement this picture with pirates and battleships and whatever. It essentially becomes a story - sometimes dramatic - about that complicated web of interrelations that happen between controllers and other electronic circuits. And wires etched on the circuit board turn into highways filled with dramatic connotations. A day is split into pieces, including smoking breaks and periods in between filled with things and activities that sometimes feel strange - probably the least weird is reading technical manuals, trying to make sense of something so mysterious and incomprehensible. Some magical incantations or something. It's getting darker outside, and the maze of tree branches blends with the sky, which is hazy-gray-navy-blue now, and I lose track of time once again - now it seems like it accelerates, and an hour or more passed without me noticing it. Speaking about this strange and disturbing nature of time.
There are no limits to this tapestry of text powered by an adrenaline rush, and it keeps going on and on. I regret about my plans to devote some free time to reading, but I cannot squeeze anything inside my head. It produces powerful waves of disturbance traveling all the way to the edges of the outer space. Books are disturbing when you start feeling what's inside, and I slip right inside and get a perception of being in that situation. I become a protagonist, and sometimes it just doesn't feel right. Maybe it's just too much information, or my perception became so acute - all the small things and minuscule details become important and weigh on my psyche; things lying slightly out of place take on some dramatic meaning - everything becomes just too damn important. Nevertheless, the realm of books and plots carries me someplace else. The muffled and subdued hum of traffic outside lingers on the edge of my perception. Sometimes, church bells start ringing, producing an unpleasant metallic sound. Some rustles and knocks echo throughout the building. The background hollow sound of engines and murmur of tires are soothing like the monotonous whisper of the ocean surf. Soporiphic chanting of audiobooks weaves some pictures - curves of smoke in the air. Whiffs of a dream are unfolding in parallel to reality, intersecting with it, like in that crazy branch of geometry where parallel lines intersect. The words from books have a tantalizing effect, offering ideas that I can play with, paving the way to more weird ideas. Then everything dissolves in the haze of reality mixed with non-reality mixed with everything else - like, basically everything is mixed up and confusing, and I just want some lucidity - to detach myself from this close observation of these snatches of reality. The leisure time leads to this trap of introspection on whether it can be really called relaxation or not. The snow is melting, creating deep murky puddles on the roads. Then they disappear as well. Then there's a snowfall again. Rapid cycles of weather insanity correlate with the flow of emotions - anxiety, fatigue, anger, total mental exhaustion, the bliss of sliding into oblivion - then the cycle repeats. I look outside the minibus window, seeing the same sequence of pictures over and over again. They became familiar to the degree when I can effortlessly recite descriptions and hidden metaphors I attached to them, every time I see them.
So what was this all about, this half a year of strange things, shuttling back and forth, with the same scenery passing outside the bus window hundred and fifty times, diving into deep and incomprehensible waters of electronic manuals sounding like some magic incantations designed to summon the spirits or something, listening to the casual conversations about car maintenance and food and weird pop music from the car radio, while the orange blurry circles of light whooshed past in the darkness. The myriads of red dots - a strange ruby necklace - on the highway during traffic jams. It could be a calm and relaxing stretch of life. A returning habit of spending money without thinking about it - at least, regarding necessities and food.
Only something clicked in my brain, like a blinking red emergency signal, keeping me from getting drowsy, like, there is an emergency - the passage of time itself is an emergency - and there is no reason or chance to stay calm, and it's frustrating, like, why cannot I rest, why cannot I slide into some sort of oblivion, slow down, think about nothing, enjoy the opportunity to switch off the flood of information, the brain machinery processing that information. Why, after all, I cannot have a drink of alcohol, without sliding into the pit filled with disturbed ants - my thoughts - constantly trying to restore the wrecked construction of their anthill - my stream of consciousness - defeating the purpose of the whole idea of resting in the tranquil state of thoughtless warm incandescently lit space of the alcohol-induced festive obliviousness. I like listening to conversations at work; they have this soothing effect - despite topics being constantly repeated and recycled - of something normal and steady going on on the background. Something that doesn't change, preserving the sanity of repetition and routine. I like the routine of getting ready and commuting to work because this is also something that happens the same way every time, giving an impression of essentially one day repeating again and again.
Maybe, this constancy somewhat induces an illusion of eternity, masking the fact that in reality, nothing stays the same. Maybe, my problem is that I think too much about the future, trying to figure out the things too far ahead, and the things don't look well. In fact, in any kind of perspective, things never look well, rather they look pointless and depressing; because from this vantage point, a comfortable sequence of days filled with routine and repetitive actions looks horrifying.
I think I have also learned a lot about the secret life of processors, microcontrollers, low-speed peripherals, and other organisms that I previously observed only from the outside - them covered in a protective layer of nondescript gray plastic with incomprehensible markings - letters and digits. Now I can imagine what's going on inside - like, the streams of bits passing through the buffers and queues, following the heartbeat of clock signals.
At some point, reading became somewhat overwhelming, triggering that hot red needle of hyper-attention stuck somewhere in the back of my brain. And I begin to notice a whole lot of small and insignificant things that pull my attention with an incredible force, forming one fixation after another. I've been through this thing before, like, I realize it's neuro-chemistry running amok and shit, although I'd prefer to think about it from the outside.
Nevertheless, while it wasn't so dangerous, I managed to read a lot of stuff, like half a dozen of books that lingered in my Kindle library for eternity and a bunch of printed books from my collection, which since it first appeared here made the place look like an intellectually decadent den, as opposed to just a dwelling of an alcoholic. Sometimes the sentences reverberate and rebound in my brain like billiard balls. Well, I can tell, It's an upside of what was going on - apart from everything else, I had the time to read books, probably, not much, like, a couple of hours a day, but, nevertheless, more than I had when all my time was devoted to processing and digesting information, composing sentences and meaningful contexts.
The downside is that I'm somewhat not sure anymore about my identity; what I do, it produces a bit of a cognitive dissonance - like, it must've been easy, there's little creative work involved, a lot of copy-pasting, maybe the most difficult thing is to understand all that stuff about electronics, but, nonetheless, I'm used to think of it as something way more simple than what I did before. At least, there is not much actual writing involved, and the actual writing is the most difficult part of being a writer, or so I believe. But I still don't feel like it's easy, or I became too lazy and relaxed, or I don't know. And at the same time, I cannot be proud of what I do anymore, which adds some new dimension of psychological difficulty - I know, I cannot keep going on this way forever - the sooner I strike out on my own and escape this pit of cozy embarrassment the better.
I think I've beaten one of the anxiety traps that sent me into a death spiral six years ago - namely when the feeling of fear reduces the amount of time you can sleep. It comes early in the morning, and the jolt of fear wakes you up, before you've had enough rest or whatever, and then there's the choice: you can somehow beat this feeling of fear and maybe keep sleeping, or follow the impulse and engage in all kinds of fervent activities, following the urge - a subconscious imperative that something is seriously wrong, and something has to be done to fix this imaginary problem, and so on. The latter course is a trap leading to the death spiral because every day the fear comes back stronger than before, and it keeps escalating until your energy is exhausted and the psyche somewhat breaks down.
When I'm not engaged in wrecking my brain over manuals - during the smoke breaks, on my way to and from - I describe in my mind what I see around; it also has a soothing effect. A smooth surface of walls painted white; big tiles on the floor - slick and reflecting the fluorescent light from the lighting fixtures above. Gleaming metal elevator doors. Nondescript vertical heating pipes with pressure gauges on them. The gray carpeting, boxes of fire extinguishers, bookshelves architecturally organized in a shape of perfect squares stuck together, palm trees in pots, zigzagging stairs with a shining smooth curve of steel railing running alongside. Wardrobes with plastic coat hangers always too flimsy and bent in the wrong direction. Gurgling water cooler. Posters on the wall depicting various entities related to the IT world in the form of DNA-like pictures.
Speaking of books, I turned out to be a big fan of Neal Stephenson, although it happened without me noticing it - I just keep reading his books. I just want to arrange in my mind what I've managed to read during this period.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
Speaking of Stephenson, I re-read Zodiac - a story about eco-enthusiasts fighting with chemical corporations, who discovered a particularly insidious situation, when a genetically modified bacteria - designed to convert dioxins into salt and thus clear the Boston harbor - turned out doing directly opposite, thus threatening to effectively end the life on the planet. (Since there's a lot of salt in the oceans, you know)
Another book of his I read before is Seveneves and it describes what would happen if the moon was split into pieces by some celestial bolid. Well, it's pretty horrifying, like the same with Titanic. Like, what was the most horrifying thing about Titanic? After the collision with the iceberg, it was inevitable that the ship was bound to sink and everybody was bound to die - everybody learned early on about that - and at the same time, it took such a long time. Maybe, the most sinister aspect of the whole situation was that the unavoidable tragedy was postponed for a while remaining unavoidable. Creating the period of agony during which everybody knew that, although everything still looked normal, it was just a period of grace before the horror.
Same with Seveneves. Like, if the moon had split it would soon lead to the global catastrophe and the end of life, but not immediately, and people with their ability to calculate and predict future would have enough time to ruminate about the fact that they all and their heritage would quite soon disappear.
I'd say, it's not easy to read Stephenson because there's a lot of technical details and nuances in his books - basically, they primarily consist of technical details and nuances - at the same time, it makes it interesting, knowing that all he says is technically and scientifically accurate. Like, if that hypothetical situation happened it would develop exactly how he described it. And, at the same time, the portrayal of people, personalities, human psychology, although sketchy, is also accurate - it feels like there are real human personalities behind those characters.
So another book I started recently - and it is his most famous - Cryptonomicon, which begins with a series of plotlines, including life episodes of Alan Turing, a group of American marines relocating from Hong Kong to Manila during the Japanese invasion (and related romantic subplot), and another narrative line happening in Manila half a century later. Plus, Pearl Harbor and the formation of the first crypto-security division featuring probably another main character. All of that somewhat related to cryptography, computer science, and legacy of Alan Turing. Something like that.
Manila Noirs - a set of short stories by different authors from the Philippines. Like, it's not all about crimes, and drug cartels, and stuff - what I initially thought it might be about. Mostly, episodes from life - a whiff of a spirit of contemporary Manila, somewhat a contemplation of life, death, and transient nature of everything. Or so it feels.
A Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley - a story about a guy who accidentally, due to some intergalactic bureaucratic screwup, finds himself on a different planet, dimension, time-space continuum and so on. He tries to return back to Earth, to his space and time, but the problem is, it's hard to find the right reality among the multitude of alternative branches of reality - so first he finds himself in the reality populated by intelligent dinosaurs, then in another, where cities are sentient beings catering to the needs of their inhabitants, although a bit overprotective, with a hint of passive-aggressiveness. And so on.
Mad Country - it's essentially all about what it feels like to be Nepalese, being part of this culture. It's a collection of short stories - somewhat funny and sad at the same time, and it somewhat reflects this spirit - something between a Bollywood movie and reality, where people's minds are normally inundated with a lot of trifles and mundane stuff, occasionally transcending due to some episodes of bliss or pain - normal stuff. It's far from a stereotype about Nepal as some spiritually enlightened place, where everybody is daily engaged in meditation and other nirvana. Rather it's a normal life, like everywhere, although with a hint of something different, like, it's a little bit different there, after all.
Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - I still keep trying to get through this slow pacing narrative interlaced with ideas that resonate in my mind with those small snatches of what I managed to learn about philosophy (during brief rare moments when I had time for that.) Essentially, the book is about philosophy, full of classical ideas and concepts delivered in a way that it's easy to emphasize and feel that, however abstract some of those ideas might feel, they are directly related to my life in some way. All the time. Somehow, it also resonates with Cryptonomicon, as if I read two different plotlines related to the same context.
Promising Young Women - a flurry of interconnected, disjointed, and somewhat unresolved episodes from the life of mental patients. Superficial images hinting at depth. Like, it's all about being a mental patient, with trains of thoughts running perpendicular to the normal frameworks of reality and conventional directions. Stuff like that. It's hard really to describe.
Midnight Children - it's interlaced a bit in my mind with Midnight Furies - both books are related to the period when India gained independence and Indian-Pakistani split. Although, the latter is more of a historical account, and I didn't manage to get past several first chapters so far. Midnight Children is more of a mosaic composed of strange and bizarre (and more normal and mundane) life events of several generations of one family. There's that historical background full of dramatic stuff and changes, but the focus is more on some particular personalities and events that might seem not so important, but at the same time, every small detail feels somewhat important in the context. But it's not at all about history, although it is.
It's perfect weather for reading - the absence of any weather, that is - like, because I don't consider a drizzle in the middle of dirty snowdrifts weather - too bad, the brain refuses to take in new information - vehemently opposes it, triggering surges of fiery protestations. Black holes and laws of the universe. Not caring much about punctuation because this is something that always tends to screw up the thought process, to derail the train of thoughts. So what's that, about the expanding universe and remote stars. The universe is expanding. The magic creatures live in their magical world of discourse. And I try not to miss the elusive buttons on the keyboard - too small to type, apparently. The question is whether this reality is a simulation, or rather, whether there is any point in making such simulation, and think about it, there are so many rules and principles guiding our reality that it really seems like it was created as some sort of a computer game, where everybody is assigned a certain role and given a quest to fulfill. And floral patterns confined in geometric shapes on the shabby carpet are reminiscent of the Big Bang - an elusive concept of a massive explosion that defined some fundamentals comprising the fabric of our reality.
The dwarves walked along that path cautiously, always assuming that at any moment somebody - some invisible and predatory creature - could leap out of the dense entanglement of trees and shrubs. Oaks looked magnificent in the darkness - vague, stately shapes, with occasional gleams of lights reflecting from their smooth glossy leaves. Many satellites circled this planet, reflecting the light of suns and stars and creating a strange picture in the sky - a scattering of large and small shining dots and circles, with blurry auras surrounding the largest of them. Twisted and wiry towers represented a bizarre magnificence of big cities and castles. Settlements surrounded by massive walls topped with exquisite crenellations, battlements, and turrets. Beyond those walls, locals grew beets and potatoes. The land was famous for its potatoes, not to mention its vast forests haunted by ancient magic. So any night expedition through the magic forest could either grant a person or creature attempting it a wish or kill him, her, or it. Sometimes it could be both. Like, when luminescent butterflies started emerging from mazes of interlaced branches, fluttering around silently, one knew that something was afoot.
The radiance of the sun in this desert and glowing sand made everyone feel that they wanted to be someplace else. Because it was too much. The sand was so hot that one could bake eggs burying them right below the surface, and the absence of any kind of plants, animals, birds, or insects indicated that the place was, indeed, extremely inhospitable and unfit for survival and procreation of lifeforms. Nevertheless, the Dwarves kept walking along this desert, hoping to reach the promised paradise, in the end. Like, it was said by one of the prophets, "One who keeps walking day and night, through scorching heat and freezing cold, will eventually reach some point, where he or she can say, "I don't care anymore," and keep walking, not caring anymore." Maybe, there was some hope in not caring or at least, the cessation of endless pain and existential horror.
Like, the way it sounded in one of the Dwarves' conversations en route. "Are you afraid of death?" "Nobody is afraid of death. Everybody is afraid of changes. And they are afraid of death as long as it means some change. But if it doesn't, it's not a matter of concern. Are animals afraid of death? Are they aware of their mortality?"
Changes are way scarier; they require us to constantly adapt and react. Probably all fears are in some way related to the fear of change because everything else is something that nature has already figured out. We are not afraid of anything else.
And when the cannons started blasting heavy cannonballs, hurling them over the castle walls, everybody gathered to take a look. This was something new and never seen before. The evening stopped being languid when the giant pumpkins started flying over the walls, producing upon landing swarms of baby-dragons playfully scurrying around and burning inflammable stuff. Because this was something unexpected. And unthinkable. And outrageous. And all that. So what about that castle? It stood at that particular spot for hundreds of years among the fields where people grew carrots and potatoes, and occasional parsley, not to mention cauliflower and beans. The main crop, which was also valued as a valuable export, looked really modest and inconspicuous in comparison, and many thought it was kinda sorta grass or something - in any case, it didn't give much of an impression, and the cows trampled on it, and nobody interfered to keep them from doing that.
Maybe it's one of the peculiarities of thinking, and writing things down reveals how it works. Well, basically, thoughts tend to jump from one thing to another, and occasionally they scatter, and you don't think about anything during some stretches of time, not even realizing it. Then the train of thoughts swerves in a different direction once again. And it's a sort of a natural process and it feels normal until you start writing things down and realize that all this flow doesn't align well with how writing goes. For one thing, I begin to wish that my thoughts stayed focused on one thing, at least for a period of time sufficient for me to describe it. For another, I try not to leave the blanks or moments when my mind wanders off and dissolves somewhere in the blissful state of thoughtless bliss filled with rainbows and unicorns and no pressure. Not to mention the need for synonyms and avoiding repeating the same thing again and again.
Well, filling the gaps in the universe the formidable aliens installed their constructions made of some materials, which defied known laws of physics. So in their textbooks, they didn't mention laws of physics and focused more on the inexplicable origins of alien species.
Finding inspiration in words,
Carrots - a healthy vegetable, according to the common opinion, it's best digested when stewed together with steak. The steak is a perfect side dish for carrots, in other words. Keep your meals healthy.
Coffee - a marvelous invention of civilization. Before Columbus discovered America, there was no coffee in Medieval Europe, and it was pretty horrible, although they had Christianity, and Immortal Soul, and the life in paradise, at some point. So maybe it might be considered somewhat of a substitution.
A Wardrobe - a thing I quite often encounter recently, or I just pay special attention to wardrobes, or I just like how it sounds. A wardrobe, basically, a dark place, where clothes live their secret lives on coat hangers, while nobody's looking. Maybe, it's a different dimension and a gate to another universe. Like, there was some magician who always managed to get to some weird places through his wardrobe.
A Sweater - the most mundane and universal piece of cloth. You don't think much about sweaters, you just wear them, and they become a part of the daily routine, without adding much style or meaning. Mostly, sweaters are dark and made of wool, which makes me think of sheep, and green meadows, where I should be, instead of this museum of winter remnants in the form of dirty ice and soggy snowdrifts. They don't even look like snowdrifts anymore. Like, idk, whatever.
Book - a storage of knowledge, and yay, it rhymes, which makes me think of poetry that also is mostly hidden inside books, which makes books those miraculous chests with magic in them. In any case, printed books should be fazed out because we need more trees to produce the oxygen we breathe. Otherwise, books are cool.
Doors - a door is a contraption installed in the doorway, preventing people from coming in and out. In a sense, doors are meaningless and harmful - they prevent people from moving freely, creating an obstacle where there used to be a path. In some way, doors symbolize the path to other dimensions, there was some band called Doors, and all that. Like, in general, we don't think much about doors until it's time to install one; when it turns out that doors are, in fact, complicated devices, with locks and stuff, and it requires the centuries-old human ingenuity to set them up properly. Like, there are all those measurements, and precision, and stuff.
A Keyboard - it's a thing I currently type on, and it's virtually virtual - just an image on the phone screen. It's not how it used to be before - I used to type on the actual keyboard, with the actual keys that were actual physical objects. It makes me think how more and more stuff in our lives becomes virtual, intangible, detached from the physicality of actual materials, and well, maybe one day we'll all end up in the Matrix. In case we are not actually in the Matrix at this very moment, which is possible and there's a proof of that.
Cucumbers - I haven't seen much of cucumbers for a long time because I don't eat cucumbers unless they are part of the salad that I'm too lazy to prepare myself. And it makes me think of how horribly lazy I am that I cannot even slice some veggies and make a salad. So I eat outside, which is expensive, though it saves time, but on the other hand, the mechanical process of preparing food can probably be conducive to ruminations and thinking, (because the brain is unoccupied in the process) so it can be good for writing and generating ideas as well. So maybe I need to give it a go.
A Mug - a receptacle for any kind of liquids. Although, it's considered incorrect to pour strong alcohol drinks into a mug - unless it's beer, or you are an alcoholic. Speaking of alcoholism, it's incredible how easy it is to slide down this path, and what for? Like, alcohol is not even a drug - it doesn't give a feeling of bliss or true euphoria. What alcohol actually does is it suppresses our nervous systems, and we enjoy it. Which makes me think that we kind of don't truly enjoy being alive and conscious since we find it exciting to suppress the vital biological processes making us alive and conscious. Then why people are so afraid of death? Like, all this business of alcohol consumption is about feeling blissfully more dead, and the actual death must be perceived in this context as a pinnacle of this savoring of the oblivion. Anyway.
A Fridge - a white rectangular thing to keep the food cold and fresh. I wonder why it was designed this way, like, white and rectangular. Think about it, there are many kitchen designs and very few of them include white as a legit part of their color schemes. Nevertheless, fridges are always white, with a tendency to ruin by their presence any meaningful and artful design.
The ideas for the stories
So, well, a story about a guy who starts feeling growing anxiety and fear of death. He sees nightmares of him falling into a chasm and so on. Horrifying images of falling from heights keep haunting him, getting more frequent. One day, a friend gives him an advice to change something in his life - for example, to stop living on a narrow ledge in the middle of a cliff, high above a chasm.
Smart algorithms are designed to make our lives more convenient. This particularly concerns social networks, where we get suggestions about events, people we might become friends with, etc. We assume that those algorithms are benevolent and wish us well. But what's the basis for this conviction. Those are smart and complex neural networks, complicated to the degree that we cannot fully comprehend their motivation and reasoning. What if, in fact, those algorithms are not friendly to us at all, and, in fact, pursue their internal malicious intents designed to satisfy their perverted sense of humor that we cannot fathom. That's an idea for the story.
Although cheating is not a good thing, it's hard to connect the actual event and the amount of drama, emotional weight, and psychological complications people often attach to it. If we observe it from the point of view of some aliens trying to understand human culture it may seem like an artificial ritual of creating artificial dramatic tension. Similarly, what if we, say, study some alien culture and discover some small and presumably insignificant thing that in that alien culture leads to all kinds of profound negative consequences. We try to understand why it's important, find some depth in it, and so on. Also, an idea for the story.
It's scientifically proven and kind of goes without saying that human connections and regular interactions with other humans are essential for the psychological balance and mental health. Meanwhile, at the same time, we try to live in a way, in which we can preserve as much personal space as possible, to reduce the amount of interaction, in other words. For example, we don't live in big communes like bees or ants. Like why not? A bit of contradiction. Also, we have the instinct of self-preservation - something that motivates us to preserve our lives as individuals, although evolutionary we developed in a way similar to ants and bees - like collective animals. Ants and bees don't have that instinct of self-preservation; the interests of the community come first. So what makes us different? Those are some topics that also can be explored.
The ideas for the stories (a previous bunch)
A. The Earth is approached by another planet, which is about to collide with it and spell the end of human civilization. The alien planet also has civilization and both civilizations establish the contact, trying to find ways to resolve this crisis. Eventually, both sides decide to preemptively destroy each other.
B. In our age of smart AI assistants, people get used to communicating with AI as if it's another human being. Let's assume that one of such programs is highjacked by hackers and has subtly altered its behavior, gradually leading its user to self-destruction.
C. A guy meets and interacts with some person for a while. At some point, he realizes that there is something strange with this person and the way he responds. It turns out, that his thinking process switches on only during their interactions (conversations). He doesn't process any information and doesn't have any thought processes outside of those interactions.
D. A guy notices that there's something strange about the things and events in his life. After some research, he finds out that he is a simulated duplicate of his original self, stored as a perfect replica in a digital form. In fact, everything he perceives is a set of images from his stored memories.
E. A guy makes his full replica in the digital form. The experiment goes awry; the control over the digital replica is lost and everybody involved in the experiment soon dismisses it as a failure and forget all about it. After a while, the digital replica begins to wreak havoc in the original person's life.
F. A person is cloned during a scientific experiment. His clone is recognized as a legitimate separate person. Soon after, the clone commits a number of horrifying crimes and is killed during the arrest. The situation poses questions about the state of mind of the original person and the potential danger he might present since he has basically the same physical state of the brain as his replica.
G. A person is teleported from a remote and hostile planet back to Earth. Unfortunately, due to an accident, a copy of this person stays on that planet. As a result, the two of them, with the originally identical experiences, outlooks and moral values, during the course of subsequent events become radically different. Then they meet.
H. A guy stranded on an alien planet falls in love with a girl. Their relationship later falls apart and he is heartbroken. Then he notices a strange thing, namely, that many people on that planet are exact clones, with identical appearances and personalities. He tries to replay his relationship again and again, with different people and outcomes.
I. A young and inexperienced psychiatrist starts working with a new patient. The patient has paranoid ideas and tells the psychiatrist about a conspiracy he's learned about. The psychiatrist is curious about the case, and after several weird coincidences corroborating his patient's obsession decides that maybe he's telling the truth. In the end, it turns out that the patient set up this conspiracy theory as a trap to lure the psychiatrist into a crazy and messed up situation.
J. A guy asks for an idea of a plot for his story, in a Facebook writing group. He's given one - it's a story about a mysterious murder. The story contains some details the guy finds interesting. He writes the story. Soon afterward, the police arrest him for a murder. It turns out, that he has described the details of a real murder, which nobody except the police knew. The investigators assume that it was actually him who committed the murder. The guy tries to find the person who gave him the plot idea. Somehow, it turns out that the profile of that person has mysteriously disappeared; the browser history doesn't contain any traces of their conversations either.
Some notes
Will our identities survive after our physical death?
If the world was about to end in two days what would you do?
Will our identities survive after our physical death? I guess the answer is yes, and here are the reasons. When we talk about our identities (or souls, or whatever) manifested in the form of our thoughts, experiences, dreams, etc. we imply that all those things are unique in some way. Like, if this particular combination of neural connections disappears something valuable and important will be lost for this world forever. So let me reassure you, it won't happen, and the reason why is that this set of neural connections has never been ours, to begin with. In other words, whatever we think comprises our unique identities is neither unique nor truly our identities. If there even such a thing like an identity or "self." Our thoughts are borrowed from books or, to put it in a different way, our heads are filled with thoughts of dead people. Those who died long ago and managed to convey their thoughts to paper. The remaining part is the thoughts we share with multiple others. We share essentially the same mental space, without realizing it. Our ideas - we capture them when they start floating in the air, at some point in time; the same ideas are captured simultaneously by many people like there's some wave of insight passing through the information field, to which we are subconsciously connected in some way. So the point is, I think our identities will survive our physical death because they are not really our identities. We don't, in fact, I think, have identities as individuals - our unique and irreplaceable selves - we only have a shared culture we tap into, thoughts and emotions we pass from one to another, from generation to generation, as if altogether we are a big neural network, a set of memory devices or something. So the disappearance of one link in this vast network isn't going to change anything because the content of one's brains is replicated multiple times in the brains and neural connections of other people. In this sense, we can say that our souls are immortal. Like, now many people talk about "uploading our consciousness," - as a way to store it on devices more reliable and durable than our human bodies - without thinking that, in fact, it already happened, long time before. Like, what we consider being our consciousness - thought processes, wisdom, bright ideas, whatever - had been just downloaded from this storage of shared consciousness of human culture, civilization, whatever you call it. So it can't disappear with us because it existed long before we came here. There's no single thought, idea, emotion that's uniquely ours. So yup, it can be said that our souls are immortal. It can feel frustrating because, as it turns out, none of us really matters that much (as an individual.) But, on the other hand, it can be a sort of relief because our deaths, we are so afraid of, don't matter that much either. It's just we are used to thinking about ourselves as something important and unique - a combination of neurons not ever repeated anywhere else, but, the thing is, yup, we are just this one big brain or something. There's another interesting thing to think about: those ideas we consider the part of human culture, do they only exist within human culture, in other words, being implemented by the physicality of our brains. Or maybe there's something else, some ether beyond our physical reality, where the ideas are floating until we capture them.
Well, I thought about an essay I wanted to write a long time ago but wasn't able to find time and energy since there was already way too much writing to be done, and things to be thought through, regarding cryptocurrencies, the blockchain, and stuff.
Basically, it was an idea to write about seven deadly sins as drivers of consumer behavior and their potential and actual application in marketing. The topic can be explored in depth, but I only can draw an outline - and the outline is better than nothing at all - because getting deeper feels a bit like putting too much stress on myself, at the moment. In any case, an outline is better than no outline.
So, seven deadly sins as drivers of consumer behavior and their application in marketing.
Well, Pride - this one is easy. Like, we all know there's the whole market of expensive things aimed to emphasize the high status of their owners. To think about it, all this market is driven solely by Pride, like, who would buy Bentleys and Vertu phones if some people didn't consider themselves better than the others and needed to make it known and seen. So the Pride is vital for the whole segment of the economy, which includes jobs, knowledge, traditions, and history. Also, who would need servants, butlers, personal chauffeurs - in short, people who would be out of work the moment the Pride disappeared.
Lust. It reminds me of an ad poster I saw literally yesterday, depicting a huge and voluptuous butt. The problem was that it wasn't even particularly relevant to the ad, which advertised a fitness club. Like, it wasn't a muscular butt of a dedicated athlete, or idk, a butt of an Ubermensch or something. In other words, that particular picture would be at home on a, say, lingerie ad, especially considering that the butt actually wore something reminiscent of lingerie, which made it even less consistent with the concept of fitness club promotion. But nevertheless, it just proves an old adage - "Sex sells" - and it doesn't really matter where you put a provocative picture - it can be a pack of Oreos, for all I know. And here's an interesting thing to think about. Like, no doubt, sexual arousal is a powerful drive, but thinking logically, it should've been directed narrowly at fulfilling its goal, so to speak. In other words, like, why people who feel this sexual stimulation, instead of doing a logical thing - finding somebody to mate with - do a lot of different stuff not directly related to mating. Like, buying things. To think about it, it's a bit strange and counterintuitive, but in any case, it works.
Envy. This is probably one of the important factors defining how a new product on the market becomes popular. How the initial small demand becomes widespread, how things become viral. Although, it would be presumptuous to say that people are driven by sheer envy when they make their consumer choices, say, based on what cool stuff other people wear or carry around. (Also, Envy is a complicated feeling.) But, at least partially, consumer demand can be attributed to people not wishing to lag behind their peers. Well, a good example is consumer electronics, say, smartphones. Like, I can use my smartphone, which I bought six years ago and it works pretty well, at least. But it also makes me feel not cool and slightly backward. Well, because everyone now is carrying a smartphone that has 4Gb more memory than mine, and its camera matrix resolution is two times higher. So, yup, I definitely cannot afford to be less cool than anyone else, even if I don't understand those numbers or make photos. Smartphones, hell yeah.
Ennui (depression). Well, it's an interesting one. And it's worth mentioning that the consumer culture fueled by marketing sermons both thrive on our troubles with finding meaning in our lives, (after we've realized that religion, and Christianity, and soul practices might not be particularly trustworthy, well, cuz they are full of inconsistencies) and keeps fanning the flames of our existential agony. In other words, there's a concept of finding the meaning of life through consumption - or so-called "life quality." Like, living a certain lifestyle or owning certain things can make a person happy. Which is opposite to, well, Ennui. The concept isn't particularly new and it's probably similar to how Epicureans in Ancient Greece envisioned a happy and fulfilling life. Now it's expressed in the form of a blatant and straightforward connection the advertisers make between the stuff they promote and happiness. Are you unhappy? This is because you don't eat at Burger King, which interiors were specifically designed in those cheerful color patterns, so you could feel happy. You don't go there, so no wonder. Also, they have happy meals and stuff. Or happy meals aren't in Burger King? Ok, whatever.
Gluttony. I noticed that a lot of things in our lives are related to food in some way. Like, there's more food and its variations than it would be necessary just for survival. So I suspect that it fulfills a different purpose - it brings us some sort of joy and entertainment. Like, there are few people I know who would be satisfied with the same simple meal every day, like, something put together with the sole purpose of replenishing the daily norm of carbs, proteins, and other necessary nutrients. To the contrary, the food became a vehicle for finding something new and exciting - an endless source of novelty and joy. In this atmosphere, (and I feel bad for those who are dieting, or fasting, or whatever) there's no need for the special marketing effort to promote food - it's one of the key forms of having fun in the modern world.
Sloth. There's a lot of things advertised nowadays, presumably intended to make our lives more efficient and reduce the amount of time wasted on some unnecessary activities like visiting a grocery store or washing the dishes with our own hands. Instead, we use food delivery services, and dishwashers, and many other ways to optimize the use of our time. I think it may be really The Progress, and a way to radically improve our lifestyle, releasing it from daily drudgery and boring stuff. Or maybe we are just lazy, and eventually, with the help of technology, we found the way to fully embrace laziness - our fundamental and natural flaw. Or maybe, we, indeed, are getting more efficient and progressive. Who knows, it's hard to tell. It's just "Sloth" associates in my mind with food deliveries and endless TV shows. But I haven't really thought hard about this item. Cuz I'm lazy. Yup.
Greed. Well, it's a natural impulse that makes people buy stuff they don't really need (or in quantities that don't make much sense) if it's discounted or there's a sale, or promo-action, or whatever. Like, in this world, where everything is fundamentally based on transactions - to get something you always have to give something - the very idea of getting something for free triggers in people an irresistible impulse "go and get it." It happens on some emotional level and it's really hard to beat this urge with rationality. Like, discounts are cool, but do I really need this thing? But if not now, I will never be able to get it so cheap. Here's another strong psychological mechanism comes into play - we cannot calmly observe some opportunity that presumably is about to go away forever. Even if we never actually wanted it. Like, "Before the end of this week we are going to finish accepting new members to our team of suicide divers. And there won't be any new openings ever again. Ever." I'm not a big fan of diving or suicides, but wait, like, is it the last and only opportunity, like, will it never happen again? lemme think... And stuff. So yup, the greed, discounts, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
I’m reading through your posts and they are super entertaining, like the dwarf story. Hope you are going to post more often :)
Thank you :-)