Every now and then there are things in life we must do which we don't want to, or which we feel incredibly nervous about doing beforehand. These moments can cause great anxiety for us as the anticipation causes a myriad of feelings that are difficult to process and sometimes overwhelming. In these times of angst we often seek comfort from others, reassurance that everything will be okay. What I have come to observe is that this comfort is not something that is guaranteed to reassure us, but rather it becomes something which can be charted on a scale. That scale conforms to a bell curve, where the amount of relief felt is charted against the amount of comfort others offer, with too little and too much causing us to feel no relief at all.
With no reassurance and no comfort offered from others we can panic and over-think our environment and our situation to the point where it becomes too difficult for us to handle. Comfort and reassurance offered by others however offers us relief to a point, after which the more they offer can actually cause a negative effect. We can have so many people offering support and guidance and giving input to us that it in itself can become overwhelming and we can feel as though expectations are far higher than they really are. At the low end of the curve most of the overreactions we convince ourselves of we know on some level are related to our imaginations exaggerating the extremity of the situation. However at the high end of the curve, I believe the reason too much comfort and reassurance can actually have a negative impact on us is because the amount of support we receive convinces us that the extremity of the situation we have imagined in our minds is fully justified, and that everyone around us would not go to such lengths if it were not.
So where is the balance to be found? Well one could argue that the more support we receive, the higher the hurdle we must jump over becomes. In order to reduce that we need to have people that put things into context. We need people that are willing to undermine the obstacle we are trying to overcome, and reduce its significance. That act in itself however is something we see as socially taboo. It is counter intuitive and serves to be something we actively perceive as having a negative impact on the person involved.
By contrast when things are at the low end of the curve if the same action is taken then you run the risk of discouraging the person from even trying in the first place. If you make the obstacle to overcome seem so insignificant there can be the question that emerges in their mind of "what's the point?" and actually encourage them to give up.
The only conclusion I can draw from this observation is that the amount of support you give someone has to reflect how big that obstacle really is for them personally, and to judge for yourself where on the scale they are finding themselves thereby concluding whether you need to add more encouragement to achieve, or whether you need to reduce the achievement to something they can see as achievable.
Do you speak my language?
I was born in the UK, my first language is English, I am a native speaker. I've tried learning many languages in my time, the ones I had the most success with were Irish, Spanish, and French. The only one of the three I stuck with and still practice today is Spanish. What I find fascinating about language is what it takes to become fluent. There are many different definitions of what that actually is, and unfortunately there's no standard definition so it comes down to confidence as to whether you actually want to make a claim to fluency.
You can argue that certain language certifications or levels are required to be considered fluent but I would argue that I was fluent in English before I ever went to school as most native speakers would also be. To me in that respect I would define fluency simply as your ability to have a conversation that flows in a language without having to stop and try and translate words. It's important to note here that having to stop simply because you don't know a word isn't in and of itself a sign you're not fluent in that language, just that your level within it is akin to that of a child still learning to expand their vocabulary in order to increase their articulation.
What I find fascinating about the concept of fluency however is that languages can't be defined succinctly. Whilst dictionaries attempt to do this, a language is something that is inherently unstable. That instability exists around the edges of the language, not at its core. It's not easy to define where one language ends and another begins because languages are constantly evolving. New words are added and old words are forgotten. You can infer which language a word belongs to by the cultural origins and the environment in which it was first used but even at that words evolve over time and even if a word originates within one language it isn't deemed to belong solely to that language. The English language is littered with words from many others, words that originate in Greek for example are quite prevalent within the field of mathematics and the healthcare industry. Those words are still considered to be part of the English language.
What I find interesting about this inability to define a language definitively, is that even within the parts of the language that are used most commonly, there are "branches" that in essence form "trees" within the language itself where clusters of words and terms are almost exclusively used in tandem with a specific industry or cultural movement. That leads to the bizarre situations where two people, fluent in English can have a conversation that a third person also fluent in English can't even follow. I'm not talking about jargon - although that in itself is another complication. I'm talking simply about words that are used specifically within industries.
If you have no background in finance or economics and you watch something like Bloomberg, you can get lost very quickly. If you know nothing about cars and watch a show aimed at people who do, likewise you will get lost quite quickly. Even when the use of jargon and technical terms are sparing, being able to understand all of the words that are spoken doesn't mean you will understand what is being said - that is the remarkable thing about language. We tend to infer that you understand a language first, then what it conveys, yet this whole argument demonstrates the counter, you have to understand what is being conveyed first, before you understand the language. It's for this reason when I explore podcasts and series that teach languages online I start by seeking out what I already know rather than something that is completely new to me.
You can argue that certain language certifications or levels are required to be considered fluent but I would argue that I was fluent in English before I ever went to school as most native speakers would also be. To me in that respect I would define fluency simply as your ability to have a conversation that flows in a language without having to stop and try and translate words. It's important to note here that having to stop simply because you don't know a word isn't in and of itself a sign you're not fluent in that language, just that your level within it is akin to that of a child still learning to expand their vocabulary in order to increase their articulation.
What I find fascinating about the concept of fluency however is that languages can't be defined succinctly. Whilst dictionaries attempt to do this, a language is something that is inherently unstable. That instability exists around the edges of the language, not at its core. It's not easy to define where one language ends and another begins because languages are constantly evolving. New words are added and old words are forgotten. You can infer which language a word belongs to by the cultural origins and the environment in which it was first used but even at that words evolve over time and even if a word originates within one language it isn't deemed to belong solely to that language. The English language is littered with words from many others, words that originate in Greek for example are quite prevalent within the field of mathematics and the healthcare industry. Those words are still considered to be part of the English language.
What I find interesting about this inability to define a language definitively, is that even within the parts of the language that are used most commonly, there are "branches" that in essence form "trees" within the language itself where clusters of words and terms are almost exclusively used in tandem with a specific industry or cultural movement. That leads to the bizarre situations where two people, fluent in English can have a conversation that a third person also fluent in English can't even follow. I'm not talking about jargon - although that in itself is another complication. I'm talking simply about words that are used specifically within industries.
If you have no background in finance or economics and you watch something like Bloomberg, you can get lost very quickly. If you know nothing about cars and watch a show aimed at people who do, likewise you will get lost quite quickly. Even when the use of jargon and technical terms are sparing, being able to understand all of the words that are spoken doesn't mean you will understand what is being said - that is the remarkable thing about language. We tend to infer that you understand a language first, then what it conveys, yet this whole argument demonstrates the counter, you have to understand what is being conveyed first, before you understand the language. It's for this reason when I explore podcasts and series that teach languages online I start by seeking out what I already know rather than something that is completely new to me.
The Big Bang Theory
September 24th will mark the start of the 12th and final season of The Big Bang Theory, which will conclude in May 2019. With 11 seasons already under its belt, there's a mixed reaction as to whether the choice to end the show was the right one or not. It's been one of the most successful US TV Shows for decades and has received worldwide syndication. Some argue that the show should continue as it is still maintaining viewing figures that are higher than most shows on TV right now. It averaged just over 18 million viewers which in its 11th season which is more than any other US TV show, including Game of Thrones which averaged 10 million for its seventh season - it too will end with its next season which is expected to air at the start of 2019.
I think the decision to end The Big Bang Theory was the right choice to make. Whilst there are many characters on the show and many story arcs that have been pursued, there are few that would argue with the claim that the show is about Sheldon more than any other character. Almost every plot line is related to Sheldon, and those that are not, are focused on characters that have a relationship with Sheldon in some way. If you were to remove Sheldon from the show it would make no sense at all. Remove any of the other characters however and almost all of them can be replaced by new characters and new story-lines without altering the dynamic of the show.
With all of this said and accepted, there comes the question of what purpose the show actually had to begin with. That purpose I believe was the "normalization" of Sheldon. I mean this both in terms of taking Sheldon's fundamentally awkward character and making it into something through character development that is more reminiscent of what people perceive to be normal, but also in respect of taking the abnormality of people like Sheldon and exposing the general public to it in a way that builds up an awareness, a tolerance, and an endearment that makes that abnormality become normal. Of these two forms of normalization the only one I take issue with is the former, not the latter.
Sheldon from the outset was demonstrated to be someone who was eccentric, outcast, incredibly gifted, and above all else was acutely aware of the fact that he was different and made little apology for that fact. In other words he lived in his own world and was content with that fact. Throughout the course of the 11 seasons to date however there has been a reformation of Sheldon's character. He has had each of his individual character traits removed. He has had his quirkiness and rough edges worn down and sanded off. He's gone from being someone who represented those who were on the periphery to representing those who are in the mainstay. It's not surprising then that a spin-off series called Young Sheldon was created that takes you back to the beginning and reinstates all of those traits and eccentricities and has centred around the journey he went through to come to the place he was in to begin with.
I believe The Big Bang Theory is right to end the story at a point where Sheldon has not completed integrated into society, although having said that, I have not seen the 12th season yet as it hasn't aired and it remains to be seen what they do with the character for the final season. If they do something unforgivable like making Sheldon retire from his pursuit of Theoretical Physics entirely, that would completely spoil the entire series for me.
I am not alone in my disdain for the direction the show has travelled however. Many people who followed the show from the start have since abandoned it, and whilst the show continues to make good on the ratings, I feel quite sincerely that this is a positive feedback loop caused by the popularity of the show and that part of the reason the show has made the characters increasingly normalized is because the periphery audience that it originally targeted don't watch the show anymore and that the audience today is a mainstream one. The show has essentially been dumbed down to be easier for the general public to follow.
What's more, this normalization is not unique to the character of Sheldon but has been applied to every member of his quartet. Howard's behaviour fundamentally changes, to the point where he gets married and has kids, something which originally would have been inconceivable for the character. Rajesh's behaviour too also fundamentally changes, to the point where he gains the confidence to actually engage with women in a social setting - a change which I still protest as it was completely unrealistic in regards to the struggle many people go through dealing with paralysing social anxiety. As for Leonard he too ends up married, to the girl his character had no chance of actually pursuing in the beginning of the show.
Sheldon develops a love interest in Amy, and the two pursued a relationship that led to them also marrying. Sheldon completely transforms from a person who couldn't even touch other people without feeling revulsion, to being a character that it is now conceivable might one day have kids of his own - something which I predict will happen in the final season, if not a birth, it will end with Amy being pregnant.
Character development is important, but it also has to be believable. In the short space of time that has passed through the 11 seasons the show has aired, the progression of the four characters named above has been so fast that it isn't conceivable from a realistic point of view. The characters' abilities to overcome those things that prevented them integrating with society were arguably diminished through the course of the 11 seasons, and as I stated above using Rajesh as an example, the transitions from one extreme to the next happened so quickly - one scene to the next quite literally - that it destroyed credibility for a series that originally did not dumb anything down and used dialogue that was accurate as it could be. It's ironic that the show claims to put so much effort into making it believable by hiring researchers - including Mayim Bialik who plays Amy who in reality is a Neuroscientist and is the only member of the main cast who actually has a Doctorate - yet despite this effort in making scientific references accurate, the same dedication wasn't made to the sociological credibility of the characters.
I know there are a lot of fans of the show who want it to continue, and would like it to go on forever. I would say to those people to be careful what you wish for. It is better for a show to end on a high than to have a long slow and steady decline into something unrecognisable. The lethargy of the writers is apparent, the enthusiasm and the scope for further production has diminished, there's very little you could do now without completely abandoning the premise of the show entirely.
I think the decision to end The Big Bang Theory was the right choice to make. Whilst there are many characters on the show and many story arcs that have been pursued, there are few that would argue with the claim that the show is about Sheldon more than any other character. Almost every plot line is related to Sheldon, and those that are not, are focused on characters that have a relationship with Sheldon in some way. If you were to remove Sheldon from the show it would make no sense at all. Remove any of the other characters however and almost all of them can be replaced by new characters and new story-lines without altering the dynamic of the show.
With all of this said and accepted, there comes the question of what purpose the show actually had to begin with. That purpose I believe was the "normalization" of Sheldon. I mean this both in terms of taking Sheldon's fundamentally awkward character and making it into something through character development that is more reminiscent of what people perceive to be normal, but also in respect of taking the abnormality of people like Sheldon and exposing the general public to it in a way that builds up an awareness, a tolerance, and an endearment that makes that abnormality become normal. Of these two forms of normalization the only one I take issue with is the former, not the latter.
Sheldon from the outset was demonstrated to be someone who was eccentric, outcast, incredibly gifted, and above all else was acutely aware of the fact that he was different and made little apology for that fact. In other words he lived in his own world and was content with that fact. Throughout the course of the 11 seasons to date however there has been a reformation of Sheldon's character. He has had each of his individual character traits removed. He has had his quirkiness and rough edges worn down and sanded off. He's gone from being someone who represented those who were on the periphery to representing those who are in the mainstay. It's not surprising then that a spin-off series called Young Sheldon was created that takes you back to the beginning and reinstates all of those traits and eccentricities and has centred around the journey he went through to come to the place he was in to begin with.
I believe The Big Bang Theory is right to end the story at a point where Sheldon has not completed integrated into society, although having said that, I have not seen the 12th season yet as it hasn't aired and it remains to be seen what they do with the character for the final season. If they do something unforgivable like making Sheldon retire from his pursuit of Theoretical Physics entirely, that would completely spoil the entire series for me.
I am not alone in my disdain for the direction the show has travelled however. Many people who followed the show from the start have since abandoned it, and whilst the show continues to make good on the ratings, I feel quite sincerely that this is a positive feedback loop caused by the popularity of the show and that part of the reason the show has made the characters increasingly normalized is because the periphery audience that it originally targeted don't watch the show anymore and that the audience today is a mainstream one. The show has essentially been dumbed down to be easier for the general public to follow.
What's more, this normalization is not unique to the character of Sheldon but has been applied to every member of his quartet. Howard's behaviour fundamentally changes, to the point where he gets married and has kids, something which originally would have been inconceivable for the character. Rajesh's behaviour too also fundamentally changes, to the point where he gains the confidence to actually engage with women in a social setting - a change which I still protest as it was completely unrealistic in regards to the struggle many people go through dealing with paralysing social anxiety. As for Leonard he too ends up married, to the girl his character had no chance of actually pursuing in the beginning of the show.
Sheldon develops a love interest in Amy, and the two pursued a relationship that led to them also marrying. Sheldon completely transforms from a person who couldn't even touch other people without feeling revulsion, to being a character that it is now conceivable might one day have kids of his own - something which I predict will happen in the final season, if not a birth, it will end with Amy being pregnant.
Character development is important, but it also has to be believable. In the short space of time that has passed through the 11 seasons the show has aired, the progression of the four characters named above has been so fast that it isn't conceivable from a realistic point of view. The characters' abilities to overcome those things that prevented them integrating with society were arguably diminished through the course of the 11 seasons, and as I stated above using Rajesh as an example, the transitions from one extreme to the next happened so quickly - one scene to the next quite literally - that it destroyed credibility for a series that originally did not dumb anything down and used dialogue that was accurate as it could be. It's ironic that the show claims to put so much effort into making it believable by hiring researchers - including Mayim Bialik who plays Amy who in reality is a Neuroscientist and is the only member of the main cast who actually has a Doctorate - yet despite this effort in making scientific references accurate, the same dedication wasn't made to the sociological credibility of the characters.
I know there are a lot of fans of the show who want it to continue, and would like it to go on forever. I would say to those people to be careful what you wish for. It is better for a show to end on a high than to have a long slow and steady decline into something unrecognisable. The lethargy of the writers is apparent, the enthusiasm and the scope for further production has diminished, there's very little you could do now without completely abandoning the premise of the show entirely.
Save it for the stage!
If you rehearse too much, you run the risk of having your best performance be one that nobody actually sees. That's the justification behind the old saying "Save it for the stage" - it's also something that applies to writing. When you are a writer, there is the temptation to run through scenes in your mind that you have yet to write. The trouble with doing this is that the first time you think of it, the dialogue you imagine is natural and how you believe it would be said. When it comes to writing that down later however, the focus shifts from being in the mindset of the characters and imagining the scene, to the task of recalling what you imagined earlier when you ran through it in your mind.
To that end, it is best as a writer to write all the time when inspiration hits, or to have a means of recording any thoughts you are considering. A seasoned writer will tell you of notepads, and scraps of paper, or even a Dictaphone either as an app or a physical device, all of which are used to record thoughts in the moment of ideas they will later write about.
For me personally, one of the most used apps on my phone after social media and messaging, is a memo app which I use to record ideas whenever they come to mind. One thing I don't like to do is to stifle creativity however I have learned not to explore ideas too deeply when I don't have an adequate means at hand to record that exploration, instead I find a point of entry into that path of thought, record that, and then immediately attempt to distract myself so I do not give it much conscious thought.
All of this however can be considered as secondary content, that is to say that any novel or literary work you read is in itself the primary content, and everything else that the author created during the writing process is the secondary content. There was a time when you would never see any of that content and it would never see the light of day, but times change. The fourth wall which stood for so long is now broken with routine, to the point where it is something the reader actively pursues. Some of the greatest TV shows, Movies, Games, and Books of our time use fourth wall breaks to reach the reader in a way that traditional media never did.
The concept has been around for centuries, though its application was limited. For example Diego Velázquez in 1656 painted 'Las Meninas' - a painting which contains another within it along the back of the scene. The 'Droste Effect' is the act of placing a painting within itself recursively, however in this instance it is referred to as a 'Mise en abyme' as the painting placed within is altered in some way. In Las Meninas the painting along the back of the scene is debated as to what it depicts, some argue it is a reflection of the canvass in the foreground which the viewer cannot see upon which an artist is painting, but others argue that the painting is in fact intended to depict a mirror, and those standing in it are intended to be the viewers of the painting - breaking the fourth wall.
The concept of being "let in" on the secret that the events playing out are not real and that you the reader are aware of this but none of the characters appear to be, is something which connects the reader with the content in a more intimate way. That is one of the reasons that secondary content has become so prolific. For all the enjoyment of the primary content that people attain, there is a desire to see behind the curtain and look behind the stage and see how everything is done. There is as much marvel to be found for some in the intricacies of the pulley systems that allow a performer to fly like an angel than the marvel of seeing the illusion of someone defying gravity.
This secondary content can really be divided into two parts, the first is that which breaks the fourth wall and make no attempt to hide the fact none of it is real and shows you the method of creation. The second is that which does not break the fourth wall but rather adds depth to the primary content in order to deepen the sense of reality that is portrayed.
Diego Velázquez's painting can be considered to fall into either of these depending on your interpretation. It either breaks the fourth wall and shows you the viewer within the painting looking back at yourself acknowledging the scene is not real, or it can be adding depth to the scene by portraying part of the room that is not directly visible to you through a reflection. In either case, that painting within the painting demonstrates the idea of secondary content.
There are a few franchises from various industries that are examples of the depth that is shared with the consumer. The Halo series of games for example includes secondary content such as companion novels, an animated series, a proposed film, and a published encyclopedia detailing the in-game universe with a level of detail the primary content alone could not include. By contrast the Harry Potter franchise which began as a literary work did the reverse, adding companion games and movies, and then adding more content through Pottermore. Both of these franchises demonstrate the same concept, starting from different positions within their collected works.
Both of these franchises also go further and provide their consumers with content which breaks the fourth wall. Documentaries, and publications detailing the development process allow you to see behind the scenes and see how the content grew over time, how designs and ideas influenced development, and to an extent, where ideas were considered, and then abandoned. The pursuit of deleted scenes, abandoned concepts, level designs that were never created, and much more all demonstrates the desire for the consumer to experience much more than the primary content on offer.
As a writer, everything you do, the thought process, the ideas you compose etc, should all be documented. If not for posterity and further exploration by your readers but for the very least for your own exploration. Revisiting old ideas and exploring the limits that were reached can allow you to open up new paths, create new content, and add new energy to things you once concluded weren't worth pursuing. There is renewed freedom in taking an idea that you know was abandoned and having the ability to rewrite, recreate, and reimagine to your heart's content. Broken dreams, bits and pieces, and forgotten ideas can become the building blocks for something beautiful, something much more than you ever could have imagined.
To that end, it is best as a writer to write all the time when inspiration hits, or to have a means of recording any thoughts you are considering. A seasoned writer will tell you of notepads, and scraps of paper, or even a Dictaphone either as an app or a physical device, all of which are used to record thoughts in the moment of ideas they will later write about.
For me personally, one of the most used apps on my phone after social media and messaging, is a memo app which I use to record ideas whenever they come to mind. One thing I don't like to do is to stifle creativity however I have learned not to explore ideas too deeply when I don't have an adequate means at hand to record that exploration, instead I find a point of entry into that path of thought, record that, and then immediately attempt to distract myself so I do not give it much conscious thought.
All of this however can be considered as secondary content, that is to say that any novel or literary work you read is in itself the primary content, and everything else that the author created during the writing process is the secondary content. There was a time when you would never see any of that content and it would never see the light of day, but times change. The fourth wall which stood for so long is now broken with routine, to the point where it is something the reader actively pursues. Some of the greatest TV shows, Movies, Games, and Books of our time use fourth wall breaks to reach the reader in a way that traditional media never did.
The concept has been around for centuries, though its application was limited. For example Diego Velázquez in 1656 painted 'Las Meninas' - a painting which contains another within it along the back of the scene. The 'Droste Effect' is the act of placing a painting within itself recursively, however in this instance it is referred to as a 'Mise en abyme' as the painting placed within is altered in some way. In Las Meninas the painting along the back of the scene is debated as to what it depicts, some argue it is a reflection of the canvass in the foreground which the viewer cannot see upon which an artist is painting, but others argue that the painting is in fact intended to depict a mirror, and those standing in it are intended to be the viewers of the painting - breaking the fourth wall.
The concept of being "let in" on the secret that the events playing out are not real and that you the reader are aware of this but none of the characters appear to be, is something which connects the reader with the content in a more intimate way. That is one of the reasons that secondary content has become so prolific. For all the enjoyment of the primary content that people attain, there is a desire to see behind the curtain and look behind the stage and see how everything is done. There is as much marvel to be found for some in the intricacies of the pulley systems that allow a performer to fly like an angel than the marvel of seeing the illusion of someone defying gravity.
This secondary content can really be divided into two parts, the first is that which breaks the fourth wall and make no attempt to hide the fact none of it is real and shows you the method of creation. The second is that which does not break the fourth wall but rather adds depth to the primary content in order to deepen the sense of reality that is portrayed.
Diego Velázquez's painting can be considered to fall into either of these depending on your interpretation. It either breaks the fourth wall and shows you the viewer within the painting looking back at yourself acknowledging the scene is not real, or it can be adding depth to the scene by portraying part of the room that is not directly visible to you through a reflection. In either case, that painting within the painting demonstrates the idea of secondary content.
There are a few franchises from various industries that are examples of the depth that is shared with the consumer. The Halo series of games for example includes secondary content such as companion novels, an animated series, a proposed film, and a published encyclopedia detailing the in-game universe with a level of detail the primary content alone could not include. By contrast the Harry Potter franchise which began as a literary work did the reverse, adding companion games and movies, and then adding more content through Pottermore. Both of these franchises demonstrate the same concept, starting from different positions within their collected works.
Both of these franchises also go further and provide their consumers with content which breaks the fourth wall. Documentaries, and publications detailing the development process allow you to see behind the scenes and see how the content grew over time, how designs and ideas influenced development, and to an extent, where ideas were considered, and then abandoned. The pursuit of deleted scenes, abandoned concepts, level designs that were never created, and much more all demonstrates the desire for the consumer to experience much more than the primary content on offer.
As a writer, everything you do, the thought process, the ideas you compose etc, should all be documented. If not for posterity and further exploration by your readers but for the very least for your own exploration. Revisiting old ideas and exploring the limits that were reached can allow you to open up new paths, create new content, and add new energy to things you once concluded weren't worth pursuing. There is renewed freedom in taking an idea that you know was abandoned and having the ability to rewrite, recreate, and reimagine to your heart's content. Broken dreams, bits and pieces, and forgotten ideas can become the building blocks for something beautiful, something much more than you ever could have imagined.
Why is society collapsing?
Before you identify a political faction, a party, a movement, or any other ideology I would like to interject. The title of this post is a question but it is not one I want you to answer, instead it is one that I intend to answer for you.
For all the actors you would have identified above I would premise initially that they are symptoms and not a cause. I would also say that while society is collapsing it will not collapse entirely. What is happening right now is a correction and it is necessary.
When you want to train a dog to behave in a given way, the most effective method of training is through Operant Conditioning. This involves one of two approaches, either to give a reward for a desirous behaviour or to give punishment for a behaviour that is not desirous. The process continues until the behaviour becomes engrained, at which point the reward or punishment is taken away and the subject should behave in the desired way without the need for a reward.
Society is collapsing because for centuries humans have been manipulated. I am not talking about conspiracy theories, I am not talking about the Illuminati, or a New World Order, or any other Shadow Government. I am talking here about simple economics and the pursuit of power. The world for the most part is controlled by a capitalist system. Even those countries which do not operate capitalist economies are subject to the impact due to globalisation. Capitalism requires 99% of the populous to be servile, and share only a fraction of the wealth it holds, whilst the other 1% controls the system and the majority of the wealth. This is not a conspiracy, this is economics, this is not a secret, not an opinion, this is how capitalism works. Those at the top profit off those at the bottom.
For centuries, those at the bottom have been subject to Operant Conditioning, not as a conspiracy but as a simple consequence of the structure of Capitalism. Those at the bottom are expected to behave in a given way, and in return they are drip fed wealth as a reward for that behaviour. Like a dog being trained, this has been the case for generations. You behave yourself and you are rewarded.
The reason society is collapsing right now is because this system has faltered. The current generation and the future generation coming of age, have prospects that are less than those that came before them. The reward for behaving has been removed and as a result, the system is being questioned. People are responding in their own ways to the fact that they did everything they were told and they didn't get what they were promised.
Left, Right, Authoritarian, Liberal, Conservative, Socialist, Communist, take whichever side you want and the same thing is prevalent throughout all sides and all parts of society right now - people are not getting what they were promised. As a result they have hit back at the systems and the individuals they believe to control the reward system and the dispensation of what they believe they are owed.
This has given rise to ideologies on all sides. From the left to the right, from those in democracies to those who pursue extremism, the same thing is true across all factions - they were conditioned to believe they would be rewarded for their behaviour and they did not receive that reward.
There is a correction occurring in the world right now. The rise of political factions to power that you do not agree with is endemic of pursuit for reward. From coal miners in the US electing a president who promised to restore their industry, to religious zealots who fervently pursued their religious beliefs in the hope of being rewarded by a higher power, through to those who pursue globalization at all costs in the belief that supranational agencies and geopolitical unions will deliver what their own national governments have failed to give them for generations. The same pursuit is of reward runs common to all.
Whilst opposing political ideologies will rise, and this may unsettle you, there is a universal truth that you must take faith within - order always emerges from chaos. What you see as destruction and reversal of progress is not permanent. It is placation. It is acknowledgement by those in power that they took away the reward too soon. It is acknowledgement that humanity still needs a reward to behave in the way those in power want it to.
You can see this at play if you take the USA as an example. A populist President was elected who promised to restore the industries of those who worked all of their lives for a reward that never came, so that they can return to work and be placated. A tax relief plan was introduced that ultimately gave more wealth to those at the top, but after it was introduced, those institutions and companies that benefited used the money to pass it back to people, whilst the flow is incredibly small, and represents the ultimate flaw in trickle down economics, the importance is the perception. To those that voted for him, they believe they got what they wanted, they believe they got their reward. This will come at a price, that is for certain.
The rise of populist parties across the world represents the same efforts by those in power to placate those who are angry in an attempt to quell the rebellion that is happening under their very noses. This isn't about who is right and who is wrong, this is about the restoration of order. For those who find themselves opposed to the governments that are elected, you can fight, you protest, or you can wait patiently, whichever choice you make is irrelevant, your time for placation will also come, but right now you are not the systemic threat.
When markets rise they boom until their peak, when evaluations far surpass realistic expectations, when industries become saturated, when growth can no longer be sustained, they crash. They undergo corrections, these often have impacts that last for generations. What we are experiencing right now is a crash of a market of a different kind, not one of economics but one of politics and control. This is not the work of an individual, it is not the work of a clandestine organization that wants to rule the world, this is the result of a society that has been slowly moving towards a world where humans behave a given way by choice, not because of reward, we're not there yet, and the removal of that reward has happened too soon, and this is the result.
Be patient.
This will pass.
This is not the first time this has happened.
This will not be the last.
You will live.
You will survive.
If you live long enough, you will live to see it happen all over again.
For all the actors you would have identified above I would premise initially that they are symptoms and not a cause. I would also say that while society is collapsing it will not collapse entirely. What is happening right now is a correction and it is necessary.
When you want to train a dog to behave in a given way, the most effective method of training is through Operant Conditioning. This involves one of two approaches, either to give a reward for a desirous behaviour or to give punishment for a behaviour that is not desirous. The process continues until the behaviour becomes engrained, at which point the reward or punishment is taken away and the subject should behave in the desired way without the need for a reward.
Society is collapsing because for centuries humans have been manipulated. I am not talking about conspiracy theories, I am not talking about the Illuminati, or a New World Order, or any other Shadow Government. I am talking here about simple economics and the pursuit of power. The world for the most part is controlled by a capitalist system. Even those countries which do not operate capitalist economies are subject to the impact due to globalisation. Capitalism requires 99% of the populous to be servile, and share only a fraction of the wealth it holds, whilst the other 1% controls the system and the majority of the wealth. This is not a conspiracy, this is economics, this is not a secret, not an opinion, this is how capitalism works. Those at the top profit off those at the bottom.
For centuries, those at the bottom have been subject to Operant Conditioning, not as a conspiracy but as a simple consequence of the structure of Capitalism. Those at the bottom are expected to behave in a given way, and in return they are drip fed wealth as a reward for that behaviour. Like a dog being trained, this has been the case for generations. You behave yourself and you are rewarded.
The reason society is collapsing right now is because this system has faltered. The current generation and the future generation coming of age, have prospects that are less than those that came before them. The reward for behaving has been removed and as a result, the system is being questioned. People are responding in their own ways to the fact that they did everything they were told and they didn't get what they were promised.
Left, Right, Authoritarian, Liberal, Conservative, Socialist, Communist, take whichever side you want and the same thing is prevalent throughout all sides and all parts of society right now - people are not getting what they were promised. As a result they have hit back at the systems and the individuals they believe to control the reward system and the dispensation of what they believe they are owed.
This has given rise to ideologies on all sides. From the left to the right, from those in democracies to those who pursue extremism, the same thing is true across all factions - they were conditioned to believe they would be rewarded for their behaviour and they did not receive that reward.
There is a correction occurring in the world right now. The rise of political factions to power that you do not agree with is endemic of pursuit for reward. From coal miners in the US electing a president who promised to restore their industry, to religious zealots who fervently pursued their religious beliefs in the hope of being rewarded by a higher power, through to those who pursue globalization at all costs in the belief that supranational agencies and geopolitical unions will deliver what their own national governments have failed to give them for generations. The same pursuit is of reward runs common to all.
Whilst opposing political ideologies will rise, and this may unsettle you, there is a universal truth that you must take faith within - order always emerges from chaos. What you see as destruction and reversal of progress is not permanent. It is placation. It is acknowledgement by those in power that they took away the reward too soon. It is acknowledgement that humanity still needs a reward to behave in the way those in power want it to.
You can see this at play if you take the USA as an example. A populist President was elected who promised to restore the industries of those who worked all of their lives for a reward that never came, so that they can return to work and be placated. A tax relief plan was introduced that ultimately gave more wealth to those at the top, but after it was introduced, those institutions and companies that benefited used the money to pass it back to people, whilst the flow is incredibly small, and represents the ultimate flaw in trickle down economics, the importance is the perception. To those that voted for him, they believe they got what they wanted, they believe they got their reward. This will come at a price, that is for certain.
The rise of populist parties across the world represents the same efforts by those in power to placate those who are angry in an attempt to quell the rebellion that is happening under their very noses. This isn't about who is right and who is wrong, this is about the restoration of order. For those who find themselves opposed to the governments that are elected, you can fight, you protest, or you can wait patiently, whichever choice you make is irrelevant, your time for placation will also come, but right now you are not the systemic threat.
When markets rise they boom until their peak, when evaluations far surpass realistic expectations, when industries become saturated, when growth can no longer be sustained, they crash. They undergo corrections, these often have impacts that last for generations. What we are experiencing right now is a crash of a market of a different kind, not one of economics but one of politics and control. This is not the work of an individual, it is not the work of a clandestine organization that wants to rule the world, this is the result of a society that has been slowly moving towards a world where humans behave a given way by choice, not because of reward, we're not there yet, and the removal of that reward has happened too soon, and this is the result.
Be patient.
This will pass.
This is not the first time this has happened.
This will not be the last.
You will live.
You will survive.
If you live long enough, you will live to see it happen all over again.
Darkness
"Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light" - this quote has been made many times in many forms, with religious origins it represents the belief that as long as there is hope, and light that represents something to hold onto and work towards then you can never be completely consumed by darkness. "There is always light at the end of the tunnel" - this is another that represents a similar belief, that everything in life is a journey and that we may pass through darkness many times on that journey, but like any train or car that passes into the darkness of a tunnel, there is always light that awaits it at the other end. That is of course if the tunnel isn't a dead-end.
These sayings represent the desire, if not the need, to convince ourselves that this isn't the end, this isn't our lot, there is much more for us to see and do, and we will see and do it all. Patently though that isn't true and as admirable as those sentiments can be at times, they do run the risk of feeding people with false hope. I am all for looking forward and looking to the future, and I am all for picking something positive to work towards, but only when those are realistic. I have never been one to chase unrealistic goals. I've never been one to set expectations for myself that I didn't think I could actually achieve - whether or not I was successful in those endeavours is irrelevant here, what is relevant is the motivation.
There are those who go through life with pipe dreams, things which will never happen that they chase and work towards. I do have to wonder why people do these things, and whether or not on some level they actually know they can never achieve them or whether they have actually convinced themselves they can. Ambition is a positive force in the world, it gives people something to aspire to, but if those aspirations are always unattainable then those ambitions will ultimately accumulate as failed endeavours and amount to a burden on the person who made them. There has to be a point of realism in life where our goals and expectations are realistic, and represent things we could actually achieve.
When darkness clouds our judgement, it blinds us to the paths that lay in front of us. We stand at a crossroads with no idea of the paths we could take, which usually leads us to one of three choices, the first to keep moving forward as that is the path we were already walking, the second is to stand still and move no more, and the third is to step back and walk back the way we came in comfort of the fact that this path at least we already know. These three choices don't represent anything positive, the least egregious perhaps is to keep walking forward, at least in that instance some progress is made even if we have no idea where that progress is leading us.
For many of us in life when we lose our way, lose our ambitions, or simply abandon the paths we thought we would once take, we end up standing at that crossroads, able to see, yet still blind to the many paths that stand before us. In those moments just as those who cannot see, we make the choice to continue forward, going through the motions, living our lives the same way we always have, day in and day out.
What we need in life more than anything is a spirit guide, someone to walk with us who can make us see in those moments that there are other paths open to us. Someone who will make us realise that the path we take is indeed a choice and it is ours to take. It is easy to let darkness convince us that there is only one path we can take, or that there are no paths at all and our only choice is to wander aimlessly forward in the blind hope that we will find a path somewhere along the way.
With my health troubles that I have been enduring, with each passing day I feel that paths in life are closing to me, I feel like I am living but I am no longer alive. Each day comes and goes and I fill them with the same things as I do every other day. My routine has become so engrained now that it has left me feeling low. I need a new path to follow, I need a new direction in life. That darkness has become so thick for me now and it is hard to find light and hope.
These sayings represent the desire, if not the need, to convince ourselves that this isn't the end, this isn't our lot, there is much more for us to see and do, and we will see and do it all. Patently though that isn't true and as admirable as those sentiments can be at times, they do run the risk of feeding people with false hope. I am all for looking forward and looking to the future, and I am all for picking something positive to work towards, but only when those are realistic. I have never been one to chase unrealistic goals. I've never been one to set expectations for myself that I didn't think I could actually achieve - whether or not I was successful in those endeavours is irrelevant here, what is relevant is the motivation.
There are those who go through life with pipe dreams, things which will never happen that they chase and work towards. I do have to wonder why people do these things, and whether or not on some level they actually know they can never achieve them or whether they have actually convinced themselves they can. Ambition is a positive force in the world, it gives people something to aspire to, but if those aspirations are always unattainable then those ambitions will ultimately accumulate as failed endeavours and amount to a burden on the person who made them. There has to be a point of realism in life where our goals and expectations are realistic, and represent things we could actually achieve.
When darkness clouds our judgement, it blinds us to the paths that lay in front of us. We stand at a crossroads with no idea of the paths we could take, which usually leads us to one of three choices, the first to keep moving forward as that is the path we were already walking, the second is to stand still and move no more, and the third is to step back and walk back the way we came in comfort of the fact that this path at least we already know. These three choices don't represent anything positive, the least egregious perhaps is to keep walking forward, at least in that instance some progress is made even if we have no idea where that progress is leading us.
For many of us in life when we lose our way, lose our ambitions, or simply abandon the paths we thought we would once take, we end up standing at that crossroads, able to see, yet still blind to the many paths that stand before us. In those moments just as those who cannot see, we make the choice to continue forward, going through the motions, living our lives the same way we always have, day in and day out.
What we need in life more than anything is a spirit guide, someone to walk with us who can make us see in those moments that there are other paths open to us. Someone who will make us realise that the path we take is indeed a choice and it is ours to take. It is easy to let darkness convince us that there is only one path we can take, or that there are no paths at all and our only choice is to wander aimlessly forward in the blind hope that we will find a path somewhere along the way.
With my health troubles that I have been enduring, with each passing day I feel that paths in life are closing to me, I feel like I am living but I am no longer alive. Each day comes and goes and I fill them with the same things as I do every other day. My routine has become so engrained now that it has left me feeling low. I need a new path to follow, I need a new direction in life. That darkness has become so thick for me now and it is hard to find light and hope.
Bucket List
I've been chronicling my personal Health and journey with Sarcoidosis, if you've been following the posts and read some of the thoughts that went through my mind around this time last year, there was a point where I had to legitimately consider the possibility that I might die - that was before my diagnosis became more detailed and well documented. The risk of death any time soon is minimal now at least. The whole experience however has left me contemplating the idea of a Bucket List.
I'm a mixture of anally retentive levels of organization and constructive chaos when it comes to planning things out in life. I tend to focus on the small stuff more than the big stuff as my mantra has always been that the big stuff will take care of itself. In the UK we have a saying that epitomizes this, quite aptly put: "Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves" - I don't just apply this to finance though, I apply it to pretty much everything in life. So understandably you can imagine every attempt prior to this of creating a Bucket List and actually completing it ended in failure.
I've never been one to plan out my whole life; my university was actually picked at random, I had no intention of going to it. I had spaces to fill on my UCAS form so I filled them and thought nothing of it. In the end I fell in love with the University and with London and there was no doubt in my mind that was where I would go. All things considered it was one of the best decisions of my life. My college and my high school too just sort of happened, those weren't decisions I dwelt on for very long.
Having never been one to plan out my whole life, the concept of a Bucket List is something I struggle with in that the whole point of creating one isn't to fill it with trivial things or mundane tasks, but to fill it with big things, monumental experiences, once in a lifetime achievements. The problem is I don't have much aspirations when it comes to any of those things. Now you can dismiss that as a by product of having struggled with depression, you could dismiss it as millennial lethargy with or apathy for societal expectations, you could dismiss it as narrow-mindedness and say I simply lack vision, but for me personally I would simply say that all I have ever wanted in life was to be happy and most of the time that's not that hard for me to achieve.
Beyond these excuses for dismissing most of what society expects you to put on this list, there are many cliché inclusions that I have already achieved. I am a published author - three times over; I have learned a second language to the point where I can have a conversation in it [Spanish] albeit at a basic level - I don't think I can in practice learn much more without immersion or access to a native speaker for regular interaction. I have a degree, I have the education many people aspire to attain and thanks to living in the UK I haven't had to pay for any of it out of my own pocket. I have an investment portfolio that I hope to grow although with no reliable income at present that's a bit difficult.
My immediate concerns are either short term or things which I can't consciously control like the desire to improve my health - you can't really do anything to get rid of Sarcoidosis, and going back onto steroids wouldn't be a good idea, and chemotherapy would cause more problems than it would fix. Getting a job is not something I am physically or mentally ready to do so that's also ruled out. Travelling the world as forms the centre of many peoples' Bucket Lists again is out of the question right now for practical reasons, even if I felt up to it mentally and physically, I don't think I would be allowed to take my tablets with me to many of the countries I would like to visit - that and if anything happened to me and I had to use healthcare in another country I am not confident that would end well given most doctors here don't seem to know what Sarcoidosis is and the UK's healthcare system [not without its faults] is one of the most advanced in the world relatively speaking.
That leaves me with the question, what else should you put on a Bucket List?
I'm a mixture of anally retentive levels of organization and constructive chaos when it comes to planning things out in life. I tend to focus on the small stuff more than the big stuff as my mantra has always been that the big stuff will take care of itself. In the UK we have a saying that epitomizes this, quite aptly put: "Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves" - I don't just apply this to finance though, I apply it to pretty much everything in life. So understandably you can imagine every attempt prior to this of creating a Bucket List and actually completing it ended in failure.
I've never been one to plan out my whole life; my university was actually picked at random, I had no intention of going to it. I had spaces to fill on my UCAS form so I filled them and thought nothing of it. In the end I fell in love with the University and with London and there was no doubt in my mind that was where I would go. All things considered it was one of the best decisions of my life. My college and my high school too just sort of happened, those weren't decisions I dwelt on for very long.
Having never been one to plan out my whole life, the concept of a Bucket List is something I struggle with in that the whole point of creating one isn't to fill it with trivial things or mundane tasks, but to fill it with big things, monumental experiences, once in a lifetime achievements. The problem is I don't have much aspirations when it comes to any of those things. Now you can dismiss that as a by product of having struggled with depression, you could dismiss it as millennial lethargy with or apathy for societal expectations, you could dismiss it as narrow-mindedness and say I simply lack vision, but for me personally I would simply say that all I have ever wanted in life was to be happy and most of the time that's not that hard for me to achieve.
Beyond these excuses for dismissing most of what society expects you to put on this list, there are many cliché inclusions that I have already achieved. I am a published author - three times over; I have learned a second language to the point where I can have a conversation in it [Spanish] albeit at a basic level - I don't think I can in practice learn much more without immersion or access to a native speaker for regular interaction. I have a degree, I have the education many people aspire to attain and thanks to living in the UK I haven't had to pay for any of it out of my own pocket. I have an investment portfolio that I hope to grow although with no reliable income at present that's a bit difficult.
My immediate concerns are either short term or things which I can't consciously control like the desire to improve my health - you can't really do anything to get rid of Sarcoidosis, and going back onto steroids wouldn't be a good idea, and chemotherapy would cause more problems than it would fix. Getting a job is not something I am physically or mentally ready to do so that's also ruled out. Travelling the world as forms the centre of many peoples' Bucket Lists again is out of the question right now for practical reasons, even if I felt up to it mentally and physically, I don't think I would be allowed to take my tablets with me to many of the countries I would like to visit - that and if anything happened to me and I had to use healthcare in another country I am not confident that would end well given most doctors here don't seem to know what Sarcoidosis is and the UK's healthcare system [not without its faults] is one of the most advanced in the world relatively speaking.
That leaves me with the question, what else should you put on a Bucket List?
Do For Me
I was reminded last week of an article in the Guardian about our willingness to lie to impress others when it comes to our reading habits.
Originally posted in 2009, the article focuses on classic novels and literary works that we claim to have read when in reality we have not. Among the statistics the article cites are the following:
65% of respondents said they had lied about claiming to have read literary classics. The four most common were:
I have attempted to read War and Peace but I found it very heavy and didn't latch on to it. I made it through about the first fifty pages or so, I long since donated it to a charity shop and forgot about it.
I have never read Ulysses.
I have read the Bible, and in doing so realised that most people haven't actually read it. From the very first book of the Bible - Genesis, there are inconsistencies and questions which even those who claim to be profound believers struggle to answer. I'll leave religious debate for another time however as that isn't the focus of this post.
The focus of this post is the fact that whilst many literary classics continue to hold their own amongst modern audiences, and are frequently referenced in pop culture to this day, the biggest barrier to getting people to actually read them is the misconception or the assumption that you already know the story. "I know what it's about" and "I know what happens" are the most frequent excuses for not reading these classics - whilst others dismiss them as irrelevant or simply not within their interest, the latter of which I can forgive and accept.
Relevance isn't really an argument you can truly make if you have never actually read the text. Relying only on what you have been told, and the regurgitation of the content leads you to build up an image of your own with details you have imagined in order to fill in the gaps. There is much more to be gained from first hand experience as opposed to second or third or however deep you want to go. This isn't a problem that is limited to literature, it is common in many other parts of our lives, but most prominently in entertainment and to an extent with food too.
We have come to a point where so many people share their experiences and do so with an openness that is devoid of any modicum of modesty, that we are encouraged to live vicariously. To live vicariously is to experience something through another. This can be demonstrated easily by looking at gaming channels on YouTube. Viewers who watch these channels and the people who are playing these games, do so in order to see them experience the game. The experience in and of itself becomes the entertainment, not the actual content. This can be demonstrated by the fact many of these gaming channels churn content. That is to say one plays a given game and other channels notice the game themselves and play it themselves. Some accuse them of copying each other, which to an extent they are, however those who fixate on that aspect are neglecting the reality of what is happening. People who watch one of these channels likely watch many others. The more they watch the more likely it becomes that the same games will be played. The viewer doesn't stop watching however, despite the same game, with the same story, the same characters etc, being played yet again, they continue to watch, because the game itself is not the focus of the entertainment, but the experience of the person playing is instead the real focus.
Games, Books, and even Food, all represent things which are part of this behavioural change. It is not limited to these three, but they are the easiest to use as demonstrations. Countless videos on YouTube show people reacting to their first time experiencing certain foods, mainly from other countries which they have never been to or simply never explored their food before. The same is true for games, countless videos show the same game being played by different people, some have played it before, some have not, some try and play it in a different way etc. Whether or not you as the viewer have ever experienced it for yourself first-hand becomes irrelevant. You watch because you either can't do it yourself but would like to, don't want to do it yourself but are curious, or have already done it yourself and want to compare reactions. The second of those three is easily demonstrated by the popularity of videos of horror games which some viewers are reluctant to play themselves but will happily watch others do so.
When it comes to books, one of the reasons most people don't read them for themselves is because it takes time and requires more effort than other forms of content - although services like Audible which provide audio books make this a lot easier as someone reads the content to you - it still takes time to hear a book, much longer than movie adaptations and summaries that other people will give you of what happens. Those alternative forms of delivery both sacrifice the level of detail for the sake of brevity. This lack of effort in consumption also applies to games, where some are considered too hard, or arduous, or repetitive to play yourself. To that end, you watch others do it and find enjoyment from their commentary which also breaks up the monotony of those parts of these games that become repetitive.
The idea of having someone else do the hard work for you is not new. This has been around for centuries and it has not been created as a result of technology. The person who does the hard work for you in many ways can be seen as a curator. Like the curator of an Art Gallery they seek out what to include, and select from it what they think you would be interested in. Whilst that is convenient, it does encourage laziness and does open you to having a very narrow, restricted view of the world. Curation can lead to reinforcement of the bubbles we can place ourselves inside.
I do have to wonder if part of the reason technology has progressed so far in such a short period of time is not because it actually benefits us - although I do believe it does - but rather because it enables us to do less. There has long been the argument that increased automation and the evolution of AI will lead to a world without work where unemployment becomes so widespread hardly anyone will actually work. I have to wonder whether that really is something that has become a concern as a result of technology, or if technology was created for that very purpose. If you define work in a traditional context of labour you can argue from the dawn of time that mankind has tried to avoid it as much as we can. You can argue that the industrial revolution which saw machinery used in farming for the first time was one of the earliest examples of technology being created to make life easier for humans by reducing the amount of work they have to do.
You can even go to the extreme and argue that the only reason society itself actually came about was because individual tribes of hunter gatherers decided that larger numbers meant delegation and that in turn meant you could do less work as an individual because the sum total of the collective work, far surpassed your needs. The idea that one person dedicated to one job meant that everyone else had one less thing to worry about. The curious thing about this whole origin story however is that whilst the point of specialization in this way helped society flourish, we now live in a society where we are actively pursuing the opposite - generalization. We increasingly want all of our goods and services to come from one place. We want a single retailer that sells everything we need because it means less work for us, but the irony is by pursuing that goal we also make less work for everyone else which is no longer leading to an improvement in our quality of life but rather to monopolization and exploitation.
There was an interesting experiment, although morally and ethically questionable, that was carried out in the 1950s by an Ethologist [person who studies animals] named John Calhoun, in which a group of mice were kept and placed in a Utopian environment. They were given everything they would need to thrive with abundance, they were allowed to flourish and grow in number uninhibited, and no predator was introduced. The result, they all died.
The population of mice grew and then exploded, reaching a point of saturation, after which it rapidly declined to the point of extinction. The experiment was repeated several times, and in each case, the same outcome occurred. The conclusion drawn was that any animal of a social nature has a natural limit to its population size which when reached then leads to its decline and eventual extinction.
What this means for humanity is interesting to contemplate. If you make the observation that the mice colony pursued growth and once the conditions for it were reached it expanded at a rapid rate. You can then also make the observation that once peak population is reached, the behaviour of the colony inverts and the behaviours that lead it to grow are abandoned and the opposing behaviours are adopted. Applying this to our observations of humanity itself as outlined above poses a rather interesting question - has humanity become a victim of its success? Have we as a society passed the point where we no longer strive to grow but are now behaving in ways that are accelerating our decline? In short, have we created a society that gives us so much of what we want without having to do very much to get it, that we are now incapable of sustaining ourselves when it is removed.
Originally posted in 2009, the article focuses on classic novels and literary works that we claim to have read when in reality we have not. Among the statistics the article cites are the following:
65% of respondents said they had lied about claiming to have read literary classics. The four most common were:
- 42% lied about reading Nineteen Eighty-Four
- 31% lied about reading War and Peace
- 25% lied about reading Ulysses
- 24% lied about reading the Bible
I have attempted to read War and Peace but I found it very heavy and didn't latch on to it. I made it through about the first fifty pages or so, I long since donated it to a charity shop and forgot about it.
I have never read Ulysses.
I have read the Bible, and in doing so realised that most people haven't actually read it. From the very first book of the Bible - Genesis, there are inconsistencies and questions which even those who claim to be profound believers struggle to answer. I'll leave religious debate for another time however as that isn't the focus of this post.
The focus of this post is the fact that whilst many literary classics continue to hold their own amongst modern audiences, and are frequently referenced in pop culture to this day, the biggest barrier to getting people to actually read them is the misconception or the assumption that you already know the story. "I know what it's about" and "I know what happens" are the most frequent excuses for not reading these classics - whilst others dismiss them as irrelevant or simply not within their interest, the latter of which I can forgive and accept.
Relevance isn't really an argument you can truly make if you have never actually read the text. Relying only on what you have been told, and the regurgitation of the content leads you to build up an image of your own with details you have imagined in order to fill in the gaps. There is much more to be gained from first hand experience as opposed to second or third or however deep you want to go. This isn't a problem that is limited to literature, it is common in many other parts of our lives, but most prominently in entertainment and to an extent with food too.
We have come to a point where so many people share their experiences and do so with an openness that is devoid of any modicum of modesty, that we are encouraged to live vicariously. To live vicariously is to experience something through another. This can be demonstrated easily by looking at gaming channels on YouTube. Viewers who watch these channels and the people who are playing these games, do so in order to see them experience the game. The experience in and of itself becomes the entertainment, not the actual content. This can be demonstrated by the fact many of these gaming channels churn content. That is to say one plays a given game and other channels notice the game themselves and play it themselves. Some accuse them of copying each other, which to an extent they are, however those who fixate on that aspect are neglecting the reality of what is happening. People who watch one of these channels likely watch many others. The more they watch the more likely it becomes that the same games will be played. The viewer doesn't stop watching however, despite the same game, with the same story, the same characters etc, being played yet again, they continue to watch, because the game itself is not the focus of the entertainment, but the experience of the person playing is instead the real focus.
Games, Books, and even Food, all represent things which are part of this behavioural change. It is not limited to these three, but they are the easiest to use as demonstrations. Countless videos on YouTube show people reacting to their first time experiencing certain foods, mainly from other countries which they have never been to or simply never explored their food before. The same is true for games, countless videos show the same game being played by different people, some have played it before, some have not, some try and play it in a different way etc. Whether or not you as the viewer have ever experienced it for yourself first-hand becomes irrelevant. You watch because you either can't do it yourself but would like to, don't want to do it yourself but are curious, or have already done it yourself and want to compare reactions. The second of those three is easily demonstrated by the popularity of videos of horror games which some viewers are reluctant to play themselves but will happily watch others do so.
When it comes to books, one of the reasons most people don't read them for themselves is because it takes time and requires more effort than other forms of content - although services like Audible which provide audio books make this a lot easier as someone reads the content to you - it still takes time to hear a book, much longer than movie adaptations and summaries that other people will give you of what happens. Those alternative forms of delivery both sacrifice the level of detail for the sake of brevity. This lack of effort in consumption also applies to games, where some are considered too hard, or arduous, or repetitive to play yourself. To that end, you watch others do it and find enjoyment from their commentary which also breaks up the monotony of those parts of these games that become repetitive.
The idea of having someone else do the hard work for you is not new. This has been around for centuries and it has not been created as a result of technology. The person who does the hard work for you in many ways can be seen as a curator. Like the curator of an Art Gallery they seek out what to include, and select from it what they think you would be interested in. Whilst that is convenient, it does encourage laziness and does open you to having a very narrow, restricted view of the world. Curation can lead to reinforcement of the bubbles we can place ourselves inside.
I do have to wonder if part of the reason technology has progressed so far in such a short period of time is not because it actually benefits us - although I do believe it does - but rather because it enables us to do less. There has long been the argument that increased automation and the evolution of AI will lead to a world without work where unemployment becomes so widespread hardly anyone will actually work. I have to wonder whether that really is something that has become a concern as a result of technology, or if technology was created for that very purpose. If you define work in a traditional context of labour you can argue from the dawn of time that mankind has tried to avoid it as much as we can. You can argue that the industrial revolution which saw machinery used in farming for the first time was one of the earliest examples of technology being created to make life easier for humans by reducing the amount of work they have to do.
You can even go to the extreme and argue that the only reason society itself actually came about was because individual tribes of hunter gatherers decided that larger numbers meant delegation and that in turn meant you could do less work as an individual because the sum total of the collective work, far surpassed your needs. The idea that one person dedicated to one job meant that everyone else had one less thing to worry about. The curious thing about this whole origin story however is that whilst the point of specialization in this way helped society flourish, we now live in a society where we are actively pursuing the opposite - generalization. We increasingly want all of our goods and services to come from one place. We want a single retailer that sells everything we need because it means less work for us, but the irony is by pursuing that goal we also make less work for everyone else which is no longer leading to an improvement in our quality of life but rather to monopolization and exploitation.
There was an interesting experiment, although morally and ethically questionable, that was carried out in the 1950s by an Ethologist [person who studies animals] named John Calhoun, in which a group of mice were kept and placed in a Utopian environment. They were given everything they would need to thrive with abundance, they were allowed to flourish and grow in number uninhibited, and no predator was introduced. The result, they all died.
The population of mice grew and then exploded, reaching a point of saturation, after which it rapidly declined to the point of extinction. The experiment was repeated several times, and in each case, the same outcome occurred. The conclusion drawn was that any animal of a social nature has a natural limit to its population size which when reached then leads to its decline and eventual extinction.
What this means for humanity is interesting to contemplate. If you make the observation that the mice colony pursued growth and once the conditions for it were reached it expanded at a rapid rate. You can then also make the observation that once peak population is reached, the behaviour of the colony inverts and the behaviours that lead it to grow are abandoned and the opposing behaviours are adopted. Applying this to our observations of humanity itself as outlined above poses a rather interesting question - has humanity become a victim of its success? Have we as a society passed the point where we no longer strive to grow but are now behaving in ways that are accelerating our decline? In short, have we created a society that gives us so much of what we want without having to do very much to get it, that we are now incapable of sustaining ourselves when it is removed.
Ageing
I turned 30 years old this year, and while ageing in itself has never really bothered me, the ageing process is starting to get to me. Before when I grew older it was just a number to me, a measurement of how long I had been alive, it never instilled the fear in me or the anxiety or the misery that it seems to instil in others. I never really had any angst about the slow unending march toward death waiting with open arms.
Okay that's a bit melodramatic but it demonstrates the point of how some people view ageing. Like I said however this never really bothered me before, except in the last year and a half my health has been knocked for six. I've been documenting this process mainly for posterity but also to help me make sense of it all.
This decline in health started just before I turned 29 and has caused me quite a few headaches now, figuratively and literally. Despite this, I still think I look about my age, I don't think I look a lot older or a lot younger than my actual age, and I think most people could probably guess my age range quite reliably. I can't say the same for other people though. I don't mean that in an attempt to be shady, I mean it in reference to my own ability to judge peoples' ages - or my lack of ability rather.
I have seen people who are younger than me by a few years who I thought to be at least ten years older than me. I have also seen people who I thought to be at least five or six years younger than me who in reality are almost ten years older than me. That twists my mind and I can't really understand how it is possibly. I know everybody lives their own lives and that those lives can take their toll but I don't understand how you can diverge so significantly in appearance from your actual age and how there's very little consistency at all in society in terms of how you will look at a given age.
It's worth mentioning this is all sans-surgery. At least I don't think any of the people in question have had any, again not to be shady but I don't think any of them could afford it to put it bluntly.
What is interesting is that often the young adults we watched in TV shows when growing up we know were actually significantly older than the characters they portrayed, even to the point where some parody movies and skits accentuate that fact for comedic effect. Is that the reason it's so hard to judge a person's age? Perhaps I'm just not normal and this isn't something other people struggle with, I don't know. Age is one of those topics of conversation that people surprisingly don't bring up that much.
Bring the Snow
If past lives exist, then I must have lived somewhere very cold. This summer has been one of the hottest on record. I live in the UK and this has been our hottest summer since 1976 or 1975 - articles seem mixed on which it was. The point being this was a hot one. 15 out of our 16 hottest summers on record have happened since 2001 in the UK and this was the hottest of those 15. That's a lot of numbers to wrap your head around and so too were the weather forecasts and reports throughout the summer, numbers here and there of how hot it would be and one thing kept reoccurring throughout it all - the reported temperature and what it would "feel like" - why they need to make this distinction is beyond me, if it is 28°C [82°F] and feels like 30°C [86°F] then what it feels like is all I am concerned with.
I realise for many that live in hot countries, or countries that get hotter weather, this will seem low - I know in Spain their hottest day so far has touched 47°C [117°F] and Greece the last I heard was close to breaking its record of 48°C [118°F]. I can't even begin to imagine what it is like to live in a place like that. The heat we got in the UK was insufferable for me personally. The despair is amplified when we are told this will become the new normal for us and that we should expect this every year. My genuine first reaction to that was I might have to move. There's a problem with that though - practicality aside, in a perfect world where I could just up sticks and move - this summer wasn't unique to the UK. The entire Northern Hemisphere experienced a synchronized heatwave, which I have never heard of before. My understanding of meteorology however limited was that the jet stream ensured heat remains on one side and cooler air remains on the other, and when it shifts to an unusual extent it causes a heatwave in one place but caused unseasonably cool weather in another. Yet this summer the heat has been felt from USA to UK to Sweden to Japan. Short of going to live in Siberia - which I'm not going to do - there doesn't seem to be anywhere to escape to.
That begs the question, if there's no escape from the heat geographically, how do you cope with it, when you can't cope with it? The UK isn't a hot country, we're woefully unprepared for this type of weather to be normal. My bedroom has regularly been 30°C [86°F] at night, with windows in the house open, doors open, fans going. We have air conditioning but it's not in our bedrooms and was primarily installed as climate control to prevent dampness, it wasn't installed to keep the house cool. Portable AC units whilst useful for about half an hour, become a pain when you have to restock them with ice constantly. As for taking cold showers, when you turn the shower down as low as it goes and it still comes out warm then there's little hope. I drank so much water with ice in it this summer trying to stay cool. We don't have the space for a pool even if I could afford to put one in, nor does anyone around us. These houses were built in the 60s I believe, for a very different climate.
Speaking of climate, I don't want to get into the debate about Climate Change, we're suffering the effects now and whether you acknowledge that as the cause or not is inconsequential, we've reached a point now where cooling the planet would be incredibly difficult and would take years maybe decades to do - that doesn't solve the immediate problem of preventing heat exhaustion and heat related death. I can understand some thinking that is an overreaction. For me personally as someone who was born albino, has white hair, and is whiter than a bottle of milk, my immediate concern with heat is not dying. I've almost passed out on more than one occasion this summer. Having Sarcoidosis causing difficulty breathing makes things a lot worse when you can find yourself literally choking on air.
I can't wait for this Summer to end. I can't wait for cold weather to come back. I want the winter to end all winters after the summer we have had. My idea of heaven would be to see the UK covered in a blanket of snow and to open my door and see a four foot wall of snow greeting me, after the summer we've had I'd be ecstatic.
I realise for many that live in hot countries, or countries that get hotter weather, this will seem low - I know in Spain their hottest day so far has touched 47°C [117°F] and Greece the last I heard was close to breaking its record of 48°C [118°F]. I can't even begin to imagine what it is like to live in a place like that. The heat we got in the UK was insufferable for me personally. The despair is amplified when we are told this will become the new normal for us and that we should expect this every year. My genuine first reaction to that was I might have to move. There's a problem with that though - practicality aside, in a perfect world where I could just up sticks and move - this summer wasn't unique to the UK. The entire Northern Hemisphere experienced a synchronized heatwave, which I have never heard of before. My understanding of meteorology however limited was that the jet stream ensured heat remains on one side and cooler air remains on the other, and when it shifts to an unusual extent it causes a heatwave in one place but caused unseasonably cool weather in another. Yet this summer the heat has been felt from USA to UK to Sweden to Japan. Short of going to live in Siberia - which I'm not going to do - there doesn't seem to be anywhere to escape to.
That begs the question, if there's no escape from the heat geographically, how do you cope with it, when you can't cope with it? The UK isn't a hot country, we're woefully unprepared for this type of weather to be normal. My bedroom has regularly been 30°C [86°F] at night, with windows in the house open, doors open, fans going. We have air conditioning but it's not in our bedrooms and was primarily installed as climate control to prevent dampness, it wasn't installed to keep the house cool. Portable AC units whilst useful for about half an hour, become a pain when you have to restock them with ice constantly. As for taking cold showers, when you turn the shower down as low as it goes and it still comes out warm then there's little hope. I drank so much water with ice in it this summer trying to stay cool. We don't have the space for a pool even if I could afford to put one in, nor does anyone around us. These houses were built in the 60s I believe, for a very different climate.
Speaking of climate, I don't want to get into the debate about Climate Change, we're suffering the effects now and whether you acknowledge that as the cause or not is inconsequential, we've reached a point now where cooling the planet would be incredibly difficult and would take years maybe decades to do - that doesn't solve the immediate problem of preventing heat exhaustion and heat related death. I can understand some thinking that is an overreaction. For me personally as someone who was born albino, has white hair, and is whiter than a bottle of milk, my immediate concern with heat is not dying. I've almost passed out on more than one occasion this summer. Having Sarcoidosis causing difficulty breathing makes things a lot worse when you can find yourself literally choking on air.
I can't wait for this Summer to end. I can't wait for cold weather to come back. I want the winter to end all winters after the summer we have had. My idea of heaven would be to see the UK covered in a blanket of snow and to open my door and see a four foot wall of snow greeting me, after the summer we've had I'd be ecstatic.
Recognition
I've been feeling kind of down lately, and lacking the motivation and energy to do much. When I go through periods like this I usually end up retreating into myself and returning to places of comfort. I rewatch old TV shows and binge seasons at a time of shows I've seen many times over. Tonight was the turn of Sherlock, in this case season 4. I got to the end of the season to the final episode aptly titled "The Final Problem" and watching the episode a few ideas started passing through my mind.
Spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the episode I will be discussing some of it below so don't read on if you don't wish to know more.
One of the tropes throughout the Sherlock series is the remarkable ability that the titular character possesses, namely his deductive reasoning. His brother Mycroft has also been shown to possess the same capability however not to the same extent as Sherlock, or at least not in terms of rawness and volatility. We do however learn through the course of this episode that Sherlock has a sister named Eurus and it also becomes quickly apparent that not only does she possess the same ability, but hers is unbridled. She possesses a level of genius that as Mycroft puts it, is "era defining" genius.
What I find fascinating is the idea that for Eurus this translates into a volatility and instability that puts anyone and everyone around her at risk. The fascinating concept that goes unexplored in this episode is the concept of recognition. That is to say the ability for her ability to be recognised and quantified. Mycroft mentions that all three siblings had been tested and graded many times but I have to wonder, in the real world, in reality, would that actually happen?
In the UK most schools have methods of assessing children and splitting them into streams based on their ability. However most of these methods are standardized, they follow national cirrucula defined by central or devolved administrations, and in some cases defined by examining bodies are superfluous to mainstream education beyond what is required by law. These are all inflexible however and treat every candidate the same way and makes the same assumptions. There is a meme in which a group of animals stand before a tree with a caption that reads to the effect of: "So you are all treated equally you must all climb that tree" - the obvious message being that several animals depicted are physically incapable of climbing the tree but their intelligence is being defined by whether or not they can complete this task.
Go beyond government controlled education and venture into independent organisations such as MENSA the High IQ society, and surprisingly the same inadequacies do exist. Whilst the tests MENSA gives its applicants do at least attempt to make the subject matter more abstract, removing prior knowledge of the tests as possible bias, they still treat all applicants the same way. Further to this, the questions asked, test only what has been agreed within MENSA would be indicators of a High IQ and demonstrate heightened intelligence. The problem with that is by definition this is subjective not objective - indeed it can be argued to be factual as it is not an individual opinion expressed however at its core it remains subjective, the fact it has been agreed upon as a collective does not change that fact.
Ultimately Eurus ended up imprisoned in Sherrinford a facility built on an island to serve as a maximum security prison - that in and of itself is another trope that is rather tired and cliché but let's leave criticism of the show itself aside for now. The fact Eurus ended up imprisoned in this way demonstrates she possesses something society as a whole does not know how to handle - or more importantly control. She did do quite a few things prior to her imprisonment that warranted incarceration, so the debate here doesn't centre around whether she deserved to be locked up, but rather on the element of isolation and the extremity of the measures used.
The question I'd like to ask you to contemplate is simply, how would we recognise a real life "era defining" genius? Would we even be able to recognise them at all or would we consider them to be someone unhinged for behaving and seeing the world in a way they is dislocated and fractured so far from what society considers to be normal? I like movies that play on this concept, X-Men is another franchise that touches on these concepts and depicts a world where society as a whole doesn't know or understand how to respond to a minority that doesn't conform to anything they have seen before - and in the case of Eurus in Sherlock this being a minority of one.
Would we recognise genius if we saw it?
It's also easy to say that a true genius would herald breakthroughs of all sorts in many fields of study but to that I simply say, what if they don't care? What if they have a mind that is truly fantastical but they have no interest at all in any of those fields?
Spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the episode I will be discussing some of it below so don't read on if you don't wish to know more.
One of the tropes throughout the Sherlock series is the remarkable ability that the titular character possesses, namely his deductive reasoning. His brother Mycroft has also been shown to possess the same capability however not to the same extent as Sherlock, or at least not in terms of rawness and volatility. We do however learn through the course of this episode that Sherlock has a sister named Eurus and it also becomes quickly apparent that not only does she possess the same ability, but hers is unbridled. She possesses a level of genius that as Mycroft puts it, is "era defining" genius.
What I find fascinating is the idea that for Eurus this translates into a volatility and instability that puts anyone and everyone around her at risk. The fascinating concept that goes unexplored in this episode is the concept of recognition. That is to say the ability for her ability to be recognised and quantified. Mycroft mentions that all three siblings had been tested and graded many times but I have to wonder, in the real world, in reality, would that actually happen?
In the UK most schools have methods of assessing children and splitting them into streams based on their ability. However most of these methods are standardized, they follow national cirrucula defined by central or devolved administrations, and in some cases defined by examining bodies are superfluous to mainstream education beyond what is required by law. These are all inflexible however and treat every candidate the same way and makes the same assumptions. There is a meme in which a group of animals stand before a tree with a caption that reads to the effect of: "So you are all treated equally you must all climb that tree" - the obvious message being that several animals depicted are physically incapable of climbing the tree but their intelligence is being defined by whether or not they can complete this task.
Go beyond government controlled education and venture into independent organisations such as MENSA the High IQ society, and surprisingly the same inadequacies do exist. Whilst the tests MENSA gives its applicants do at least attempt to make the subject matter more abstract, removing prior knowledge of the tests as possible bias, they still treat all applicants the same way. Further to this, the questions asked, test only what has been agreed within MENSA would be indicators of a High IQ and demonstrate heightened intelligence. The problem with that is by definition this is subjective not objective - indeed it can be argued to be factual as it is not an individual opinion expressed however at its core it remains subjective, the fact it has been agreed upon as a collective does not change that fact.
Ultimately Eurus ended up imprisoned in Sherrinford a facility built on an island to serve as a maximum security prison - that in and of itself is another trope that is rather tired and cliché but let's leave criticism of the show itself aside for now. The fact Eurus ended up imprisoned in this way demonstrates she possesses something society as a whole does not know how to handle - or more importantly control. She did do quite a few things prior to her imprisonment that warranted incarceration, so the debate here doesn't centre around whether she deserved to be locked up, but rather on the element of isolation and the extremity of the measures used.
The question I'd like to ask you to contemplate is simply, how would we recognise a real life "era defining" genius? Would we even be able to recognise them at all or would we consider them to be someone unhinged for behaving and seeing the world in a way they is dislocated and fractured so far from what society considers to be normal? I like movies that play on this concept, X-Men is another franchise that touches on these concepts and depicts a world where society as a whole doesn't know or understand how to respond to a minority that doesn't conform to anything they have seen before - and in the case of Eurus in Sherlock this being a minority of one.
Would we recognise genius if we saw it?
It's also easy to say that a true genius would herald breakthroughs of all sorts in many fields of study but to that I simply say, what if they don't care? What if they have a mind that is truly fantastical but they have no interest at all in any of those fields?
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