The Prince of Shadows

'The Prince of Shadows' is the longest work that I have created to date other than fan fiction which cannot be published for copyright reasons.  This work is by far the most substantial as my first full length novel.

I chose to revisit the themes of self discovery and exploration through the story of Arcadis Visser, a young gay man half in the closet half out of it, who wanted nothing more than to escape.  The story explores what it would be like if you really did get what you wanted, in every way.

Hung Up

I don't like talking on the phone with people I have never met, which is ironic considering the fact that I have had two jobs in my time which were spent doing just that.  The first was for an NHS Trust providing first line technical support for 13,000 staff members, and the second was for a commercial bank in the UK providing customer service to credit card customers for a bank with millions of customers.  In both cases the thing I hated most about talking on the phone to people I had never met was the unknown element of conversation, or more specifically, small talk.  I've never been great at this, I find it quite difficult.  Thankfully in both situations there was a meaningful task that needed to be completed which at the very least gave some scope for what to talk about beyond that which was scripted.

When it comes to talking on the phone with people I actually know and have a working relationship with, that is a lot easier.  Nevertheless for me personally if you look at my contract phone bill you'll see that 99.9% of it is texting, with the remainder made up almost entirely by data.  It is incredibly rare that I actually make and receive phone calls - even when I do, most of them are related to business or financial matters, not for social purposes.

There is an anxiety that I feel when I have to make a phone call, to the extent where I avoid it at all costs, if I can do it online or through some text based communication then I'll choose that option.  This anxiety however is not limited to communicating with people at a distance as above, it also extends to in-person interaction.  I am fine with people I know and I feel comfortable with, but when it comes to complete strangers it pains me to make small talk.  I resort to the veritably British staple of talking about the weather.

The biggest obstacle to overcome in these situations for me personally is not the act itself but just simply knowing what to talk about.  I have a lot of varied interests that span a wide array of topics, as can be demonstrated by the posts on this blog and how they vary greatly in their focus.  However most of my interests I would not consider to be things that most people are interested in.  Most people when I think of them are interested in things which I have little or no interest in.  Forgive me but I have to resort to stereotypes here to make my point: straight men are almost always obsessed with football to the point where I think one of the reasons it is so popular in the first place is because straight men need something to be able to talk about, that and sexist conversation which I have no interest in whatsoever.  Gay men usually end up talking about sex, or about whatever is the latest obsession within the gay community, usually a TV show, an artist, or something along those lines, which is great if it's something you're interested in, but not so great if you have no interest in it at all.  Women are perhaps the easiest I have found to talk to as their topics of conversation seem to be much wider ranging, they're much more willing to go with the flow, it's probably not surprising then to know that most of my friends have been women.

There is an argument to be made about the physiological differences between male and female brains and the activity therein - there have actually been studies that show that gay men and straight women share a brain structure whilst gay women and straight men share a different structure.  That could be posited as an explanation as to why I find it easier to engage with women, that perhaps there is an underlying reason for the way I think and what I think about, matching up with that of the women I get along with most.  That doesn't explain why it is difficult to have a conversation with other gay men at times.

The other argument is that there is a social construct at play much more than a physiological construct.  This argument posits that those topics of conversation that are dominant are actually based on the concept of conformity and the expectation that this is what you're supposed to talk about.  I've never been fond of that idea of presumption and expectation of behaviour based on very little information about the other person - and yes I realise above I used stereotypes to prove a point, but the reason for that is because I can't discuss this in greater detail without being specific about people and I don't like to talk about individuals out of respect for their privacy.

I have little or no expectation of people when I first meet them, I prefer to let the experience speak for itself.  First impressions unless incredibly bad, or incredibly good, otherwise don't tend to have any lasting impact on how I view a person.  I know that for me personally the first impression I give is almost always the wrong first impression, by simple consequence of the fact I am a very guarded person and shy when I first meet people and I only shift that behaviour and lower that guard if I feel comfortable with those people otherwise it becomes reinforced.

You would think this, being something fundamental and basic for us to understand, would be something we are taught from a young age, either in school or by our parents, but that isn't the case.  This type of education isn't given in schools - at least none that I know of, and as for life in general and the way we are raised, I do not see that as being any different.  The prevalence of these anxieties in society, and the fact that often our family, our friends, and even the people we work with all share the same hang ups tells me that this is a natural part of life.  What I find amusing about this is the fact that humans are often described as social animals who need social interaction to survive - if that is the case, why are we so averse to it?

What can you see around you?

For ten years I have lived in a city where not much changes.  That's partly by design, in that those who make the decisions that affect change actively stand in the way of those decisions.  It's hard to go into more detail on that without getting specific about where I live which I don't want to do.  The point is, things like planning applications are quite strict here, there are 27 churches within a 1 mile radius of my house - I know, I counted - and the many denominations they represent seem to have a collective conservative mentality when it comes to anything that would progress the city.  That has been changing in recent years as the council area was expanded and their influence has been weakened.

Despite the fact that very little changes, you would imagine I and many of the people who live here would know this city very well, the reality is we do not.  That's not due to anything specific to the people who live here, it is something I have found time and again in other cities, the people that live there are often less observant than those who visit, and those who live there are far less likely to have actually visited any of the places that are considered tourist attractions, it comes as no surprise the tourists are more likely to visit tourist attractions - that should be self evident.

You would imagine however than someone who has lived here all their life, say forty years, would know more about the city than someone who has come to visit and spent all of forty minutes in it.  It's a point of humility to actually admit when that isn't the case.  When you realise there's so much to see all around you that despite standing in front of, or walking passed, maybe every single day, you have never truly seen the world around you.

As a thought experiment, and as a task or piece of "homework" I would like you to take the time to stop and think and look, and see what is there around you that people would come and see?  Even if you live out in the sticks and think nobody would ever come and visit, don't be so sure about that, I've seen enough people with a desperate desire for complete isolation to know that even the most remote place in the world will still appeal to someone.

Our desire to escape the world we live in can override our consciousness and lead us to a state of mind where we focus so much on what we could have, where we could go, and how different our lives could be, that we become blind to what we do have, where we can already go, and what our lives really are here in this moment.  I'm in a reflective mood at the moment, recent events have left me with something of an existential crisis which was to be expected.  That question that lingers with you throughout your life poling its head out in these moments is at the forefront of my mind more than ever right now - what am I doing with my life?

I wish I could give you an answer to that question but the truth is, I don't even have an answer myself, everything that comes to mind is trivial and nothing that feels like it is of any great importance.  If anything, I'm coming to a greater realisation that I have been going through the motions for some time now following a routine, living but not really feeling alive.  I know that sounds melancholy and depressing but I'm really not in a dark state of mind right now, I would describe my mentality more as being one of indifference, a quiet moment of reflection where I actually stand back and look at my life without any filter and say to myself okay, what is this? - like Karen in Will and Grace, "Honey what's this, what's happening, what's going on here?"

Dread

There was a post that was scheduled to be published today but I decided against it, I rescheduled it for another day.  I have often said that I write these posts as a form of self-therapy so I've decided to document something as close to "live" as I can without being disrespectful.  This post is in two parts, the first is written in the morning, and the second will be added later, probably the same day although if it isn't then it will be apparent why, it will be added in due course though.

Part One - 6:30 AM, Saturday, 23rd of February 2019

I come from a large family.  My mother came from a family of fourteen, and my father came from a family of twelve, almost all of whom on both sides have children and grandchildren and I believe by now some even have great-grandchildren which reminds me I am getting old.  There's a website called MyHeritage where you can build a family tree, there's a paid for version and a free version; I once tried to use the free version to build my family tree but it caps out at 250 entries and I hit that only going back two generations and adding in their descendants all of which are the most readily accessible parts of my family tree as the information is still "fresh" with regards to who fits where - I didn't even manage to complete that task as I hit the cap long before I was done descending the branches.

The point of telling you all of this is to establish that my family is rather big, and events which bring the family together are by no means casual affairs.  Today is one of those events, a funeral.  One of my uncles on my mother's side of the family passed away on Thursday, his death was sudden and unexpected.  I know he had health problems and the only real solace I can hold onto in that regard is that for now at least he is at peace and no longer has to endure any of that.  My grandmother used to say don't pity the dead, pity the living, and today that is what I am trying to hold onto.

I have social anxiety, which if you don't know what that is, it is a form of anxiety that is triggered by social interaction, social obligation, and social expectations.  As you can probably imagine, events such as these are a nightmare for me.  It's not logical as to why, everyone who will be there almost in their entirety is family, related directly or indirectly to me, and know me or know of me.  This is about as "safe" as you can be in these situations, I hesitate to use that word, I don't mean in the context of danger but rather with the connotations of safe spaces intended instead.  Regardless the sentiment remains, today is a day where I have to step out of my comfort zone and have little choice in the matter.

Today is not about me.  It's not my funeral.  I'm not the one who died.  These are three basic facts and yet as is so often the case, the things we focus on more than anything are often the things that affect us personally rather than other people.  I know everyone around me will be going through a lot today and it's painful to admit that inside my head the biggest thing I am worrying about is trying not to have a panic attack rather than focusing on the point of the day itself.  It's been several years since I last had a panic attack, the closest I came happened around a year ago, incidentally at another funeral.

Right now it is half six in the morning, I've been awake for about two hours.  The house is busy with people getting ready.  My uncle lived about thirty miles from here so we have to travel to get to the funeral.  My family is large as I have already said, and they are spread far and wide, many will be travelling much further than we are to get there.  To be there for half passed nine in the morning we have to leave quite early factoring in traffic and a plenitude of other factors in on top.

The longer something has to fester and build up in your mind the more you begin to dwell on it.  I am my own worst enemy and right now my imagination is running away with me.  All the ways that things could go wrong are fleeting in and out of my mind.  Recollections of my Confirmation where I almost threw up over the bishop, had to be rushed out of the chapel, and the projectile vomit that followed as soon as the fresh air hit me are all vivid in my mind.  I am really not comfortable with these types of events, the only reason I am going at all is because family really does matter to me, and because I keep reminding myself as I said above, almost everyone there will be family, this is about as safe a space as I can be in.

I'm still full of dread though.  This might have been easier if we had lived closer and there was less time for it to fester.

Part Two - 6:30 PM, Saturday, 23rd of February 2019

Relief doesn't even begin to capture the true extent of what I feel right now.  Exhaustion is perhaps more apt a descriptor as that feeling abounds, both mentally and physically.  I managed to take some time to sleep, only for an hour, but the rest was needed.  I've also had a chance to eat, although that might have been a mistake to do before sleeping as I now feel rancid. 

I didn't eat or drink this morning, or much at all last night both for the same reason, toilets in churches are usually scarce.  I didn't actually need to go thankfully so that strategy paid off.  When you dread things like this, the mixture of physical and emotional sensations that wash over you in waves can be hard to process and to endure.  I felt all day like I was ready to throw up, if it weren't for the fact my stomach was empty I think I might well have done so at one point.

As family reunions go, this one was almost complete.  A few people were missing for reasons that could not be helped, but even those who don't normally do social events showed up, further underlining how bad it would have looked not to have gone.  I am glad that I went, but I still wouldn't want to do it again given the choice, that sounds bad I know, but days like these are dark in more ways than one.

Mortality is something that is a single edged sword for me, my own does not bother me but that of others does.  I've said before I'm not afraid of dying, or of death, I just don't want it to be painful, I'd rather it came quick, given the choice I'd rather go to sleep one night and not wake up again - grim, I know.  When it comes to other people however, there are many I don't want to lose, many I'm not ready to lose, although I don't think you ever really are "ready" when it comes down to it.  Regardless on days like today mortality is not something that is easily ignored especially when you mourn someone who passed so quickly and whose passing was so unexpected.

I stood in a graveyard today that I have not stood in since I was a child, so young in fact I can't recall the last time with clarity, only glimpses of a path and walls I walked along today bubbled up from those depths.  There are a few graves in that graveyard of people who have passed all related to me, and one thing was shared amongst them, brevity.  51, 54, 56, and 61, these stood out the most, ages of the four who now rest in the grave that was reopened today.  Others still shared similar length, and it becomes apparent this branch of my family tree seems quite fragile.  To know so many have lived and died young, leaves you with an odd feeling when you see the people around you and begin to focus on how old they all are already.  Those who are ill of health stand out the most and for the most part the thought goes unsaid but the sentiment is there, easily read on the faces of others.  They may not say it aloud, but you are sure they've thought it too.  Having said all of that, the funeral today was a reminder that it is often the ones we don't expect, and with little warning if any, in his case a pain in his stomach, for which a GP's appointment was made for 2 weeks time, one he will never see.

I've had my own health journey with Sarcoidosis which I have been documented for a while now however very little has actually changed, I'm still running out the clock for now before they can do anything else for me, and even at that it will be condition management rather than treatment as I understand it which to me translates as "learning to live with it" which doesn't fill me with joy.

There's not a lot else I can add right now.  Today wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but then things rarely are.  I always expect the worst as in doing so anything else is a positive, and if the worst happens you were expecting it.  Right now I just want to forget everything and wrap myself up in delusion and diversion and think about anything and everything that is as far from today and as far from the dark and depressing nature of death and mourning.  I will grieve, but in my time, and in my own way.

Golden Ages

A Golden Age is a period of time perceived to be a pinnacle, this is usually the perception long after the age has passed.  Golden Ages throughout history have been attributed to various industries and human endeavour.  They are defined by a collective adoration or reverence, with an elevated level of prosperity which meets an unusually low level of resistance. 

The Golden Age of Television for instance is generally perceived to have occurred during the 90s and early 2000s.  This was a time when TV shows were commissioned at an elevated rate, they were prolific, they were profitable, and many of those that came about during this time period are still around today as repeats on TV and through streaming services.

The Golden Age of Video Games is widely agreed to be during the 80s and 90s when the video games industry experienced one of its greatest periods of expansion and ultimate saturation.  Again as with Television there are many games still revered to this day and regarded as classics that were created during that era.

Despite being something that the conditions for are well known, it isn't easy to reproduce these periods.  Even if you provide the same environment that existed and try to seed the creative process with the same approaches as before in an effort to spawn a new Golden Age, the endeavour often fails.  One of the reasons for this is Nostalgia, or more importantly the affect that Nostalgia has on our perceptions.

I made a point to state in the first paragraph of this post, "this is usually the perception long after the age has passed" - that is the most crucial part of this whole concept.  You can not know a Golden Age is happening until after the fact.  You will only know if you achieved your aim when enough time has passed for people to look back on it and judge it for what it was, not what it is.  That's where the difficulty lies in recreating these great ages of creative expression, even at the time, those that created content did not know nor did they understand fully the impact they would have.  The intention I am sure was there, the ambition too, but the foresight and the ability to see beyond the moment is something not many people possess.

That begs the question, if a Golden Age can only be known after the fact, then looking at the world around us, and all that is being created through various industries and human endeavour, what potential Golden Age are we living through?  What will we look back on in decades to come and say these years were the pinnacle of creation in that field?

Ghost Words

My spelling and grammar for the most part are quite good.  My lexicon and my articulation I am aware extends beyond the vocabulary that most people use.  I don't speak like this day to day unless I am in the company of people who do, otherwise I adapt to the audience.  I write with a narrative voice that is truer to the voice in my head that articulates everything I think.  Every now and then when writing I will use a word, I know its meaning in context, I have never questioned the word itself before, and yet that little nefarious red line appears beneath it to highlight the fact it is seen as a spelling mistake.  For the most part they are, and I check the spelling and see my mistake, that's not always the case however.

A neologism is a word that has been coined and quite literally means "new speech" - these account for most of the red lines that appear when I write, as I use words and phrases that are part of modern day vernacular but are actually slang, informal, or just entirely made up words that have become associated with concepts as part of modern life and worked their way into our collective evolving language.

There are however a few other instances where that little red line pops up in protest and the most perplexing to me are what I describe as ghost words.   This isn't their actual name, and this term does exist and applies to something completely different.  That definition refers to words in the dictionary that are part of the language but no longer used so in essence "dead" for all intents and purposes.

My definition of ghost words however is something different and like I said I don't know the actual term for them.  I define them as words that we use which are not actually part of the language, nor are they slang, nor are they words we have coined.

Two examples I can give, one I used recently is "rottenous" and the other is "viewn" which when used in conversation go by without question.  Those who are native speakers know exactly what you mean, yet they aren't defined in the dictionary at all, and through the wonders of Google we can search and see we are not alone in our usage of the words.  "Viewn" for example throws up 149,000 results.  Low by all accounts but almost all of the results use the word in the same way, as a past participle of the word "view" in the same way we use "throw" and "thrown", "know" and "known", among others.  The word "rottenous" on the other hand only throws up 153 results when you filter out the TV show Lazy Town which has a character that uses it as their surname - a character which I might add is meant to be a mean and rotten character.  The same justification for viewing it as valid remains, as before, other words establish precedent, "ruin" and "ruinous", "peril" and "perilous", "omen" and "ominous" etc.

I find it fascinating how words like these can persist and be used without actually being documented.  If they were colloquial or regional specific words then I might forgive their obscurity but these words feel like they should be accepted as valid.  Spelling mistakes aside, they do conform to the structure of many other words of similar spellings.  In both cases there are words with similar meanings but none of them fit and can be used in the exact place of those used.

What's it to ya?

In life our experiences are shaped primarily by what we see, and hear, and feel in the moment.  Those things are often limited to what we can perceive directly, and are often occluded from the truth.  Revelations at a much later date can completely change those experiences, though they cannot change what happened in the moment, they can sour the memory and make things which were once happy, become sad.

Take for example the tradition of Santa Claus.  As children we grow up believing in the mythical man who lives at the North Pole who brings presents every year on Christmas Eve night for those who have been good all year.  We believe in the tale, and experience the wonder and awe and the magic of the celebration.  There eventually comes a time when we learn the truth, when we find out that Santa Claus is not real but a fabrication, a long held tradition, and something that is ultimately intended to deceive us, although with the best of motivations.  There is a dejection when we lose the magic, but for most at least the presents still continue, but with a greater degree of transparency.

This is an example of something quite harmless, which most of us will have experienced and hold no great bitterness or sorrow over.  Not all examples are so happy and lighthearted however.  The older we get the more these experiences become common place.  We begin to learn of the reality that the world is built on lies, and that power and deception are ultimately defined not by how many people believe the lie but how many people are party to the truth.  Knowing the truth becomes a weapon, and it can be wielded in many ways, from threatening to unmask the whole lie for the world to see, through to playing along and playing the game and using it to your advantage.

Who knows what, and about whom becomes a currency.  The knowledge is bartered in exchange for further knowledge.  Gossip is dealt like produce on a market stall traded for further gossip.  Lies that run deep can often be incredibly damaging, to people, places, companies, nations, and many others.  What you know, and whether or not you can express that knowledge then becomes the measure of how successful you are at this game.

So here's a question for you to contemplate, something which I cannot answer, by its very nature: what do you know, that nobody else does?  More importantly, what's it worth?

Happy Love Day

The Late Great Whitney Houston once sang a song originally written by Linda Creed that said, "learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all".  Today is Valentine's Day, and today more than any other day of the year, society values our worth based on whether or not we have found someone else to share our life with.  Whilst this is a sentiment that is something of beauty to those who are in love with someone else, for those who are not, it can evoke great feelings of bitterness.  The belief that you are less than because you are not in love with someone else coupled with the omnipresence of the message can cause great sadness and even anger.

Your self worth is not defined by anything that anyone thinks, the only person who gets to decide that is you.  It can be easy in life, not just today but every day, to allow others to define our lives.  We each have one life to live, our own, and only we can live it, no-one can live it for us, so no-one has the right to judge it.

Whether you are single or in a relationship or however you wish to define your status, the importance of loving yourself is something that should never be forgotten.  There is a difference between being alone and being lonely, the former is a statement, the latter is a sentiment.  One does not imply the other.  Another song that means a lot to me is Dark Blue by Jack's Mannequin, which has the lyric, "if you've ever been alone in a crowded room, you'll know" - this is something I have experienced many times in life and it has made me realise more than anything else that no matter how close we get to another person, no matter how deep in love we may be, we are still two separate people, trapped in our bodies.  You can be surrounded by people whether they be strangers or people you love who all love you, and still feel incredibly alone.

The idea of loving yourself is something that not many people in life take seriously.  Most will laugh when you suggest the concept, or make jokes about masturbation.  The idea however is a serious one.  It is something that society lacks to such an extent that we've even turned it into an insult "oh he loves himself that one" as something with great negative connotations.  Why?  Perhaps the answer is quite simply that people in life don't like it when you can do something they cannot.  Things that are elusive or hard to attain, people have a demand to be placated with the belief that you worked hard to get it, and if you didn't then they react with petulance.  Whatever it may be, the easiest example to give is money, if people think you came into it without a lifetime of toil they see you automatically as spoiled and rottenous.  There is the demand to be placated with the belief that you worked hard and that you endured all manner of humiliation and turmoil to get to that place.

Today should be a celebration of love, in all forms.  Whoever or whatever we love in whatever way whether it is romantic or platonic or familial, whatever the definition.  Today is seen as exclusionary to all forms of love except romantic for the plain and simple reason that it's not profitable and can't be marketed as anything else.  Despite the fact other countries like China actually have a Singles Day which is the antithesis of the western notion of Valentine's Day.  We still seem reluctant to diversify the definition.  That does make me wonder how many more years it will endure.  For even those I know in relationships the concept has become tired to them, a novelty that is really does wear off.  There is a lot to be said of the question of how you are treated the other 364 days of the year, but I'll leave that for now, this post has already spiralled down into negativity despite the fact it was intended to stay positive.

Sweet Anticipation

Simultaneously anticipation can be the most exquisite and the most unbearable thing you can imagine.  Nothing compares to the longing we have before we get what we really want, and nothing compares to the fear and anxiety we feel before we get the things we really don't.  They say anticipating pain is like enduring it twice, and yet we do not anticipate pleasure in the same way, if anything the elation and excitation we feel in anticipation can in itself be considered cruel and in its own way painful to endure.  Yet the feeling and the sensation that goes along with it not only ensnare the senses and bewitch the mind but they can intoxicate the soul.

There are many things in life that I have experienced that lived up to my expectations and few that went far beyond them, but through it all the anticipation is often the best part.  What we experience when we await the things we want is an imagination unbridled, a heart unleashed, and a yearning that all together dream up fantastical experiences that are anything and everything we ever wanted.  The reality of course is that nothing ever lives up to such rampant ruminations which is why it is important to rein in our minds in those moments with doses of reality, that is of course if you put far greater emphasis on the event rather than the run-up.  If however you accept that anticipation will always surpass reality and simply enjoy the experience then you can find a level of exquisite joy that no event could ever bring.

Overcoming the fall from such heights is the hardest part.  If you can train yourself to come down easy when reality is disappointing then you can tap into this fountain of fantastical forethought.  The fall can be hard and when it hits with vigour it can truly knock us off our feet, leave us deflated, disappointed, dejected, and lost in a state of dysphoria. 

How then do you train yourself to come down easy, without bridling the imagination?  To remind ourselves of reality is to limit our imagination, one cannot engage in blue sky thinking by gathering clouds.  Perhaps the best approach is to write instead.  To write in the first instance of what our realistic expectations are, what we think will actually happen, and use this as an anchor to keep us rooted in reality.  Then write in the second instance all of what we imagine, and let that imagination run well and truly wild.  Then we can play out both scenarios to their fullest knowing that we created twin expectations, one for the best and one for the most likely.

Data Rush

Throughout history there have been various commodities that held high price tags that made them lucrative to those who sought them out.  From Gold and Diamonds, to Oil and Gas, these all existed in limited quantities, they were finite resources, they were not renewable, they were valuable, and they cost a lot of money to mine, but sold for much more leading to great profits.  We're living through an age where we now have commodities that have almost comparable values and yet they meet none of these precursors.  Take data for example, we have discussed in the past how it can be mined and how a profit can be extracted from that data mining. 

What I find fascinating however is that data itself is a commodity and yet it is not a finite resource, it is limitless.  It is renewable, for each piece of data that is examined, new data is generated that is derivative, and new data is generated every day by almost everything we do.  There is no finality to this production process there will be no point we will reach where the last piece of data that can be created has been created and no more can be generated beyond that.  Then comes the question of value, yes data is valuable, but that value is entirely subjective, it is worth only what the person who needs it is willing to pay and not all data is equal.  You can generate terabytes of data that is worthless and you can create a 1.44 mb floppy disk equivalent that is priceless depending entirely on what the data can be used for.  Then comes the cost of production, this one is rather simple - free.  It costs nothing to generate data, it is being generated constantly, the cost only comes from collection of that data and the infrastructure needed to log it.  This is akin to having a farm where crops just grow with no effort on your part to sustain them all you have to do is harvest it.

All of these things amount to a commodity that shares none of the traditional epithets of a commodity.  Yet still we pursue it and we do so on an industrial scale that has created tech giants with market capitalisation in the order of billions and in the case of Apple it breached the trillion mark in 2018, the first US company to do so, although not the first company in the world after inflation is factored in, there have been companies that were larger but are no more - all of which coincidentally capitalised on commodities of the day.  The one thing that sets Apple and tech companies today apart from those of the past is that commodities in the past had a natural saturation point and peak production before decline.  The story today is very different with data being a commodity that has limitless production capacity and is effortlessly generated even when you pay no attention and make no effort whatsoever to harvest it - data wastage if you will.

The question remains however, with all commodities in history eventually reaching inflection points, where is the inflection point with data?  This isn't the first time we had a tech boom, the Dot-Com Bubble of the late 90s is now infamous as the precursor to the modern tech bubble, back then evaluations far exceeded returns and eventually reality hit and caused the corrections that inevitably ensued.  So is this time different?  Is it fair to say that we learned our lessons and that this time things will be different?  Can this really be the commodity that never crashes?

Divination

For centuries humans have pursued the idea of divination, the idea that you can discern information without prior knowledge usually through means that rely on supernatural explanations.  For me personally I never really liked the term supernatural as it conjures up images of super heroes and of magic and things which cannot be explained.  I choose to take a different view of the concept of divination.  When we talk about human knowledge there are two types in traditional philosophy centred around thought, those are a priori and a posteriori knowledge.  A priori refers to knowledge that is formed prior to experience - in other words logical deductions and reasoning that is not based on observation or experience.  A posteriori refers to knowledge that is formed after experience -  in other words conclusions and assessments that can be made based on experience and the result of experimentation.

Related to both of these terms however is a third type of knowledge and that is epiphanic knowledge.  This is most closely related to a priori as it deals with the sudden realisation of truth in a moment of epiphany - although there is no real source of that knowledge in that moment it is simply the human mind forming connection between existing concepts in our minds that were separate followed by the sudden explosion of neural connections established as the two distinct concepts start to "click" into place and the connections between the two become concrete.

The study of divination as an art form is perhaps better explained as the pursuit of knowledge driven by emotion rather than reason, in the hope that it will deliver conclusions that are later reinforced with logic and reason.  In other words you dream things up and then make them a reality when the opportunity presents itself.  Create weird and wild theories as to why things look or act a certain way and throw them out there for others to investigate and see which ones come back to you with evidence that actually backs it up.  To reduce it to its most basic terms you're throwing things at a wall to see what sticks. 

The ability to abandon all logic and reason and pursue pure emotion alone is somewhat coveted.  This is perhaps why there is reverence and a persistence in these arts that have prevailed for centuries even despite all attempts to discredit them and discard any merit from their practices.  Being able to tap into your emotion so strongly is something that is not easy to learn, some would even argue that you can't learn it at all, there has to be the predisposition to be able to pursue it.  Divination I see like any other art, a form of expression made by those who are driven by expression, there is often no great intent behind the works of art created by painters and sculptors to tap into some deep rooted human connection, instead they make their art for themselves and share it with the world in the hope that it will inspire others.  A true artist does not tell you what their art represents, the art itself will do that, and you the viewer will form your own opinions and interpretations thereof.

Those who are not true artists often set out to assess what other people want and try to cater to their desires and their needs and produce artworks that although they have some merit in form and style, are often lacking in vision and empathy not because the creator was not talented in their craft but because there was no emotional connection between artist and art.  To be a true artist you need to form that connection, everything you do must be an extension of you, every stroke, every strike, every twist and turn must be an expression however great or small.  A true artist does not fill a canvass, they reveal what was already there, waiting to present itself.

Habits

I once heard a saying that it takes two weeks to form a habit, or to break one, whatever your intention - although really in either case you are trying to make someone, usually yourself, behave in a given way so in essence whether forming a new habit or breaking an old one the objective is the same - to alter behaviour.  I decided to do a little research on the subject and what I came across first of all was that there was already some disagreement as to how long it actually takes, with the sayings most prevalent being a combination of two and three week periods.  What I stumbled across was an article that actually cites some scientific research on the matter.

The article cites a study by University College London which concluded that it takes around 66 days for a new behaviour to become a habit - in other words just over two months.  I am interested to put this to the test however I am not sure what I want to choose as the subject of my experiment.  The thing about behaviours that we exhibit and continue to do so, is that ultimately we do them because they give us some sort of reward, whether that simply be pleasure or some other need that we have being fulfilled.  When it comes to altering our behaviour however it becomes a lot harder to determine what we would like to change.

I don't have any addictions - not that I know of at least, isn't that what they say is the biggest problem with addiction, recognizing that you have a problem?  As for life goals, as melancholy as it may seem, as I have said before, I don't actually have that many.  I want to be happy more than anything else and I can usually find happiness in what I already have so there's little motivation or aspiration when it comes to my ambitions in life.  You can call me complacent and to be honest I probably am, but at least that's coming from a place of happiness and not a place of misery.

There also comes the question of what a habit actually is and whether that is good for you or not.  The word certainly has negative connotations but does that mean there are no positive habits?  Is the word synonymous with routine and repetition, if so there are many habits I already have but I wouldn't consider them things which are destructive to me personally or anyone around me.  The word 'habitual' is less assertive and causes less offence when we contemplate it, in its case the word implies routine more so than implying any positive or negative connotations.

What are your habits?  How do you actually identify them and how do you assess the impact on your life that they have?  I don't know the answers to those questions right now, I'm still working on it.

Time Slips Away

Continuing with the theme of posts relating to Time, the awareness of its passage seems to be something that is rather unique to humanity, insofar as we can tell.  Whilst other animals display an awareness of day and night cycles, and the changing seasons, humans seem to be the only species that can measure time and understand the concept, not surprising since the concept as a whole is a human invention.  Humans didn't invent time itself but we did define it, through seconds, hours, minutes, days, weeks, months, years, and everything else we use to measure its passage.  What remains persistent across all of these measurements is that their lengths are arbitrary.

The only measurement that has a modicum of truth or basis in something other than a human delimitation is a year, however even at that, what we measure to be a year in length isn't what we claim it to be.  We claim a year to be the amount of time it takes Earth to complete one orbit of the Sun, however that's not actually true.  A year in more precise measurement lasts 365.25 days, this is why every 4 years we add a day to compensate for the inaccuracy.  There is no single day that appears in our calendars across those 4 years that appears out of nowhere, the Earth doesn't take an extra day to orbit the Sun every 4 years, the reality is that the 0.25 days per year discrepancy comes about as consequence of the fact that a day is not 24 hours in length, but 24.0164 hours in length, again we use rounding and ignore the discrepancy allowing the offset to accumulate and then adjust our calendars to compensate.  Even when you drill down further to hours, minutes, and seconds, the delimitation of each is arbitrary.  There is no reason there has to be 24 hours in the day it could be more it could be less if you change the duration of an hour.  An hour in itself is 60 minutes, again an arbitrary number there is no reason why it has to be 60.  As for seconds themselves they too are arbitrarily set to 60, there's no actual reason for doing so.

The length of a second is one of the most fundamental measurements of time, and again, its duration is arbitrary.  There's no underlying reason for setting it to the duration we have agreed upon.  This isn't just something related to time, it is related to all forms of measurement that we have created and the standards that surround them, and it is not limited to imperial systems it applies to other systems of measurement that attempts to structure things more logically such as the metric system based on delimitations of 10.  In the metric system the Kilogram is a measurement of weight, which is equivalent to 1000 grams, but how much each of those weigh, again, is arbitrary.  The Kilogram itself is related primarily to the International Prototype Kilogram which is stored in France at the International Bureau of Weights and Measurements.

Despite there being widespread acceptance of these international standards and a collective agreement of the delimitation of each unit, the fact they are arbitrary makes them rather hard to imagine precisely.  We become dazed and confused quite easily when we have to accurately picture these measurements in our mind.  With regards to time this comes most easily in the example of our perception of how much time has passed since a given event.  Anything that did not happen in our lifetime we estimate to be much further back in time than it was in reality, whilst things that did happen in our lifetime we estimate as happening much more recently than it actually occurred.

Take for example the invention of the Television.  The first forms of it emerged in the 1920s and it became widespread in the 1950s.  For anyone under 70 the widespread adoption of Television did not happen in your lifetime, and for anyone under 98 the invention did not happen in your lifetime either.  For both, the natural assumption is to place it further back in time than it actually happened. 

Whereas with events that did happen in our lifetime, perhaps those most memorable are those of great tragedy, the 9/11 world trade centre attacks, the 7/7 London bombings, or the Bataclan Theatre massacre, all of which happened in 2001, 2005, and 2015 respectively.  These dates are 18 years ago, 14 years ago, and 4 years ago respectively this year.  Others are much closers in time and still fresh such as the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017.  These events so horrific in nature stand out in our minds, and the clarity of the memories we hold from the time they occurred leads us to believe they happened much more recently than they actually did.  It is hard to believe so much time has actually passed since each of these events, yet that is the reality of time, it moves forever forward whether we acknowledge it or not.

Time is progressing, and our lives are growing longer day by day.  As the saying goes time is like a fistful of sand, the tighter you grasp it the quicker it slips through your fingers.  There is a balance that is hard to find, of living in the moment and being present and letting go.  Perhaps this is why time seems to accelerate for us with age?  We try to grasp it tighter as we grow older, desperate to hold onto it but the harder we hold it the faster it slips away from us.  Therein lies the paradox, how do you hold on whilst letting go, how do you see the detail whilst still seeing the big picture, how do you find precision and measurement without becoming ignorant of the very thing you are trying to measure in the first place?