Some friendships are a lot of work, whilst others take almost no effort whatsoever to maintain. We can have people in our lives who we can go days, weeks, months, or even years without speaking to, and when we finally do it's like no time at all has passed, you just pick up where you left off and keep going from there. Having that kind of a relationship with someone doesn't come easy. It requires a lot of trust and a lot of understanding.
The trust element comes into play when you think about the memory of you as a person that other people hold and how accurately they will maintain that memory. Any divergence from the reality can lead people to create idealized versions of you that you can never and will never live up to. Whenever you engage with each other again, the disparity between the two would create a friction that often causes the rift between you to grow wider, no longer created by time alone but by material differences that pull apart the fabric that bound the two of you together in the first place.
The understanding element comes into play when you think about personal growth, whilst the person you knew will never go away, their interests and their experiences will change when you are absent. There must be understanding that they won't be the exact same person you knew before and that it is your job when reconnecting with them to synchronize your internal model of them with the updated version. Like an iPod you need to know what has changed since the last time you checked in, what needs to go and what needs to be added so that your model is as up to date as you can make it.
These two things go hand in hand and are distinguished essentially by the nature of assumption. Mistrust in the accuracy of the model they retain of you comes from the belief that they will make assumptions about what has happened to you in the time that you were apart. Trust comes into play when you believe the other person won't make assumptions about your growth and will actually allow you to tell them what has happened since and they will take your word for it. Understanding comes into play when you don't make assumptions about other people and actually listen to them and hear what they have to say.
Those friendships that can weather any amount of time apart understand that although you are both alive together, you don't live with each other and that ultimately means that your lives are separate and complete, that they have an entire life they lived before they met you, an entire life they continue to live even when you're not there, and an entire life they will continue to live when you are not there for whatever reason that may be.
This whole relationship hinges on the requirement that only 2 people be involved in the relationship. If you want to involve more than just you and them, then there needs to be a boundary of what you allow other people to fill you in on. There can be a lot of misinformation, and a lot of assumptions that are shared which don't always prove to be accurate. When more than 2 people are involved you inevitably end up with one or more telling you things about the other which betrays the trust of allowing each other to live their own lives and accepting that they will tell you what they want you to know about their lives. You have to respect each other's privacy. I have had more than one friendship fall apart because of the poison other people pour into your ear.
Comedy and Tragedy
If comedy is tragedy plus time, how do you determine the element of time? There are things in life that in the moment are the furthest thing from comedy for us, but with time we look back and laugh at. How do you determine how much time has to pass before that becomes the case? Is it simply a case of time in itself? Will every event no matter how tragic, eventually become funny? There are certainly things that have happened in my lifetime that nobody jokes about, not just things that happened to me specifically but in the world as a whole. There are historical events that even now when we look back on them we still don't joke about them, even though decades, and in a few instances over a century has now passed since they happened.
"Bad taste" it seems is entirely subjective. There is a comedian in the UK called Graham Norton who jokes about quite a few things but is generally perceived to be a well mannered comedian that doesn't make jokes that are in poor taste. That's not strictly true however, Graham Norton's career actually stems from some very crude humour much of it often in bad taste when it is taken out of context, what he does have a talent for however is framing that humour in a way that it becomes easy to digest. Take for example a stand-up comedy special he did about almost two decades ago at The Roundhouse, a performance space in North London. This comedy special sticks out in my mind for the simple reason that even Norton himself acknowledges the fact he can take a bar and steadily lower it over time.
Throughout the performance Norton's jokes become increasingly crude, what is remarkable however is that the audience at the opening of the act are hesitant to laugh at jokes that are risqué although timid by comparison to the end. By the end of the act however he has the audience crying out to go even cruder which even provokes Norton to comment tongue in cheek at how much the audience has changed their attitude which they are in fits of laughter over. If you like Graham Norton and his style of comedy, the show is well worth a watch, I highly recommend it.
What happened that night however is something that you become aware of as you get older. When you are young, you tend to have beliefs that are deeply held and profound. You believe a certain thing and it doesn't matter who or what tells you anything to the contrary, it goes in one ear and out the other. I know not everyone is like this when they are younger but in my experience most people are - I certainly was. You couldn't tell me I was wrong, I had to prove it for myself, I was convinced I was right and I wouldn't accept the contrary until I tried it for myself - which didn't always result in me admitting I was wrong I might add, I often turned out to be right.
As you get older though there is a reluctance to fight every battle. You begin to look at the war as a whole and decide what is and is not worth fighting over. There comes a point where even the things you object to, you end up asking "is this what we're doing now?" and if the answer is yes, with reticence you often simply sigh and go with it. That does lead to complacency with some things, which I admit is a problem when it comes to changing the way the world works. Revolutions are for the young, relaxation is for the old.
The audience that night demonstrates how comfort breeds complacency, there was a comfort and security in knowing that everything was a joke and none of it was serious. The night then progresses with people becoming much more relaxed and open to being led wherever Norton wanted to take them. Now I should point out there's nothing macabre here. Nothing he joked about would I consider offensive or even politically incorrect, it was just the juxtaposition of an audience that was adamantly uptight and yuppie becoming crude and crass so easily.
Graham Norton is not a politician, I think it's a good thing he's not because he demonstrates an ability that many of them lack - charisma. It is only through charming an audience can you actually lead them to behave in this way. If you can make someone comfortable with the decision you want them to make, they'll go along with it even if it goes against everything they profess to believe in. The question is how do you prevent yourself being led like this? It's harmless when it's done for the sake of comedy and entertainment where no harm comes to anyone in the process, it's entirely different when it comes to our actual lives and decision making that will impact our lives for years to come.
"Bad taste" it seems is entirely subjective. There is a comedian in the UK called Graham Norton who jokes about quite a few things but is generally perceived to be a well mannered comedian that doesn't make jokes that are in poor taste. That's not strictly true however, Graham Norton's career actually stems from some very crude humour much of it often in bad taste when it is taken out of context, what he does have a talent for however is framing that humour in a way that it becomes easy to digest. Take for example a stand-up comedy special he did about almost two decades ago at The Roundhouse, a performance space in North London. This comedy special sticks out in my mind for the simple reason that even Norton himself acknowledges the fact he can take a bar and steadily lower it over time.
Throughout the performance Norton's jokes become increasingly crude, what is remarkable however is that the audience at the opening of the act are hesitant to laugh at jokes that are risqué although timid by comparison to the end. By the end of the act however he has the audience crying out to go even cruder which even provokes Norton to comment tongue in cheek at how much the audience has changed their attitude which they are in fits of laughter over. If you like Graham Norton and his style of comedy, the show is well worth a watch, I highly recommend it.
What happened that night however is something that you become aware of as you get older. When you are young, you tend to have beliefs that are deeply held and profound. You believe a certain thing and it doesn't matter who or what tells you anything to the contrary, it goes in one ear and out the other. I know not everyone is like this when they are younger but in my experience most people are - I certainly was. You couldn't tell me I was wrong, I had to prove it for myself, I was convinced I was right and I wouldn't accept the contrary until I tried it for myself - which didn't always result in me admitting I was wrong I might add, I often turned out to be right.
As you get older though there is a reluctance to fight every battle. You begin to look at the war as a whole and decide what is and is not worth fighting over. There comes a point where even the things you object to, you end up asking "is this what we're doing now?" and if the answer is yes, with reticence you often simply sigh and go with it. That does lead to complacency with some things, which I admit is a problem when it comes to changing the way the world works. Revolutions are for the young, relaxation is for the old.
The audience that night demonstrates how comfort breeds complacency, there was a comfort and security in knowing that everything was a joke and none of it was serious. The night then progresses with people becoming much more relaxed and open to being led wherever Norton wanted to take them. Now I should point out there's nothing macabre here. Nothing he joked about would I consider offensive or even politically incorrect, it was just the juxtaposition of an audience that was adamantly uptight and yuppie becoming crude and crass so easily.
Graham Norton is not a politician, I think it's a good thing he's not because he demonstrates an ability that many of them lack - charisma. It is only through charming an audience can you actually lead them to behave in this way. If you can make someone comfortable with the decision you want them to make, they'll go along with it even if it goes against everything they profess to believe in. The question is how do you prevent yourself being led like this? It's harmless when it's done for the sake of comedy and entertainment where no harm comes to anyone in the process, it's entirely different when it comes to our actual lives and decision making that will impact our lives for years to come.
A Quiet Life
"I guess you get to a certain age and you realise, that nothing exciting is ever going to happen to you, and maybe that's just the way it is, maybe some people just have quiet lives"
- Virginia Lewis (The 10th Kingdom)
For some people there is no greater aspiration than to simply live a quiet life. There is the hyperbolic dream of living in a cabin in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere with everything you ever need just there, or living on an island in the middle of the ocean on your own never having to deal with anyone or anything. There is a ring of truth behind that hyperbole however, that is, if you truly want to live a quiet life, you need to be as far away or as far removed from other people as you can be, because in life, other people make it complicated.
I've mentioned before how I experienced a trauma when I was younger, which I'm not ready to write about in depth on here. Suffice to say it left me distrustful of other people and fundamentally shifted my personality from one of extroversion and an extremely social nature where I could speak to anyone about anything, to becoming an extreme introvert where I spoke only when spoken to and of as little as I could. The time I spent in high school was self imposed isolation. After everything that happened to me I wanted to be as far removed from other people as I could be. It worked to an extent, I got to live in my own little world but even at that, my bubble was often burst by other people, my personal space invaded, and as you can imagine that had a very negative impact on me as a person.
It wasn't until several years later when I was at college that I was able to slowly come out of my shell. Introducing new people into my life until I gained the confidence to actually interact with others on a social level. University for me came after college and was akin to having learned how to swim in a kids pool, being suddenly thrown off a diving board. In that situation you have only two choices, sink or swim, and by virtue of the fact that humans float, even if you try to swim with little success, you'll still rise to the top, you just have to keep yourself there once you do. University was very much this experience for me, I was plunged into the deep end from day one and I had to try and swim to the top. I made it in the end but the experience left me panicked and I did partially retreat for a while, to the shallow end where I could still interact with others but not with the depth that you're supposed to.
To this day I am somewhere in between to the two ends of the pool, not quite shallow but not quite deep enough to dive all the way down. This is rather ironic when you consider the fact I can't actually swim in the literal sense, again even more ironic since the reason for that too was a trauma when younger - an experience where I almost drowned in the county river, that too still leaves me reluctant to try to swim for real for the same reasons as my metaphor, my emotions and my thought processes stop me from trying out of a paralysing fear. The only time I diverge from that paralysis is when I have no other choice but to try to survive.
There remains the temptation to isolate myself to live alone and engage with no-one. On one of my old blogs about my personal life I wrote a post where I discussed the fact that the internet more than anything else enables the worst behaviours in us as human beings. The fact you can actually live a life where you literally never leave the house is quite scary for me, because of how easily I could succumb to that temptation. Every time something negative happens to me involving other people that temptation to check out and leave humanity behind becomes so impending that I have to battle to pull myself back and convince myself I shouldn't do it. I don't know how many more times I can fight that battle and continue to win in the end. I've lost that battle a few times and it's not been good for me physically, mentally, or emotionally.
How do you draw the line between living quietly, and living in isolation to avoid the noise? I still haven't figured this one out.
- Virginia Lewis (The 10th Kingdom)
For some people there is no greater aspiration than to simply live a quiet life. There is the hyperbolic dream of living in a cabin in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere with everything you ever need just there, or living on an island in the middle of the ocean on your own never having to deal with anyone or anything. There is a ring of truth behind that hyperbole however, that is, if you truly want to live a quiet life, you need to be as far away or as far removed from other people as you can be, because in life, other people make it complicated.
I've mentioned before how I experienced a trauma when I was younger, which I'm not ready to write about in depth on here. Suffice to say it left me distrustful of other people and fundamentally shifted my personality from one of extroversion and an extremely social nature where I could speak to anyone about anything, to becoming an extreme introvert where I spoke only when spoken to and of as little as I could. The time I spent in high school was self imposed isolation. After everything that happened to me I wanted to be as far removed from other people as I could be. It worked to an extent, I got to live in my own little world but even at that, my bubble was often burst by other people, my personal space invaded, and as you can imagine that had a very negative impact on me as a person.
It wasn't until several years later when I was at college that I was able to slowly come out of my shell. Introducing new people into my life until I gained the confidence to actually interact with others on a social level. University for me came after college and was akin to having learned how to swim in a kids pool, being suddenly thrown off a diving board. In that situation you have only two choices, sink or swim, and by virtue of the fact that humans float, even if you try to swim with little success, you'll still rise to the top, you just have to keep yourself there once you do. University was very much this experience for me, I was plunged into the deep end from day one and I had to try and swim to the top. I made it in the end but the experience left me panicked and I did partially retreat for a while, to the shallow end where I could still interact with others but not with the depth that you're supposed to.
To this day I am somewhere in between to the two ends of the pool, not quite shallow but not quite deep enough to dive all the way down. This is rather ironic when you consider the fact I can't actually swim in the literal sense, again even more ironic since the reason for that too was a trauma when younger - an experience where I almost drowned in the county river, that too still leaves me reluctant to try to swim for real for the same reasons as my metaphor, my emotions and my thought processes stop me from trying out of a paralysing fear. The only time I diverge from that paralysis is when I have no other choice but to try to survive.
There remains the temptation to isolate myself to live alone and engage with no-one. On one of my old blogs about my personal life I wrote a post where I discussed the fact that the internet more than anything else enables the worst behaviours in us as human beings. The fact you can actually live a life where you literally never leave the house is quite scary for me, because of how easily I could succumb to that temptation. Every time something negative happens to me involving other people that temptation to check out and leave humanity behind becomes so impending that I have to battle to pull myself back and convince myself I shouldn't do it. I don't know how many more times I can fight that battle and continue to win in the end. I've lost that battle a few times and it's not been good for me physically, mentally, or emotionally.
How do you draw the line between living quietly, and living in isolation to avoid the noise? I still haven't figured this one out.
An Undertale Theory
This post is a theory I have about Undertale. If you've not played the game in its entirety, this post will be heavy with spoilers. If you've never played the game before and think you might then it's probably best not to read on. You have been warned.
I have written about Undertale before on this blog and of the emotive story it tells and the environment that it depicts. This theory is a little technical in nature however and reads a lot into some of the game mechanics and the idea that the creator Toby Fox might have been quite literal in certain areas of the game.
This whole theory sprang up when I decided to watch Dan and Phil play Undertale and I noticed something I never noticed before. I have seen many people play through this game, one reason I love it so much is the fact that each person experiences essentially the same story but each person's experience of that story differs, sometimes wildly so.
In their very first video when exploring the game mechanics Dan opens the menu and looks at their stats and Phil makes an entirely off the cuff comment "We're level 1 though, that's better than level 0" - which my immediate thought was "That's not actually better" then suddenly I found myself asking, Why is Frisk level 1 and not level 0?
Now you might react straight away by saying that everyone starts on level 1 but I am not sure that is actually true. The prequel / sequel / whatever-quel to the game is called Deltarune and in it the first time you reach a save point you save over an existing save file called "Kris" which is Level 1 with 0:00 time played. This is important to note because it shows that a save file already exists in that game with the name of the player, or as I have concluded, with the name of the soul that the player controls. That distinction is important.
In Undertale when you first reach a save point there is an existing save file called EMPTY which is level 0 and has 0:00 time played. Again you might think that means there is no existing save file but again I don't think that is the case. I think the reason it says empty is because the save file belongs to a character without a soul and therefore without a name, because they are an empty vessel. Which character is that? Well for anyone that has played the game in its entirety they will recall that once Asgore falls, Flowey steals the human souls and then says "Boy! I've been empty for so long... It feels great to have a soul inside me again" which establishes that he was empty before. On top of this, Flowey talks about his save state many times throughout the game, so he needs to have one to return to - I believe Flowey's save state is the EMPTY file.
To some people that much at least will have been obvious and they will have figured that out long ago, but there's one tiny little problem. Flowey's save state exists after Asriel died but before Flowey started messing with the world and timelines. In other words, Flowey had not killed anyone yet, and his EMPTY file shows that he is level 0. LV 0 in the game, where LV within the cannon of the game actually stands for Level of Violence also known as LOVE. Which raises the question, if Flowey had never killed anyone and was level 0, why is Frisk level 1?
Within the game cannon, there is another stat EXP which is yet another acronym but this time the game tells us it stands for Execution Points which are earned by killing. The game is not explicit in restricting this solely to monsters but it is implied to be so as the human world is rarely mentioned within the game itself. All of this would suggest that Frisk has never killed anyone because he would have EXP if he had - except there's one tiny problem with that. When you kill Asgore you do not earn any EXP. That one single instance in the entire game where killing a character does not earn EXP establishes that it's possible to kill without gaining EXP. Further to this, the ambiguity of whether killing a human would increase EXP also leaves everything open to speculation.
Therein lies my theory, I believe the reason Frisk is level 1 as opposed to level 0 is because Frisk has actually killed someone. Not only that, when you complete the true pacifist run, if you travel all the way back to the ruins you can speak to Asriel who asks Frisk why he ran away, and goes on to say that most humans know that anyone who goes to Mt Ebott never returns, and thus the humans who run to it usually do so for dark reasons. He goes on to say that he knows why Chara climbed the mountain, and that it was not for a happy reason. This entire conversation heavily implies Frisk was running from something and that it was something dark.
To some it will make sense, and to others there will be a plethora of contradictions and reasons why this can't be true. I don't claim this to be cannon, all I can say is that this is the thought that occurred to me, and the more I think about it the more questions that arise. Nevertheless, two simple facts remain, Frisk starts at level 1, not 0, and it's possible to be level 0, knowing this and knowing that killing is the method of increasing your level my only conclusion in simplest terms is that Frisk has already killed someone.
I have written about Undertale before on this blog and of the emotive story it tells and the environment that it depicts. This theory is a little technical in nature however and reads a lot into some of the game mechanics and the idea that the creator Toby Fox might have been quite literal in certain areas of the game.
This whole theory sprang up when I decided to watch Dan and Phil play Undertale and I noticed something I never noticed before. I have seen many people play through this game, one reason I love it so much is the fact that each person experiences essentially the same story but each person's experience of that story differs, sometimes wildly so.
In their very first video when exploring the game mechanics Dan opens the menu and looks at their stats and Phil makes an entirely off the cuff comment "We're level 1 though, that's better than level 0" - which my immediate thought was "That's not actually better" then suddenly I found myself asking, Why is Frisk level 1 and not level 0?
Now you might react straight away by saying that everyone starts on level 1 but I am not sure that is actually true. The prequel / sequel / whatever-quel to the game is called Deltarune and in it the first time you reach a save point you save over an existing save file called "Kris" which is Level 1 with 0:00 time played. This is important to note because it shows that a save file already exists in that game with the name of the player, or as I have concluded, with the name of the soul that the player controls. That distinction is important.
In Undertale when you first reach a save point there is an existing save file called EMPTY which is level 0 and has 0:00 time played. Again you might think that means there is no existing save file but again I don't think that is the case. I think the reason it says empty is because the save file belongs to a character without a soul and therefore without a name, because they are an empty vessel. Which character is that? Well for anyone that has played the game in its entirety they will recall that once Asgore falls, Flowey steals the human souls and then says "Boy! I've been empty for so long... It feels great to have a soul inside me again" which establishes that he was empty before. On top of this, Flowey talks about his save state many times throughout the game, so he needs to have one to return to - I believe Flowey's save state is the EMPTY file.
To some people that much at least will have been obvious and they will have figured that out long ago, but there's one tiny little problem. Flowey's save state exists after Asriel died but before Flowey started messing with the world and timelines. In other words, Flowey had not killed anyone yet, and his EMPTY file shows that he is level 0. LV 0 in the game, where LV within the cannon of the game actually stands for Level of Violence also known as LOVE. Which raises the question, if Flowey had never killed anyone and was level 0, why is Frisk level 1?
Within the game cannon, there is another stat EXP which is yet another acronym but this time the game tells us it stands for Execution Points which are earned by killing. The game is not explicit in restricting this solely to monsters but it is implied to be so as the human world is rarely mentioned within the game itself. All of this would suggest that Frisk has never killed anyone because he would have EXP if he had - except there's one tiny problem with that. When you kill Asgore you do not earn any EXP. That one single instance in the entire game where killing a character does not earn EXP establishes that it's possible to kill without gaining EXP. Further to this, the ambiguity of whether killing a human would increase EXP also leaves everything open to speculation.
Therein lies my theory, I believe the reason Frisk is level 1 as opposed to level 0 is because Frisk has actually killed someone. Not only that, when you complete the true pacifist run, if you travel all the way back to the ruins you can speak to Asriel who asks Frisk why he ran away, and goes on to say that most humans know that anyone who goes to Mt Ebott never returns, and thus the humans who run to it usually do so for dark reasons. He goes on to say that he knows why Chara climbed the mountain, and that it was not for a happy reason. This entire conversation heavily implies Frisk was running from something and that it was something dark.
To some it will make sense, and to others there will be a plethora of contradictions and reasons why this can't be true. I don't claim this to be cannon, all I can say is that this is the thought that occurred to me, and the more I think about it the more questions that arise. Nevertheless, two simple facts remain, Frisk starts at level 1, not 0, and it's possible to be level 0, knowing this and knowing that killing is the method of increasing your level my only conclusion in simplest terms is that Frisk has already killed someone.
Is it me?
Following on from my previous post, there's a point of clarity I'd like to make. Most of the people who read this blog are people that don't know me personally. There are however a few that do, and a few more that have a connection to me in some way. There is a question that inevitably arises when some people read posts on here, that is whether those posts are about them. The short answer, is probably not. If it was about you, I would have likely discussed the topic I was writing about with you beforehand and you would know the post was inspired by that conversation. If you think a post on here sounds a lot like you but we have never spoken, then chances are it's nothing to do with you. Although you might want to consider the similarities and realise you're not the only one who thinks, acts, or behaves in that way if you find an affinity with content I've written.
I'm an honest person to the point where it can be brutal. I'm direct with people and I rarely sugar coat things. If you ask for my opinion on anything, and you know me at all, you will know the answer is going to be blunt. This has been something that in the past has destroyed friendships for me that I had with other people. I don't care. I know that sounds arrogant, possibly condescending, and maybe even a little bit psychotic. Again, I don't care. What you think of me, is none of my business. That's your opinion to make, and to base on whatever experience you have. The people in my life who I am closest to, are all people who I can tell anything, without having to worry about what they think. I can do this because the honesty in our friendships is reciprocated. I don't ask questions I don't want an answer to of my friends because I know what to expect if I do - honesty which I might not be ready to hear, so I don't ask.
There is a fine line between kicking someone when they are down, and pulling someone down when they have their head in the clouds. The former is sadistic and is something I'm unwilling to do, to the point where I will sometimes say to people that they don't want me to answer that question. The latter is a grounding, something which I an many others crave in life, because it is easy to get lost in dreams and develop unrealistic expectations without realizing you are doing it. Those few people in your life that can tell you to wake up and stop dreaming are the ones you need to hold onto most. They are the ones who will provide the greatest support in life because they will get you to where you need to go by providing guidance and letting you know full well when they think you're chasing a dead end - you don't always have to listen, that's not the point, the point is that their advice and their experience is shared out of genuine love, not out of lip service.
In the rare instance where I do have an opinion on the behaviour of an individual in my life or connected to me, where we don't have the sort of relationship where we can actually talk about it, I don't write about it. That's part of the reason why certain topics have never been written about here on this blog, and again part of the reason why they never will. So if you're reading a post and wondering if it's about you, it's not. If you are still paranoid or concerned that it may be, then ask me directly, and I will tell you myself.
I'm an honest person to the point where it can be brutal. I'm direct with people and I rarely sugar coat things. If you ask for my opinion on anything, and you know me at all, you will know the answer is going to be blunt. This has been something that in the past has destroyed friendships for me that I had with other people. I don't care. I know that sounds arrogant, possibly condescending, and maybe even a little bit psychotic. Again, I don't care. What you think of me, is none of my business. That's your opinion to make, and to base on whatever experience you have. The people in my life who I am closest to, are all people who I can tell anything, without having to worry about what they think. I can do this because the honesty in our friendships is reciprocated. I don't ask questions I don't want an answer to of my friends because I know what to expect if I do - honesty which I might not be ready to hear, so I don't ask.
There is a fine line between kicking someone when they are down, and pulling someone down when they have their head in the clouds. The former is sadistic and is something I'm unwilling to do, to the point where I will sometimes say to people that they don't want me to answer that question. The latter is a grounding, something which I an many others crave in life, because it is easy to get lost in dreams and develop unrealistic expectations without realizing you are doing it. Those few people in your life that can tell you to wake up and stop dreaming are the ones you need to hold onto most. They are the ones who will provide the greatest support in life because they will get you to where you need to go by providing guidance and letting you know full well when they think you're chasing a dead end - you don't always have to listen, that's not the point, the point is that their advice and their experience is shared out of genuine love, not out of lip service.
In the rare instance where I do have an opinion on the behaviour of an individual in my life or connected to me, where we don't have the sort of relationship where we can actually talk about it, I don't write about it. That's part of the reason why certain topics have never been written about here on this blog, and again part of the reason why they never will. So if you're reading a post and wondering if it's about you, it's not. If you are still paranoid or concerned that it may be, then ask me directly, and I will tell you myself.
Is it personal?
There have been a few posts I have written on this blog about topics that were inspired by or centred around a specific person and their actions. It's very rare that I will name the person involved, usually out of respect for their privacy, but even when it is someone in the public eye or someone very well known, I still prefer not to name them. Legal reasons aside, slander and libel etc, there is often a case where the actions or behaviour that I refer to isn't speculative but is rather well documented so within the law you can still say everything you want to in regard to the topic at hand. Still of all there is a discretion in the practice of not naming those people in particular.
We often say "it's not personal" and follow it up with an addendum such as "it's business" or "it's politics" or whatever else you want to add. The truth however is that everything we do, is done as an individual, even when we work as part of a collective, we still act as an individual. There are psychological implications with regards to responsibility and in particular collective responsibility or deferred responsibility that emerge when we are part of a collective or a chain of command, in those situations we consider whoever we work with or for, to be responsible for our actions but again there is the argument to be made that there always remains a choice no matter how difficult that choice may be to make, it remains a choice. The only situations where this does not truly apply are those where we are forced into behaving in a particular way, either physically or through coercion and manipulation. Therein lies the fine line between complacency and compliance. The former is to act under your own agency despite your desires not to do so. The latter is to act under the agency of another.
When it comes to most topics I discuss on this blog, the view point I express is either my own, or an attempt to play Devil's Advocate in contemplation of alternative view points I don't agree with myself. It's therefore not a reliable measure to use the opinions and view points expressed here as a definitive guide to my thought processes. Having said all of that, everything I write here is written because I choose to write it. There is no-one forcing me to write any of this and as such the only responsibility for the content I publish lies with me. Criticism in that respect of anything written here is ultimately a criticism of me personally as this work is an extension of me.
There are those who like to perpetuate the separation of business and personal life, but I don't accept that separation. If you act in a given way in business, I conclude that behaviour is also behaviour you are capable of directing towards people in your personal life, you just choose not to do so. A person who is ruthless in business, is a ruthless person - period. Whether they choose to act in such a way in their personal life is irrelevant. There is a point here that I have chosen to live by when it comes to my assessment of other people - the way someone treats other people is the way they will eventually treat you. If someone acts in an unreasonable way towards others, no matter who they are, you should take that as an indication that they will act in that way towards you eventually when you no longer give them whatever is cause for them not to do so right now - and in many cases even when you do keep giving them what they want, they still end up treating you that way in the end.
When it comes to other people who I do not name on this blog, I make that choice because I don't believe in directing criticism at an individual unless they have behaved in a way that is totally reckless and irresponsible. There are few people I would therefore consider to have crossed that line. Behaviours are often reinforced by our environment and it is often the case that those who behave in a certain way, do so because they have never been told they shouldn't or they have been in an environment that whilst this sentiment is expressed, there is no reprehension for actually crossing that line.
If you take the law for example, almost everyone reading this blog would agree the law is there to be followed almost all the time, there are situations you can foresee where you would bend the law or even break it entirely. This admission is an acknowledgement that the law, as much as social convention, is there as a guide. With law itself there are bodies intended to enforce it, and there are punishments that can be given if you are charged for breaking it. A law in and of itself does not stop you from breaking it. A law can't control your behaviour, or the way you think. How you act and how you behave is controlled by you and in most cases you alone. The complacency therefore comes when you act in a given way and evade the punishment that such behaviour would warrant. This is the same for social convention. The environment we find ourselves within, will ultimately influence our perception of social convention much more than what we know of society's expectations as a whole. If you are surrounded by people who show no regard for certain social conventions whatsoever, then you are likely to develop the same mentality too. Granted this is not always the case, there is a question of willpower and conformity here, but in the majority of cases, people will conform.
I don't make excuses for people and the way they behave, I do however observe. I don't pass judgement on people until they give me a reason to judge them. I consider myself to have an open mind, but my beliefs and my experience is engrained at this point. I have seen enough and experienced enough of the world and what it has to offer to be able to form realistic expectations of how it will react, not just how it is supposed to react, but how it will actually react. For me to change my point of view it would take more than just logic, reason, and arguments to make me change my point of view. At least when it comes to experience that is. If I have experienced to the contrary, then it will take experiences to change my point of view. When it comes to criticizing other people and their behaviour and their actions, the only way I am going to change my point of view of those people is to see behaviour and actions that create a new experience to prove that this time is different, that they are either the exception or a demonstration that the world has changed and moved on. It is for that reason, and the fact that I cannot personally experience most of these peoples' behaviours first hand, that I choose not to pick out individuals, but rather, focus on the behaviour and the action in itself and to make comment based on my experience and my own observations of the world.
We often say "it's not personal" and follow it up with an addendum such as "it's business" or "it's politics" or whatever else you want to add. The truth however is that everything we do, is done as an individual, even when we work as part of a collective, we still act as an individual. There are psychological implications with regards to responsibility and in particular collective responsibility or deferred responsibility that emerge when we are part of a collective or a chain of command, in those situations we consider whoever we work with or for, to be responsible for our actions but again there is the argument to be made that there always remains a choice no matter how difficult that choice may be to make, it remains a choice. The only situations where this does not truly apply are those where we are forced into behaving in a particular way, either physically or through coercion and manipulation. Therein lies the fine line between complacency and compliance. The former is to act under your own agency despite your desires not to do so. The latter is to act under the agency of another.
When it comes to most topics I discuss on this blog, the view point I express is either my own, or an attempt to play Devil's Advocate in contemplation of alternative view points I don't agree with myself. It's therefore not a reliable measure to use the opinions and view points expressed here as a definitive guide to my thought processes. Having said all of that, everything I write here is written because I choose to write it. There is no-one forcing me to write any of this and as such the only responsibility for the content I publish lies with me. Criticism in that respect of anything written here is ultimately a criticism of me personally as this work is an extension of me.
There are those who like to perpetuate the separation of business and personal life, but I don't accept that separation. If you act in a given way in business, I conclude that behaviour is also behaviour you are capable of directing towards people in your personal life, you just choose not to do so. A person who is ruthless in business, is a ruthless person - period. Whether they choose to act in such a way in their personal life is irrelevant. There is a point here that I have chosen to live by when it comes to my assessment of other people - the way someone treats other people is the way they will eventually treat you. If someone acts in an unreasonable way towards others, no matter who they are, you should take that as an indication that they will act in that way towards you eventually when you no longer give them whatever is cause for them not to do so right now - and in many cases even when you do keep giving them what they want, they still end up treating you that way in the end.
When it comes to other people who I do not name on this blog, I make that choice because I don't believe in directing criticism at an individual unless they have behaved in a way that is totally reckless and irresponsible. There are few people I would therefore consider to have crossed that line. Behaviours are often reinforced by our environment and it is often the case that those who behave in a certain way, do so because they have never been told they shouldn't or they have been in an environment that whilst this sentiment is expressed, there is no reprehension for actually crossing that line.
If you take the law for example, almost everyone reading this blog would agree the law is there to be followed almost all the time, there are situations you can foresee where you would bend the law or even break it entirely. This admission is an acknowledgement that the law, as much as social convention, is there as a guide. With law itself there are bodies intended to enforce it, and there are punishments that can be given if you are charged for breaking it. A law in and of itself does not stop you from breaking it. A law can't control your behaviour, or the way you think. How you act and how you behave is controlled by you and in most cases you alone. The complacency therefore comes when you act in a given way and evade the punishment that such behaviour would warrant. This is the same for social convention. The environment we find ourselves within, will ultimately influence our perception of social convention much more than what we know of society's expectations as a whole. If you are surrounded by people who show no regard for certain social conventions whatsoever, then you are likely to develop the same mentality too. Granted this is not always the case, there is a question of willpower and conformity here, but in the majority of cases, people will conform.
I don't make excuses for people and the way they behave, I do however observe. I don't pass judgement on people until they give me a reason to judge them. I consider myself to have an open mind, but my beliefs and my experience is engrained at this point. I have seen enough and experienced enough of the world and what it has to offer to be able to form realistic expectations of how it will react, not just how it is supposed to react, but how it will actually react. For me to change my point of view it would take more than just logic, reason, and arguments to make me change my point of view. At least when it comes to experience that is. If I have experienced to the contrary, then it will take experiences to change my point of view. When it comes to criticizing other people and their behaviour and their actions, the only way I am going to change my point of view of those people is to see behaviour and actions that create a new experience to prove that this time is different, that they are either the exception or a demonstration that the world has changed and moved on. It is for that reason, and the fact that I cannot personally experience most of these peoples' behaviours first hand, that I choose not to pick out individuals, but rather, focus on the behaviour and the action in itself and to make comment based on my experience and my own observations of the world.
False Memory
There is a state of mind known within the field of Psychiatry as confabulation. This state of mind is characterized by altered memories. I have written about the nature of Nostalgia and the impact it can have on our memory where it paints over the cracks, confabulation takes this idea to a greater extreme. Where nostalgia can be seen simply as a reminiscence over past events that idealizes those events, confabulation on the other hand actually alters the memory itself. Where nostalgia discards the negatives over time and retains some truth of the original experience, confabulation rewrites the memory in part or entirely. The negatives alone no longer become the elements which change, but the memory as a whole changes.
There can be many triggers and reasons why confabulation occurs, but the key requirement is that it be involuntary. In other words it has to be an alteration of memory that manifests itself not because the individual actively sought to rewrite their memory. There is therefore no intended deceit as there would be if you were to lie about something you recalled. The other conclusion that can be drawn from this requirement is that the original memory is then lost as any recollection of the original would countermand the confabulation.
There are physical and physiological conditions that can lead to confabulation, there are also neurological conditions that can also lead to it. This means that it is almost always a symptom of another condition. What is interesting about this state of mind is that although it often indicates an underlying condition, it doesn't imply there has to be one. Like a headache or a cough, these symptoms often indicate some underlying condition but in certain scenarios they can manifest in perfectly healthy individuals given their environment or some other mitigating factor.
What's scary about this state of mind is that it is hard to diagnose. Not only because verifying the original experience is difficult, but also because those who exhibit confabulation often have no idea whatsoever that their memories have been altered. Secondary memories can lead us to conclude that things we recall never actually happened the way we recall them. For example if our primary memory of focus is a given event happening on a set date which we can't verify, then recollection of secondary memories not even linked to the first but pertaining to dates that we can verify can prove the primary memory is inaccurate.
False memory detection is not only difficult, it poses an ethical question for those who treat patients that exhibit false memories - this question is whether or not the true memory should be recovered if possible. You might think the obvious answer to this question is yes it should, however this answer relies on faith in the Psychiatric field to be able to adequately handle whatever is revealed. There are some things that cannot be tackled, either because the patient is unable or unwilling to tackle them, or because the impact they have on the patient can't be treated.
Despite the moniker often given to antidepressants as "happy pills" they are anything but. Antidepressants simply disable the part of the brain, or more accurately they repress the part of the brain that deals with emotional extremes in an attempt to keep the patient "level" as long as possible. Antidepressants do not make you happy, but they don't make you sad either. They don't change anything in the long run and there is evidence that the body can build a resistance to them. A condition known as Treatment Resistant Depression can develop, for some patients this is their starting point before taking any antidepressants at all - they don't work for everyone.
If you possessed a memory that was altered over time, there is likely a reason why it was altered. It is often more prudent to try and discern why a memory may have been altered first before deciding to try and restore it. To use an analogy, if there is a vault that has clearly been damaged intentionally to prevent it from being opened, it would be wise to try and figure out why whoever damaged it did not want it to be opened, before you try to open it yourself. We can say that our unconscious mind is an arbiter when it comes to our memories. They do not remain in our conscious or our subconscious for very long unless they are something we fixate on. The long term location of our memory is deep within our unconscious mind where it is processed near constantly when the unconscious mind is playing out scenarios attempting to predict the outcome. It is therefore a reasonable conclusion that any memory it had to alter was therefore having a significant impact on its ability to function and that it became necessary to alter the memory in order to create more accurate models.
It is easy to make the argument that you alone can't talk yourself down from every edge, that you can't logic or reason your way out of every problem. It becomes necessary to engage with other people who possess knowledge and insight that we do not. It is also easy therefore to argue that the only reason the unconscious mind would alter a memory is because it was something you alone could not process. If that is the case then it is reasonable to conclude that whether or not you could overcome it once revealed would entirely depend on who you engage with now and whether or not it would be something they could process. Again this comes back to a question of faith, whether you believe the person who wants to help you restore the memory could actually "fix" whatever problems arise because of it being restored.
The fact that those with false memories are often completely unaware of that fact brings up an interesting question. You sit reading this post and have memories of your life. If any of those memories turned out to be untrue, altered long ago by your unconscious mind, would you actually want to know what the real memory was?
There can be many triggers and reasons why confabulation occurs, but the key requirement is that it be involuntary. In other words it has to be an alteration of memory that manifests itself not because the individual actively sought to rewrite their memory. There is therefore no intended deceit as there would be if you were to lie about something you recalled. The other conclusion that can be drawn from this requirement is that the original memory is then lost as any recollection of the original would countermand the confabulation.
There are physical and physiological conditions that can lead to confabulation, there are also neurological conditions that can also lead to it. This means that it is almost always a symptom of another condition. What is interesting about this state of mind is that although it often indicates an underlying condition, it doesn't imply there has to be one. Like a headache or a cough, these symptoms often indicate some underlying condition but in certain scenarios they can manifest in perfectly healthy individuals given their environment or some other mitigating factor.
What's scary about this state of mind is that it is hard to diagnose. Not only because verifying the original experience is difficult, but also because those who exhibit confabulation often have no idea whatsoever that their memories have been altered. Secondary memories can lead us to conclude that things we recall never actually happened the way we recall them. For example if our primary memory of focus is a given event happening on a set date which we can't verify, then recollection of secondary memories not even linked to the first but pertaining to dates that we can verify can prove the primary memory is inaccurate.
False memory detection is not only difficult, it poses an ethical question for those who treat patients that exhibit false memories - this question is whether or not the true memory should be recovered if possible. You might think the obvious answer to this question is yes it should, however this answer relies on faith in the Psychiatric field to be able to adequately handle whatever is revealed. There are some things that cannot be tackled, either because the patient is unable or unwilling to tackle them, or because the impact they have on the patient can't be treated.
Despite the moniker often given to antidepressants as "happy pills" they are anything but. Antidepressants simply disable the part of the brain, or more accurately they repress the part of the brain that deals with emotional extremes in an attempt to keep the patient "level" as long as possible. Antidepressants do not make you happy, but they don't make you sad either. They don't change anything in the long run and there is evidence that the body can build a resistance to them. A condition known as Treatment Resistant Depression can develop, for some patients this is their starting point before taking any antidepressants at all - they don't work for everyone.
If you possessed a memory that was altered over time, there is likely a reason why it was altered. It is often more prudent to try and discern why a memory may have been altered first before deciding to try and restore it. To use an analogy, if there is a vault that has clearly been damaged intentionally to prevent it from being opened, it would be wise to try and figure out why whoever damaged it did not want it to be opened, before you try to open it yourself. We can say that our unconscious mind is an arbiter when it comes to our memories. They do not remain in our conscious or our subconscious for very long unless they are something we fixate on. The long term location of our memory is deep within our unconscious mind where it is processed near constantly when the unconscious mind is playing out scenarios attempting to predict the outcome. It is therefore a reasonable conclusion that any memory it had to alter was therefore having a significant impact on its ability to function and that it became necessary to alter the memory in order to create more accurate models.
It is easy to make the argument that you alone can't talk yourself down from every edge, that you can't logic or reason your way out of every problem. It becomes necessary to engage with other people who possess knowledge and insight that we do not. It is also easy therefore to argue that the only reason the unconscious mind would alter a memory is because it was something you alone could not process. If that is the case then it is reasonable to conclude that whether or not you could overcome it once revealed would entirely depend on who you engage with now and whether or not it would be something they could process. Again this comes back to a question of faith, whether you believe the person who wants to help you restore the memory could actually "fix" whatever problems arise because of it being restored.
The fact that those with false memories are often completely unaware of that fact brings up an interesting question. You sit reading this post and have memories of your life. If any of those memories turned out to be untrue, altered long ago by your unconscious mind, would you actually want to know what the real memory was?
The Price Of Ignorance
How many times in your life have you ended up back at square one? The idea of having to start over, or go back to the beginning and try again, this idea is often seen as something negative but at times there can be many things to gain from doing this by choice, rather than finding yourself back there because of something or someone that caused you to end up back there against your will.
One of the reasons we think of going back to square one as a bad thing is because we think about everything we have achieved, and feel fatigue, both mental and physical at the thought of having to do it all over again; yet, when we think about the idea of time travel or the idea that we could literally go back in time to another point in our lives, knowing what we know now, we often dream of how different the path we would walk could be. We don't give much thought to the reality that you are here, present in this moment with all the knowledge and experience that you hold, with the freedom to make that choice to start over - yes it probably won't be easy, but life rarely is, even if you continue with your life as it is now, eventually you will be presented with hurdles you must jump over. Life is not without obstacles, past or present. The idea that you could go back in time with foreknowledge of the future and change the course of your own history is also presumptive by nature, you make the assumption that history would continue as you remembered it but with the changes you make, little thought is given to the idea that once you make that first change your entire future from that point onward could also change and you would then have no advantage as you would have no idea what the future held - in other words you would be exactly where you are now, just in a different year.
When we play games we progress through a story or a campaign as far as we can get, but when we get no further, or when the weight of our past choices begin to mount up like the mistakes you made in the game of Tetris, we often end up starting over, either by choice or as a consequence of failure. When we start again however we have experience that can guide us, new skills that we acquired, and hopefully a greater understanding of the game we are playing. Some of the games I like to play the most like Minecraft as an example are games that we benefit from starting over as we shed the confines of the worlds we created and get to approach our new world with a new vision. Other games however have a much more defined linear path, these games are those we often associate with time travel as we assume travelling back in time with what we now know would allow us to play through the same story, "new game plus" in effect, but life is not so rigid, life is much more akin to Minecraft in its open-endedness, starting over offers little advantage beyond the preparation you hold at the start, which quickly falls away.
There are many things in life you only get to do once, of that we can agree. For most people their education for example is something they only get to experience once, primarily due to the cost; doing it a second time around can be difficult for many reasons, but cost remains the biggest barrier for many - here in the UK for example you get to progress through further education for free only once, and through higher education with loans and grants that are only given to you once; if you want to do another degree at the same level you have to fund it yourself. There are ways to fund further study of course, but not all of these means will suit or even be options for most people. In defeat we must admit for most people then there is only one chance, starting over isn't really an option in this regard.
Beyond things like education, we also find ourselves limited in many of our experiences; certain events in our life can only happen once, we may be able to repeat them but we never get to experience it the way we did the first time, we can never recapture that innocence that comes with ignorance. Once you know how the trick is done, it's hard to enjoy the illusion, but what if you could? What if you had the option, to forget, and start over, would you take it? If I offered you a pill like Neo in the Matrix, that could fundamentally shift your perception of the world, would you want to take it? In the Matrix, Cypher became disillusioned with the real world, to the point where he was willing to betray everyone around him for the chance to be reinserted into the Matrix, forgetting everything about the real world. Of course you can debate whether the Agents had any intention of delivering their part of the bargain or whether they would simply kill him once they got what they wanted, but that's not really relevant here. What is relevant is the price of ignorance, if it could be bought, what would you want to forget, and how much would you pay to be able to forget it and regain that innocence?
One of the reasons we think of going back to square one as a bad thing is because we think about everything we have achieved, and feel fatigue, both mental and physical at the thought of having to do it all over again; yet, when we think about the idea of time travel or the idea that we could literally go back in time to another point in our lives, knowing what we know now, we often dream of how different the path we would walk could be. We don't give much thought to the reality that you are here, present in this moment with all the knowledge and experience that you hold, with the freedom to make that choice to start over - yes it probably won't be easy, but life rarely is, even if you continue with your life as it is now, eventually you will be presented with hurdles you must jump over. Life is not without obstacles, past or present. The idea that you could go back in time with foreknowledge of the future and change the course of your own history is also presumptive by nature, you make the assumption that history would continue as you remembered it but with the changes you make, little thought is given to the idea that once you make that first change your entire future from that point onward could also change and you would then have no advantage as you would have no idea what the future held - in other words you would be exactly where you are now, just in a different year.
When we play games we progress through a story or a campaign as far as we can get, but when we get no further, or when the weight of our past choices begin to mount up like the mistakes you made in the game of Tetris, we often end up starting over, either by choice or as a consequence of failure. When we start again however we have experience that can guide us, new skills that we acquired, and hopefully a greater understanding of the game we are playing. Some of the games I like to play the most like Minecraft as an example are games that we benefit from starting over as we shed the confines of the worlds we created and get to approach our new world with a new vision. Other games however have a much more defined linear path, these games are those we often associate with time travel as we assume travelling back in time with what we now know would allow us to play through the same story, "new game plus" in effect, but life is not so rigid, life is much more akin to Minecraft in its open-endedness, starting over offers little advantage beyond the preparation you hold at the start, which quickly falls away.
There are many things in life you only get to do once, of that we can agree. For most people their education for example is something they only get to experience once, primarily due to the cost; doing it a second time around can be difficult for many reasons, but cost remains the biggest barrier for many - here in the UK for example you get to progress through further education for free only once, and through higher education with loans and grants that are only given to you once; if you want to do another degree at the same level you have to fund it yourself. There are ways to fund further study of course, but not all of these means will suit or even be options for most people. In defeat we must admit for most people then there is only one chance, starting over isn't really an option in this regard.
Beyond things like education, we also find ourselves limited in many of our experiences; certain events in our life can only happen once, we may be able to repeat them but we never get to experience it the way we did the first time, we can never recapture that innocence that comes with ignorance. Once you know how the trick is done, it's hard to enjoy the illusion, but what if you could? What if you had the option, to forget, and start over, would you take it? If I offered you a pill like Neo in the Matrix, that could fundamentally shift your perception of the world, would you want to take it? In the Matrix, Cypher became disillusioned with the real world, to the point where he was willing to betray everyone around him for the chance to be reinserted into the Matrix, forgetting everything about the real world. Of course you can debate whether the Agents had any intention of delivering their part of the bargain or whether they would simply kill him once they got what they wanted, but that's not really relevant here. What is relevant is the price of ignorance, if it could be bought, what would you want to forget, and how much would you pay to be able to forget it and regain that innocence?
Collective Achievement
Sometime during the 1970s and 1980s a hairdresser from Hartlepool in England named Maurice Ward created a substance known as Starlite. The substance remained quite obscure until the early 1990s when he received much publicity. Starlite was a polymer designed to be heat resistant. This concept wasn't anything new, what was new however was how remarkable his invention would prove to be. It was examined by NASA, the Atomic Weapons Establishment, and a chemical company named Imperial Chemical Industries all of which verified the substance was effective. Demonstrations showed the substance being applied to delicate objects including an egg and a human hand which were then subjected to extreme heat via a blowtorch. The substance not only shielded the objects, in the case of the egg it was shown to be cool to the touch and remained uncooked.
In 2011 Maurice Ward died, and with him the formula to produce Starlite also died. Despite the three organizations above having had access to the substance for testing, they were not permitted to keep samples and were not permitted to reverse engineer their own versions. We can debate whether or not they actually conformed to that mandate another time, but suffice to say to date the substance has not been reproduced. There have been others like it, but none that can be linked to Maurice Ward's invention.
What this curiosity demonstrates, is the idea that the advancement of human technology is not universal. We may have put men on the Moon and consider that an achievement for all mankind but in reality it was an achievement for a very select few of elites, paid for primarily by one government - the USA. No other nation has replicated the achievement, with only 12 white men all American having walked on the moon, only 4 remain alive today [at time of writing] not every nation on Earth could even create spacecraft to orbit the moon. 4 people out of the 7 billion people on Earth, therefore have walked on the Moon. Only 12 people out of the estimated 100 billion people who have ever lived have walked on the moon.
If an alien race were to visit Earth and stand in judgement of what we have achieved as a race, there are very few achievements we could actually claim to be Universal. Beyond the individual this is true of nations too, and even of supranational states that combine the resources of more than one country. This begs the question, what can we truly claim to be achievements of "mankind" as opposed to achievements of individuals or small groups of people - even if that "small" group encompasses a few thousand people involved in the projects.
The fact that Starlite was created by one man, shared for examination but not reproduced, and even now over 20 years later, approaching 30, we still can't replicate the achievement demonstrates the limitation of human knowledge - it is exclusive. Knowledge is not shared nor is it collective. We can only consume that which those who discovered it choose to share. That opens up a question of how to actually define how advanced humanity really is. What capacities do we have that only a few, even only one person possesses, and what capacities do we have that everyone can possess.
There are a number of companies now which are striving to make commercial space flight a reality. There have been significant advances in this field. The price tag for this endeavour however is incredibly high. Even when it becomes safe enough to become possible on a commercial scale, you will still need a lot of money to experience it. Money which the majority of people won't have. Whilst the achievement in itself would be impressive, if it can't be replicated and accessed on a wider scale, can you really claim it to be the level of technological advancement of "mankind" as a whole?
Turning back from the future and looking at the present as it stands, one can look at the world and see the divide between countries that are developed and those that are emerging markets of developing countries or as they used to be called, Less Economically Developed Countries. This divide isn't an even split. India is considered a developing country and has a population of 1.3 billion people, above it is China which whilst more developed than India is still not considered developed by most measures, it has a population of 1.4 billion. Together these two countries account for 2.7 billion people, that represents almost 40% of the world's population. Yet the divide between them is sizeable, and the divide between both and some of the other nations in the world is also mammoth, although that gap is closing.
If you were to ask me, what has mankind achieved, the only answer I can honestly give is war. This seems to be the only achievement that is Universal that every nation in the world has been involved with in some form or another throughout history. It is the only thing that every nation can do, although not every nation could actually win a war if they waged one against another. Having said that, my answer was simply war, I didn't say who with, and many nations have proven time and again they don't need an enemy beyond their borders to fight, they are perfectly capable of waging war against themselves.
The reason I would say war, and nothing else, is because I do not see humanity as a collective. I concede the point that it is bound by the universality of the human condition but I insist humanity is not a collective. The fact that this planet as a whole has no single government to represent it as a whole demonstrates this fact. Whilst the United Nations is the closest thing we have to a United World Government it has no executive power, it has no real power to enforce anything it convenes to discuss. The United Nations Security Council is viewed by some as a "World Police" or a body tasked with policing compliance with the UN as a whole but if recent years have been anything to go by, the UNSC is incapable of directing any real control over individual nations.
Earth is divided, by culture, by race, by economics, by (mostly) invisible lines that outline the boundaries of each country, by language, and by many other things. For me to give an answer other than war, I would need humanity to actually come together and work as a collective and there's no sign whatsoever of that happening. Returning to the idea of an alien race visiting Earth, if such an event were to ever happen, who would represent us as a Planet? Would you actually feel comfortable with <insert any world leader here> representing you? I've deliberately chosen not to specify an individual here because I have no idea what country you will be from reading this post but pick any world leader, excluding your own country's leader, and ask yourself how comfortable would you be with them representing you? For many of you, even picking your own country's leader might be something that is hard to stomach.
What has humanity as a whole achieved if humanity never acts as a whole?
In 2011 Maurice Ward died, and with him the formula to produce Starlite also died. Despite the three organizations above having had access to the substance for testing, they were not permitted to keep samples and were not permitted to reverse engineer their own versions. We can debate whether or not they actually conformed to that mandate another time, but suffice to say to date the substance has not been reproduced. There have been others like it, but none that can be linked to Maurice Ward's invention.
What this curiosity demonstrates, is the idea that the advancement of human technology is not universal. We may have put men on the Moon and consider that an achievement for all mankind but in reality it was an achievement for a very select few of elites, paid for primarily by one government - the USA. No other nation has replicated the achievement, with only 12 white men all American having walked on the moon, only 4 remain alive today [at time of writing] not every nation on Earth could even create spacecraft to orbit the moon. 4 people out of the 7 billion people on Earth, therefore have walked on the Moon. Only 12 people out of the estimated 100 billion people who have ever lived have walked on the moon.
If an alien race were to visit Earth and stand in judgement of what we have achieved as a race, there are very few achievements we could actually claim to be Universal. Beyond the individual this is true of nations too, and even of supranational states that combine the resources of more than one country. This begs the question, what can we truly claim to be achievements of "mankind" as opposed to achievements of individuals or small groups of people - even if that "small" group encompasses a few thousand people involved in the projects.
The fact that Starlite was created by one man, shared for examination but not reproduced, and even now over 20 years later, approaching 30, we still can't replicate the achievement demonstrates the limitation of human knowledge - it is exclusive. Knowledge is not shared nor is it collective. We can only consume that which those who discovered it choose to share. That opens up a question of how to actually define how advanced humanity really is. What capacities do we have that only a few, even only one person possesses, and what capacities do we have that everyone can possess.
There are a number of companies now which are striving to make commercial space flight a reality. There have been significant advances in this field. The price tag for this endeavour however is incredibly high. Even when it becomes safe enough to become possible on a commercial scale, you will still need a lot of money to experience it. Money which the majority of people won't have. Whilst the achievement in itself would be impressive, if it can't be replicated and accessed on a wider scale, can you really claim it to be the level of technological advancement of "mankind" as a whole?
Turning back from the future and looking at the present as it stands, one can look at the world and see the divide between countries that are developed and those that are emerging markets of developing countries or as they used to be called, Less Economically Developed Countries. This divide isn't an even split. India is considered a developing country and has a population of 1.3 billion people, above it is China which whilst more developed than India is still not considered developed by most measures, it has a population of 1.4 billion. Together these two countries account for 2.7 billion people, that represents almost 40% of the world's population. Yet the divide between them is sizeable, and the divide between both and some of the other nations in the world is also mammoth, although that gap is closing.
If you were to ask me, what has mankind achieved, the only answer I can honestly give is war. This seems to be the only achievement that is Universal that every nation in the world has been involved with in some form or another throughout history. It is the only thing that every nation can do, although not every nation could actually win a war if they waged one against another. Having said that, my answer was simply war, I didn't say who with, and many nations have proven time and again they don't need an enemy beyond their borders to fight, they are perfectly capable of waging war against themselves.
The reason I would say war, and nothing else, is because I do not see humanity as a collective. I concede the point that it is bound by the universality of the human condition but I insist humanity is not a collective. The fact that this planet as a whole has no single government to represent it as a whole demonstrates this fact. Whilst the United Nations is the closest thing we have to a United World Government it has no executive power, it has no real power to enforce anything it convenes to discuss. The United Nations Security Council is viewed by some as a "World Police" or a body tasked with policing compliance with the UN as a whole but if recent years have been anything to go by, the UNSC is incapable of directing any real control over individual nations.
Earth is divided, by culture, by race, by economics, by (mostly) invisible lines that outline the boundaries of each country, by language, and by many other things. For me to give an answer other than war, I would need humanity to actually come together and work as a collective and there's no sign whatsoever of that happening. Returning to the idea of an alien race visiting Earth, if such an event were to ever happen, who would represent us as a Planet? Would you actually feel comfortable with <insert any world leader here> representing you? I've deliberately chosen not to specify an individual here because I have no idea what country you will be from reading this post but pick any world leader, excluding your own country's leader, and ask yourself how comfortable would you be with them representing you? For many of you, even picking your own country's leader might be something that is hard to stomach.
What has humanity as a whole achieved if humanity never acts as a whole?
Creator and Content
If you consume content, does that consumption constitute an endorsement of its creator? This at first seems like a simple question to answer, but when you start to think about it and break it down, the lines become blurred and the two sides of the argument no longer create a definitive division. On the one hand you have the argument that content is distinct and separate from its creator, and as such should be appreciated for what it is. Like a child that should not be held to account for the actions of its parents. On the other hand you have the argument that content is forever linked to its creator and that no matter how much life of its own it takes on, the creator can never be completely severed from it. Like a child who may become legally emancipated from their parents, or estranged from them, the fact remains from a biological standpoint at least, they are still their parents no matter what they say or do.
It's easy to make the argument that you can appreciate a creative work for what it is, and feign ignorance of its creator, this argument however becomes harder to maintain when your ignorance is challenged. Consider a painting in your house that has been there for decades, one you quite like that you bought at some second hand shop or a car boot sale many years ago. You may like the painting and appreciate it for its artistic merit. You may also be blissfully unaware of who actually created it. What happens then, if you were to find out that painting was one of the many that Adolf Hitler painted? Would you still feel as comfortable with that painting hanging on your walls? Does the fact you now know who painted it override any appreciation of it and lead you to get rid of it?
There is the argument that this is an extreme example and is unrealistic. Whilst I accept there is truth in that, I believe the fact that Hitler created something as benign as a painting exemplifies the nature of the debate this post centres around. The point I am making is that even the people we can hate the most can still be creative. The very act of creation and the trait of creativity are not inherently good or evil, they are part of life, they're not even exclusive to humans, other animals have been shown to demonstrate creativity.
When it comes to the question of whether or not you can separate creator and content, or perhaps more specifically, creator and creation, there's no easy answer. Whilst you likely view the above example as extreme, you will more than likely concede in that situation you would draw the line. Where you draw the line however isn't easy to define, partly because you would need to contemplate every scenario in order to draw it definitively, and partly because we don't actually make up our minds until we are in the moment. We can say we would or would not behave in a certain way but as is so often the case, in the moment, what we thought we would do, sometimes gets thrown out the window.
In a world where social media is dominant, I have written before how this enables us to access creators more easily. Those that would have been impossible to even speak to decades ago because of the layers of publishers, marketing, distribution, and management, are now only a tweet away. Whether they reply on the other hand is an entirely different topic of conversation. For now let's simply focus on exposure. We are exposed through social media to much more insight into the creator than their work alone. In decades past you relied only on their creations and the limited information disseminated through interviews etc. Now you have an abundance of tweets, often in the order of thousands, that give you a tremendous insight into what that creator thinks about anything and everything.
When it came to the question of the Hitler painting above, your reaction was likely motivated by the fact that you knew who he was, you knew what he did, and you knew exactly whether you agreed with him or not. All of these things made you make a decision that was informed not by the content or the creation, but by the context.
There is a philosophy of sorts known as the death of the author. This philosophy states that once an author creates a work and releases it into the world they lose control of that work. It takes on a life of its own. The intent of the author becomes irrelevant, they can no longer give definitive answers to questions raised by the work because their answers are deemed from then on to be expressions of opinion and the meaning of the work itself becomes defined by those that read it and their interpretation thereof. This philosophy when extended to all creation would imply that all content and creations once created are no longer the creative property of the one that created them - this is in a metaphorical sense, there are legal restrictions and things like copyright that make this untrue in the legislative sense.
Taking those legal implications further there are also commercial implications too. It's not as much of a concern when talking about someone that died a long time ago, more of a concern in regards to those who are still living. By consuming their content in almost all scenarios the creator of that content gains some form of payment. This is often monetary although in other cases such as this blog the only payment is through increased exposure and some anonymous data if you chose to allow cookies or not.
To make the argument that consumption of content is not an endorsement of the creator, that is very difficult in the modern world owing to the fact that they receive payment and then use that payment however they wish. In other words, you consume the content, they get paid for your consumption, which in turn funds further creativity but also funds everything else in their life, including the activities which you may not agree with. You can't explicitly restrict the creator to using the payment only for future creativity. Even when you engage with someone who operates a business or produces content on an industrial scale, they still get a salary they pay themselves from that business which is paid from the revenue of that business so your consumption is funding their personal life as well as their profession. This is perhaps exemplified by social media campaigns that called for boycotts of large corporations such as Chick-fil-a in the wake of controversy, the ultimate intent of such boycotts being to restrict the use of the profits of consumption only to that which consumers approve - although not a creative output, this is a reiteration of the same question of separating producer and product.
Despite the obstacles that prevent us from pursuing this narrative and the futility of this endeavour, if we insist that the question is answered by saying you cannot separate creator and content any longer, then a new question emerges, was it ever justified to separate the two in the first place? If the answer is no, that puts you in an awkward state of cognitive dissonance over the Hitler painting. On the other hand if the answer is yes that it was once justified, then that raises the question of what has now changed and why you can now separate the two, the most likely answer as it appears for the most part is that we were simply ignorant before - able to live completely oblivious to what the creator actually did with the money we paid for their creations because of the fact that we just didn't know.
It's easy to make the argument that you can appreciate a creative work for what it is, and feign ignorance of its creator, this argument however becomes harder to maintain when your ignorance is challenged. Consider a painting in your house that has been there for decades, one you quite like that you bought at some second hand shop or a car boot sale many years ago. You may like the painting and appreciate it for its artistic merit. You may also be blissfully unaware of who actually created it. What happens then, if you were to find out that painting was one of the many that Adolf Hitler painted? Would you still feel as comfortable with that painting hanging on your walls? Does the fact you now know who painted it override any appreciation of it and lead you to get rid of it?
There is the argument that this is an extreme example and is unrealistic. Whilst I accept there is truth in that, I believe the fact that Hitler created something as benign as a painting exemplifies the nature of the debate this post centres around. The point I am making is that even the people we can hate the most can still be creative. The very act of creation and the trait of creativity are not inherently good or evil, they are part of life, they're not even exclusive to humans, other animals have been shown to demonstrate creativity.
When it comes to the question of whether or not you can separate creator and content, or perhaps more specifically, creator and creation, there's no easy answer. Whilst you likely view the above example as extreme, you will more than likely concede in that situation you would draw the line. Where you draw the line however isn't easy to define, partly because you would need to contemplate every scenario in order to draw it definitively, and partly because we don't actually make up our minds until we are in the moment. We can say we would or would not behave in a certain way but as is so often the case, in the moment, what we thought we would do, sometimes gets thrown out the window.
In a world where social media is dominant, I have written before how this enables us to access creators more easily. Those that would have been impossible to even speak to decades ago because of the layers of publishers, marketing, distribution, and management, are now only a tweet away. Whether they reply on the other hand is an entirely different topic of conversation. For now let's simply focus on exposure. We are exposed through social media to much more insight into the creator than their work alone. In decades past you relied only on their creations and the limited information disseminated through interviews etc. Now you have an abundance of tweets, often in the order of thousands, that give you a tremendous insight into what that creator thinks about anything and everything.
When it came to the question of the Hitler painting above, your reaction was likely motivated by the fact that you knew who he was, you knew what he did, and you knew exactly whether you agreed with him or not. All of these things made you make a decision that was informed not by the content or the creation, but by the context.
There is a philosophy of sorts known as the death of the author. This philosophy states that once an author creates a work and releases it into the world they lose control of that work. It takes on a life of its own. The intent of the author becomes irrelevant, they can no longer give definitive answers to questions raised by the work because their answers are deemed from then on to be expressions of opinion and the meaning of the work itself becomes defined by those that read it and their interpretation thereof. This philosophy when extended to all creation would imply that all content and creations once created are no longer the creative property of the one that created them - this is in a metaphorical sense, there are legal restrictions and things like copyright that make this untrue in the legislative sense.
Taking those legal implications further there are also commercial implications too. It's not as much of a concern when talking about someone that died a long time ago, more of a concern in regards to those who are still living. By consuming their content in almost all scenarios the creator of that content gains some form of payment. This is often monetary although in other cases such as this blog the only payment is through increased exposure and some anonymous data if you chose to allow cookies or not.
To make the argument that consumption of content is not an endorsement of the creator, that is very difficult in the modern world owing to the fact that they receive payment and then use that payment however they wish. In other words, you consume the content, they get paid for your consumption, which in turn funds further creativity but also funds everything else in their life, including the activities which you may not agree with. You can't explicitly restrict the creator to using the payment only for future creativity. Even when you engage with someone who operates a business or produces content on an industrial scale, they still get a salary they pay themselves from that business which is paid from the revenue of that business so your consumption is funding their personal life as well as their profession. This is perhaps exemplified by social media campaigns that called for boycotts of large corporations such as Chick-fil-a in the wake of controversy, the ultimate intent of such boycotts being to restrict the use of the profits of consumption only to that which consumers approve - although not a creative output, this is a reiteration of the same question of separating producer and product.
Despite the obstacles that prevent us from pursuing this narrative and the futility of this endeavour, if we insist that the question is answered by saying you cannot separate creator and content any longer, then a new question emerges, was it ever justified to separate the two in the first place? If the answer is no, that puts you in an awkward state of cognitive dissonance over the Hitler painting. On the other hand if the answer is yes that it was once justified, then that raises the question of what has now changed and why you can now separate the two, the most likely answer as it appears for the most part is that we were simply ignorant before - able to live completely oblivious to what the creator actually did with the money we paid for their creations because of the fact that we just didn't know.
How Big is the Internet
In a world dominated by social media it's easy to think the internet is drowning in content contributed by billions of people - this isn't the case. Your entire social media presence will amount to a few megabytes of data, if you include multimedia and images then it may amount to a few gigabytes at most.
Take twitter for instance, a tweet at 280 characters at 4 bytes per character equates to 1,120 bytes per tweet, or 1.12 Kilobytes. If you have 40,000 tweets that's 44.8 Megabytes of data, excluding the images. With 7 billion people in the world say 100 MB per profile on average, that equates to approximately 700 Petabytes [700 million Gigabytes] of data. That might sound like a lot but when you consider there are around 52 billion webpages [at the time of writing] the amount of data those social media accounts amount to is minuscule.
Researchers have tried to calculate the size of the internet many times but as it is forever expanding it's rather difficult to pin down. You also rely on someone or something to have indexed it all, and as omniscient as we like to think Google is, its index only accounts for a small fraction of the internet, the bulk of the internet isn't indexed and can't be reached by search engines. In other words you have to know it's there and where it is in order to find it. At the time of writing for instance Google's index stands at 52 billion web pages.
Current estimates put the size of the internet at around 1.1 to 2.2 Zettabytes [1.1 trillion Gigabytes] of data. These are based on approximations and assumptions about the type of data that that is stored, coupled with information about the total volume of traffic that passes through ISPs per month. For YouTube alone, 1 hour of video is uploaded every second to YouTube.
The fact that only a small section of the internet is indexed is fascinating and also scary. It's fascinating like the Universe itself the largest part of its composition being unknown. It's scary in terms of the potential for what that unknown contains. The "deep web" and "dark web" are terms often used to describe it. Some of its content has come to light over the years as containing all manner of content that is illegal and illicit. This type of content exists on the surface web too though, and only makes up a small percentage of its content, so the question is how much of the deep web is disturbing and how much of it would people actually want to explore?
Like the Universe itself there's a fascination to know what's out there, but if our imagination when it comes to science fiction as to what the universe may hold is anything to go by, we might not want to know the answer to that question.
Take twitter for instance, a tweet at 280 characters at 4 bytes per character equates to 1,120 bytes per tweet, or 1.12 Kilobytes. If you have 40,000 tweets that's 44.8 Megabytes of data, excluding the images. With 7 billion people in the world say 100 MB per profile on average, that equates to approximately 700 Petabytes [700 million Gigabytes] of data. That might sound like a lot but when you consider there are around 52 billion webpages [at the time of writing] the amount of data those social media accounts amount to is minuscule.
Researchers have tried to calculate the size of the internet many times but as it is forever expanding it's rather difficult to pin down. You also rely on someone or something to have indexed it all, and as omniscient as we like to think Google is, its index only accounts for a small fraction of the internet, the bulk of the internet isn't indexed and can't be reached by search engines. In other words you have to know it's there and where it is in order to find it. At the time of writing for instance Google's index stands at 52 billion web pages.
Current estimates put the size of the internet at around 1.1 to 2.2 Zettabytes [1.1 trillion Gigabytes] of data. These are based on approximations and assumptions about the type of data that that is stored, coupled with information about the total volume of traffic that passes through ISPs per month. For YouTube alone, 1 hour of video is uploaded every second to YouTube.
The fact that only a small section of the internet is indexed is fascinating and also scary. It's fascinating like the Universe itself the largest part of its composition being unknown. It's scary in terms of the potential for what that unknown contains. The "deep web" and "dark web" are terms often used to describe it. Some of its content has come to light over the years as containing all manner of content that is illegal and illicit. This type of content exists on the surface web too though, and only makes up a small percentage of its content, so the question is how much of the deep web is disturbing and how much of it would people actually want to explore?
Like the Universe itself there's a fascination to know what's out there, but if our imagination when it comes to science fiction as to what the universe may hold is anything to go by, we might not want to know the answer to that question.
On Demand
For most people those two words "on demand" will immediately make them think of TV shows, Movies, and streaming services that allow you to have immediate access to that content as and when you want to consume it. This concept however goes far beyond entertainment, at least in that sense of the word; it extends into almost every part of our lives now. There has been a lot of criticism over the years, that attacks and deconstructs the psychological impulse for immediate gratification and attempts to explain why we have developed this mentality - I've even written posts about the issue before from the same angle of breaking down the operant conditioning that existed where behaviour was rewarded with something desirable when a person exhibited desirable behaviour, but all of these approaches only address the issue of seeking the reward without having to exhibit the behaviour first, none of them attempt to address the behaviour in and of itself and why it was abandoned.
To give an example, using traditional entertainment, time was you would watch an episode of your favourite show and then have to wait a week before you could watch the next episode. This still exists today but is becoming increasingly uncommon. Services like Netflix are moving towards an all-at-once release schedule where an entire season is released in one go and you can watch it all back to back if you want, it's up to you to decide whether to ration it or not. The usual criticism of this model is that it encourages binge culture, where you are given the reward without having to exhibit the behaviour beforehand - in other words you get the pay-off without the work. What I would argue though is that this misses the real issue, that is the question of why the behaviour that was required in the first place is not desirable.
You might find yourself replying that the answer is obvious, nobody wants to wait if they have a choice to get it now they'll take it, but again that glosses over the real issue, that only explains the behaviour it doesn't explain the reasoning or the rationale. It doesn't tell you why people don't want to wait, and I'm not convinced the answer is simply because of greed or the desire to consume it now. My theory as to why this model is so desirable is actually because time has become a commodity, and people are entirely conscious of that fact. The reason people don't want to wait isn't because of greed then, it is because the time they would spend waiting is time that is wasted, time that could be spent doing something else instead. You might find yourself asking then why people who are waiting for something can't simply focus on other things until the time comes, and my only response to that question is that dividing your consciousness is actually quite difficult for most people. We like to think that we can all multi-task and do seven different things at once without efficiency or proficiency being affected but the reality is we can't.
When it comes to multi-tasking, I believe humans aren't actually capable of doing it. I would argue that a concept from computing - quite an archaic concept at this point - know as Round Robin Scheduling (RRS) is what is employed when you ask someone to do more than one thing at a time. For those that don't have a background in computing, RRS dates back many decades, I can't find the exact date but it is at least 30 years old now as a concept. RRS is a very primitive method used to achieve multi-tasking, it basically takes the processing time available and divides it into slices, then allocates one or more slices to each of the tasks that need to be completed, the intended result is that all tasks receive a share of processing time. There are more efficient ways to achieve multitasking with modern hardware using threading and multiple core processors, but back when we had computers that couldn't do more than one thing at a time because of physical limitations, this is how the illusion of multi-tasking was achieved. There was never a point where more than one thing was actually being processed when you look at the use of the algorithm, when each slice executed, only one task was being worked on.
In terms of the human mind and our thought processes, I believe this is also happening, whether we are aware of it or not. It's easy to argue the counter point but when you apply the same scrutiny to the discrete processing that any human carries out when performing multiple tasks you begin to see a number of things are apparent. Firstly, as I have mentioned in a previous post, our awareness is limited, we see only what we are looking for, and ignore everything else. This abstraction is common in our lives and the way we perceive the world. Give a person something that they have to think about for some time in advance and thoughts of that thing will begin to affect their productivity. If someone dreads the dentist for example, and they are given an appointment in 2 weeks time, then for the next two weeks in everything they do, the thought of the impending "doom" of that appointment will occupy the back of their mind. Returning to the concept of Round Robin Scheduling, what I believe happens in these moments is that a slice of your processing time is being assigned to that thought process, to the point where everything you do is impacted. The more things like this you have to worry about, the more slices of your time are consumed by those thoughts, until eventually the free time that remains to be allocated to other tasks becomes so small it becomes impossible to do anything productive.
Stop for a moment and think about your own life, how often have you found yourself in this situation, where despite your best efforts you just can't push something completely out of your mind, where you find it hard to focus on anything or give it 100% of your attention because of the other things you have to think about? More than this, how many times have you found yourself in a position where your idle time is constantly consumed by one or more thought processes that you just can't escape, where you can spend 10 hours doing anything at all, and in every moment you have a break, every time you stop, every time you pause, your mind instantly returns to that one thing you just can't escape.
I believe we are not capable of true multi-tasking, we are limited in our mental faculties and we have employed the same processing trickery on a physiological level as we did when we designed those primitive computers we once used. I believe it is for this reason above all else that we desire immediate gratification, not because of greed, or our inability to wait and be patient, but for the sad inescapable reality that we just want to get it over and done with - no matter how positive or enjoyable or pleasurable we may perceive that experience to be that we desire, the want to have it now is actually borne of the desire to get through it as quickly as we can, then return to whatever we spend the rest of our time thinking about.
To give an example, using traditional entertainment, time was you would watch an episode of your favourite show and then have to wait a week before you could watch the next episode. This still exists today but is becoming increasingly uncommon. Services like Netflix are moving towards an all-at-once release schedule where an entire season is released in one go and you can watch it all back to back if you want, it's up to you to decide whether to ration it or not. The usual criticism of this model is that it encourages binge culture, where you are given the reward without having to exhibit the behaviour beforehand - in other words you get the pay-off without the work. What I would argue though is that this misses the real issue, that is the question of why the behaviour that was required in the first place is not desirable.
You might find yourself replying that the answer is obvious, nobody wants to wait if they have a choice to get it now they'll take it, but again that glosses over the real issue, that only explains the behaviour it doesn't explain the reasoning or the rationale. It doesn't tell you why people don't want to wait, and I'm not convinced the answer is simply because of greed or the desire to consume it now. My theory as to why this model is so desirable is actually because time has become a commodity, and people are entirely conscious of that fact. The reason people don't want to wait isn't because of greed then, it is because the time they would spend waiting is time that is wasted, time that could be spent doing something else instead. You might find yourself asking then why people who are waiting for something can't simply focus on other things until the time comes, and my only response to that question is that dividing your consciousness is actually quite difficult for most people. We like to think that we can all multi-task and do seven different things at once without efficiency or proficiency being affected but the reality is we can't.
When it comes to multi-tasking, I believe humans aren't actually capable of doing it. I would argue that a concept from computing - quite an archaic concept at this point - know as Round Robin Scheduling (RRS) is what is employed when you ask someone to do more than one thing at a time. For those that don't have a background in computing, RRS dates back many decades, I can't find the exact date but it is at least 30 years old now as a concept. RRS is a very primitive method used to achieve multi-tasking, it basically takes the processing time available and divides it into slices, then allocates one or more slices to each of the tasks that need to be completed, the intended result is that all tasks receive a share of processing time. There are more efficient ways to achieve multitasking with modern hardware using threading and multiple core processors, but back when we had computers that couldn't do more than one thing at a time because of physical limitations, this is how the illusion of multi-tasking was achieved. There was never a point where more than one thing was actually being processed when you look at the use of the algorithm, when each slice executed, only one task was being worked on.
In terms of the human mind and our thought processes, I believe this is also happening, whether we are aware of it or not. It's easy to argue the counter point but when you apply the same scrutiny to the discrete processing that any human carries out when performing multiple tasks you begin to see a number of things are apparent. Firstly, as I have mentioned in a previous post, our awareness is limited, we see only what we are looking for, and ignore everything else. This abstraction is common in our lives and the way we perceive the world. Give a person something that they have to think about for some time in advance and thoughts of that thing will begin to affect their productivity. If someone dreads the dentist for example, and they are given an appointment in 2 weeks time, then for the next two weeks in everything they do, the thought of the impending "doom" of that appointment will occupy the back of their mind. Returning to the concept of Round Robin Scheduling, what I believe happens in these moments is that a slice of your processing time is being assigned to that thought process, to the point where everything you do is impacted. The more things like this you have to worry about, the more slices of your time are consumed by those thoughts, until eventually the free time that remains to be allocated to other tasks becomes so small it becomes impossible to do anything productive.
Stop for a moment and think about your own life, how often have you found yourself in this situation, where despite your best efforts you just can't push something completely out of your mind, where you find it hard to focus on anything or give it 100% of your attention because of the other things you have to think about? More than this, how many times have you found yourself in a position where your idle time is constantly consumed by one or more thought processes that you just can't escape, where you can spend 10 hours doing anything at all, and in every moment you have a break, every time you stop, every time you pause, your mind instantly returns to that one thing you just can't escape.
I believe we are not capable of true multi-tasking, we are limited in our mental faculties and we have employed the same processing trickery on a physiological level as we did when we designed those primitive computers we once used. I believe it is for this reason above all else that we desire immediate gratification, not because of greed, or our inability to wait and be patient, but for the sad inescapable reality that we just want to get it over and done with - no matter how positive or enjoyable or pleasurable we may perceive that experience to be that we desire, the want to have it now is actually borne of the desire to get through it as quickly as we can, then return to whatever we spend the rest of our time thinking about.
Ladder of Opportunity
Being a Teacher must be one of the most beautiful and the most depressing jobs in the world. Beautiful in respect of the romanticised notion that the children you work with are young, innocent, care free, filled with optimism, hope, and above all else potential. Depressing in respect of the fact that you as an adult know the reality of the world they will step into and understand that whilst you have hope they will go on to greater things and you strive to give them the best foundation to do that, the reality is that the majority of them will not.
In the UK, former leader of the Tory party William Hague admitted that social mobility had died and that 90% of workers in the UK never progressed beyond their entry level positions. That means only 1 in 10 people actually climb that metaphorical ladder when it comes to careers. Now he wasn't citing an actual statistic and you can dismiss it as hyperbole but the sentiment it expresses is something that people are increasingly waking up to the reality of - you're not going to climb much higher than wherever you are now. That's incredibly depressing for anyone who doesn't like where they are now.
For a teacher it must be quite miserable to look at a class of 30 students and think that only 3 of them will actually go on to do better than the environment they were born into.
We're led to believe there's a ladder we can climb up if we put the effort in to doing so, but that ladder was torn down long ago, replaced with an elevator that's out of order but the sign telling us this is missing, so we step inside and press the buttons and nothing happens. For the rare few it actually moves them up, and for the unlucky few the whole thing plunges down into the depths below.
The question of what to do about this broken system might not be to ask how to replace the ladder or the elevator or whatever metaphor you want to use for social mobility. The real question might simply be to ask why people want to move up in the first place, the answer to that is quite simple, the lower down you are the harder life is for you and the less opportunity you have, but what if life was comfortable? What if life at the bottom offered you enough opportunities to do what you want in life, would that negate the desire to move up? Probably not, as there is the question of greed too that can't be overlooked, some people want to move up for the simple reason that they want more, not for any altruistic reason but just for the sake of having more, those people are perhaps the ones who would never be content to stay where they are, regardless of how comfortable it was or what needs were already met. What about the people who aren't greedy though, would they be happy staying where they are if it was comfortable and offered opportunity?
In the UK perhaps more than anywhere else in the world we have an undercurrent of "class warfare" - this plays a part in British society and has done for centuries. To some it is this ideological conflict that motivates the desire to separate and segregate. What would happen if this were actually achieved? If social mobility really did die completely and nobody ever moved from one position to another whether that be because they aren't able to, or because there is no desire to do so, what impact would that have on society? There is the often touted statistic that divides those at the bottom and those at the top along the division of 99% and 1% respectively. This statistic if it holds true would mean that the population at the top is quite small. Small populations eventually succumb to a number of defects that stem from the limited gene pool, ultimately they are unsustainable. It becomes necessary for procreation to be managed in order to overcome these deficiencies, which in itself opens up a whole can of worms about selective breeding and eugenics which gets very dark and very twisted very quickly so let's pull back from that.
Assuming the two never mixed 99/1 there is the question of whether or not the 1% would actually survive in the long run. Part of the reason why the 1% of the population has never collapsed is because that 1% is not fixed. It is a statistical segregation, it's not a physical one. In practice the 99% and 1% mix all the time. In fact those who cross from one class to another are often labelled "class traitors" by those who hold more extremist views about social mobility. The defining line between the 1% and 99% is lower than you would think though. In the UK if you earn over £40,000 a year you are part of the top 1% of earners, those at the other end earn considerably more than £40k this demonstrates the difficulty using arbitrary divisions. As for savings, that's harder to define, what we can say however is that 60% of the UK has less than £100 in savings, so if you have more than that then you've already passed the median.
Those who hold extremist views are the most likely to be in favour of complete segregation, but would that actually have an impact? If the current 1% all died off, would their wealth be redistributed evenly? Again, probably not. Even if it was, how long would that new-found equality last? Would it be sustained or would a new 1% develop? I think the answer to that lies in historical precedent, the fact it emerged in the first place without any grand plan to create it is evidence that this division is something that manifests itself. The question is why?
In the UK, former leader of the Tory party William Hague admitted that social mobility had died and that 90% of workers in the UK never progressed beyond their entry level positions. That means only 1 in 10 people actually climb that metaphorical ladder when it comes to careers. Now he wasn't citing an actual statistic and you can dismiss it as hyperbole but the sentiment it expresses is something that people are increasingly waking up to the reality of - you're not going to climb much higher than wherever you are now. That's incredibly depressing for anyone who doesn't like where they are now.
For a teacher it must be quite miserable to look at a class of 30 students and think that only 3 of them will actually go on to do better than the environment they were born into.
We're led to believe there's a ladder we can climb up if we put the effort in to doing so, but that ladder was torn down long ago, replaced with an elevator that's out of order but the sign telling us this is missing, so we step inside and press the buttons and nothing happens. For the rare few it actually moves them up, and for the unlucky few the whole thing plunges down into the depths below.
The question of what to do about this broken system might not be to ask how to replace the ladder or the elevator or whatever metaphor you want to use for social mobility. The real question might simply be to ask why people want to move up in the first place, the answer to that is quite simple, the lower down you are the harder life is for you and the less opportunity you have, but what if life was comfortable? What if life at the bottom offered you enough opportunities to do what you want in life, would that negate the desire to move up? Probably not, as there is the question of greed too that can't be overlooked, some people want to move up for the simple reason that they want more, not for any altruistic reason but just for the sake of having more, those people are perhaps the ones who would never be content to stay where they are, regardless of how comfortable it was or what needs were already met. What about the people who aren't greedy though, would they be happy staying where they are if it was comfortable and offered opportunity?
In the UK perhaps more than anywhere else in the world we have an undercurrent of "class warfare" - this plays a part in British society and has done for centuries. To some it is this ideological conflict that motivates the desire to separate and segregate. What would happen if this were actually achieved? If social mobility really did die completely and nobody ever moved from one position to another whether that be because they aren't able to, or because there is no desire to do so, what impact would that have on society? There is the often touted statistic that divides those at the bottom and those at the top along the division of 99% and 1% respectively. This statistic if it holds true would mean that the population at the top is quite small. Small populations eventually succumb to a number of defects that stem from the limited gene pool, ultimately they are unsustainable. It becomes necessary for procreation to be managed in order to overcome these deficiencies, which in itself opens up a whole can of worms about selective breeding and eugenics which gets very dark and very twisted very quickly so let's pull back from that.
Assuming the two never mixed 99/1 there is the question of whether or not the 1% would actually survive in the long run. Part of the reason why the 1% of the population has never collapsed is because that 1% is not fixed. It is a statistical segregation, it's not a physical one. In practice the 99% and 1% mix all the time. In fact those who cross from one class to another are often labelled "class traitors" by those who hold more extremist views about social mobility. The defining line between the 1% and 99% is lower than you would think though. In the UK if you earn over £40,000 a year you are part of the top 1% of earners, those at the other end earn considerably more than £40k this demonstrates the difficulty using arbitrary divisions. As for savings, that's harder to define, what we can say however is that 60% of the UK has less than £100 in savings, so if you have more than that then you've already passed the median.
Those who hold extremist views are the most likely to be in favour of complete segregation, but would that actually have an impact? If the current 1% all died off, would their wealth be redistributed evenly? Again, probably not. Even if it was, how long would that new-found equality last? Would it be sustained or would a new 1% develop? I think the answer to that lies in historical precedent, the fact it emerged in the first place without any grand plan to create it is evidence that this division is something that manifests itself. The question is why?
Correction
I have a theory, it's rather far fetched but I think there's a ring of truth in it somewhere. People often ask why things in the world can at times seem like they are getting worse and that everything is bad. Now obviously that's not true, there's plenty of things going right we just don't focus on them enough or give them prominence. When it comes to the things that are going wrong however, I have a theory as to why things appear to get worse with time passing.
We live in a society where technology follows every movement we make, sometimes metaphorically, and sometimes literally. With technology invading our everyday life to such an extent there's an impact that isn't really talked about much - that is, the right to make a mistake. The EU introduced a privacy directive known as the 'Right to be forgotten' and when it did so it was met with derision by many people - why? There are those who claim that such a right would be exploited to cover up the past discretions of powerful people and that it would ultimately lead to censorship. The question I have in response to that is, why do you think you have the right to know?
When we live our lives, as human beings, it is inevitable that we will make mistakes. In the past when this was the case it was a lot easier to accept them, move on, and forget them. People were allowed to grow, and develop. There were always those people who remembered everything that happened no matter how big or small that may be, and they were often met with derision, regarded as gossips and people who ultimately didn't want to let people move on from their past. That impedance of growth is destructive to the individual, and when that mentality is extrapolated to society as a whole, it becomes destructive to society.
The right to admit you were wrong, and try and correct it, or move on if you can't, is something which has now been lost in society. People are held to their word no matter how salient or inconspicuous their remarks were. There is a belief that these people are "held to account" by doing this, but whilst that may be the case in some situations, in most however there is little reason to pin someone down to the person they were rather than the person they have become.
People grow, and peoples' point of view can evolve, and people who are incredibly close can become incredibly distant. Yet with the insidiousness of technology we now find ourselves in a place where every detail is recorded and can be invoked, every action can be taken and repeated, and every word we say or write can be copied and pasted. This isn't about denying that you ever did or said that which is quoted, this is about acknowledging the path and the growth that has occurred since.
This works in reverse as well. People recall the way you used to be and use that as their impression of you as a person. Whilst everything above is written in the context of someone who did something bad who now wishes to be good, you can take this idea and apply it to people who did something good, and now act in a way that is bad. The same mentality of holding on to the person they were rather than the person they have become is prevalent. This can lead to great abuse of that perception. Those who had relationships for instance that were once loving and have now become hateful, often hold onto the image of the person they loved, and don't see the person that now exists, leading them to stay in that place of abuse.
In both cases the point you must concede is that the actions of a person in the moment and going forward are more important than those of the past. The fact someone never killed you before shouldn't make you believe they wouldn't kill you now if there is evidence to suggest they would. You need to be present in the moment. The fact that someone killed many people in the past, equally, doesn't mean they would kill you now, although the immediate perception is to assume they would - again the problem is the lack of presence and the fixation on the past as an indicator of the present.
To better understand the actions of a person and their behaviour, you need to understand the motivation that exists or existed at the time. Motivation is not something that remains fixed, it fluctuates and changes form and focus constantly. When dealing with conflict and resolution, as well as the management of violence, aggression, or perceived aggression, it's important to be aware of the developing situation otherwise you won't be able to handle it effectively.
Society is filled with conflict, and much of that is fuelled by perception more than reality. The legacy of the past and the intense documentation of it, combined with the ease of access to that documentation creates an environment where you can frame any person's actions or current state with their previous actions. You can make people think quite easily that they will behave in the same way as before. If there's one thing human beings are however, it is not reliable. People are unpredictable, primarily because of emotion. If you take the parable of the human condition portrayed in movies like The Matrix, the underlying message conveyed by characters such as the Architect who attempted to account for all of humanity's actions, is that emotion creates chaos and chaos is inherently unpredictable.
The attempt to rationalize human behaviour and make it something logical and coherent is a pursuit of many industries. Advertising, Marketing, even Psychology itself all attempt to analyse human behaviour with the ultimate goal being to create models that can accurately predict how people will react in any given situation. Whilst there are successes and there are trends and leniences that can be cited as evidence for this being a fruitful endeavour, the fact that no universal model has ever emerged is evidence in itself that it's not possible to account for everything.
What does this have to do with deleting data and the right to be forgotten? Well, to have a system where every detail is recorded, catalogued, indexed, and searchable for citation is to have a system that implies human beings are infallible, that they don't make mistakes, that every record you can make is an accurate depiction or indication of the person that record pertains to. To have a system that actively encourages us to look at what a person did, more than what they are doing, is to have a system that places more weight and value on that which came before rather than that which is coming now. To have a system that values the past more than the present is to have a system that values the mistake, more than the attempts to correct it.
How then do you prevent the fixation on the mistake and shift the focus to the attempts to correct it? The answer is, for now at least, you can't. Attempts to do this have failed, and the right to be forgotten is an attempt to enable the mistakes to be deleted in order to force people to use newer information as a source. The reaction of society it seems was one of derision because of our fixation on the past. The reason I believe we are in a position where things feel like they are always getting worse is because with many things we're not allowed to fix the mistake, and when people try to correct theirs there is a desire to focus on the fact they were wrong to begin with, rather than what they are doing to try and fix it.
This mentality penetrates every part of society, ask yourself when was the last time you saw someone in the public eye admit they were wrong, and then ask what happened next. Where was the focus, and from memory what did they do to try and fix it? Take the time to actually look and research it and see if your memory actually lines up to reality.
We live in a society where technology follows every movement we make, sometimes metaphorically, and sometimes literally. With technology invading our everyday life to such an extent there's an impact that isn't really talked about much - that is, the right to make a mistake. The EU introduced a privacy directive known as the 'Right to be forgotten' and when it did so it was met with derision by many people - why? There are those who claim that such a right would be exploited to cover up the past discretions of powerful people and that it would ultimately lead to censorship. The question I have in response to that is, why do you think you have the right to know?
When we live our lives, as human beings, it is inevitable that we will make mistakes. In the past when this was the case it was a lot easier to accept them, move on, and forget them. People were allowed to grow, and develop. There were always those people who remembered everything that happened no matter how big or small that may be, and they were often met with derision, regarded as gossips and people who ultimately didn't want to let people move on from their past. That impedance of growth is destructive to the individual, and when that mentality is extrapolated to society as a whole, it becomes destructive to society.
The right to admit you were wrong, and try and correct it, or move on if you can't, is something which has now been lost in society. People are held to their word no matter how salient or inconspicuous their remarks were. There is a belief that these people are "held to account" by doing this, but whilst that may be the case in some situations, in most however there is little reason to pin someone down to the person they were rather than the person they have become.
People grow, and peoples' point of view can evolve, and people who are incredibly close can become incredibly distant. Yet with the insidiousness of technology we now find ourselves in a place where every detail is recorded and can be invoked, every action can be taken and repeated, and every word we say or write can be copied and pasted. This isn't about denying that you ever did or said that which is quoted, this is about acknowledging the path and the growth that has occurred since.
This works in reverse as well. People recall the way you used to be and use that as their impression of you as a person. Whilst everything above is written in the context of someone who did something bad who now wishes to be good, you can take this idea and apply it to people who did something good, and now act in a way that is bad. The same mentality of holding on to the person they were rather than the person they have become is prevalent. This can lead to great abuse of that perception. Those who had relationships for instance that were once loving and have now become hateful, often hold onto the image of the person they loved, and don't see the person that now exists, leading them to stay in that place of abuse.
In both cases the point you must concede is that the actions of a person in the moment and going forward are more important than those of the past. The fact someone never killed you before shouldn't make you believe they wouldn't kill you now if there is evidence to suggest they would. You need to be present in the moment. The fact that someone killed many people in the past, equally, doesn't mean they would kill you now, although the immediate perception is to assume they would - again the problem is the lack of presence and the fixation on the past as an indicator of the present.
To better understand the actions of a person and their behaviour, you need to understand the motivation that exists or existed at the time. Motivation is not something that remains fixed, it fluctuates and changes form and focus constantly. When dealing with conflict and resolution, as well as the management of violence, aggression, or perceived aggression, it's important to be aware of the developing situation otherwise you won't be able to handle it effectively.
Society is filled with conflict, and much of that is fuelled by perception more than reality. The legacy of the past and the intense documentation of it, combined with the ease of access to that documentation creates an environment where you can frame any person's actions or current state with their previous actions. You can make people think quite easily that they will behave in the same way as before. If there's one thing human beings are however, it is not reliable. People are unpredictable, primarily because of emotion. If you take the parable of the human condition portrayed in movies like The Matrix, the underlying message conveyed by characters such as the Architect who attempted to account for all of humanity's actions, is that emotion creates chaos and chaos is inherently unpredictable.
The attempt to rationalize human behaviour and make it something logical and coherent is a pursuit of many industries. Advertising, Marketing, even Psychology itself all attempt to analyse human behaviour with the ultimate goal being to create models that can accurately predict how people will react in any given situation. Whilst there are successes and there are trends and leniences that can be cited as evidence for this being a fruitful endeavour, the fact that no universal model has ever emerged is evidence in itself that it's not possible to account for everything.
What does this have to do with deleting data and the right to be forgotten? Well, to have a system where every detail is recorded, catalogued, indexed, and searchable for citation is to have a system that implies human beings are infallible, that they don't make mistakes, that every record you can make is an accurate depiction or indication of the person that record pertains to. To have a system that actively encourages us to look at what a person did, more than what they are doing, is to have a system that places more weight and value on that which came before rather than that which is coming now. To have a system that values the past more than the present is to have a system that values the mistake, more than the attempts to correct it.
How then do you prevent the fixation on the mistake and shift the focus to the attempts to correct it? The answer is, for now at least, you can't. Attempts to do this have failed, and the right to be forgotten is an attempt to enable the mistakes to be deleted in order to force people to use newer information as a source. The reaction of society it seems was one of derision because of our fixation on the past. The reason I believe we are in a position where things feel like they are always getting worse is because with many things we're not allowed to fix the mistake, and when people try to correct theirs there is a desire to focus on the fact they were wrong to begin with, rather than what they are doing to try and fix it.
This mentality penetrates every part of society, ask yourself when was the last time you saw someone in the public eye admit they were wrong, and then ask what happened next. Where was the focus, and from memory what did they do to try and fix it? Take the time to actually look and research it and see if your memory actually lines up to reality.
One-Track Mind
It's often said that men have only one thing on their mind, and that everything eventually leads to it. That one thing is usually sex. I've been thinking about the idea of having a "one-track mind" and what it actually represents. I decided to take a moment and think about the people in my life, friends, family, and people I have worked with, and thought about their thought patterns - insofar as I can with the limited exposure to their thought processes as I can get from a distance. I've realised that most people actually have a one-track mind, not in terms of sex specifically but in terms of driving forces and essentially, synaptic links. Now this is speculation, I can't examine their minds to actually confirm that but the evidence seems to point in that direction.
Take a moment and think about each person in your life, and think about the one thing you tend to associate with them more than anything. What topic of conversation does everything eventually lead back to? What belief or guiding principle do they relate everything else to?
There was a time when I was a moderator on an online forum, and although I never made the connection before, I have realised looking back that most members had a "thing" that they were known for. I've taken that realisation and looked at various social media platforms and I've been noticing a pattern that emerges. Whilst people have a wide range of hobbies and interests, there is always one thing that is prominent more so than any other. There is no general answer to the question of what that is, it varies from person to person. What I find fascinating about this revelation is that it doesn't just apply to real life experience, it also applies to the character development of fictional characters on TV shows and Movies. Whether those characters are meant to be believable or not is irrelevant.
This made me think of a cartoon series called My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. In the series every pony has a symbol on their rump called a cutie mark. The cutie mark represents whatever they are best at, or if you will, whatever their "calling" is or vocation for lack of a better explanation. I had a humorous thought of what the world would be like if people actually had cutie marks. What would they be? For some people it's rather easy to answer that question. As I said above, I came to the realisation that most people both real and fictional all seem to have at least one obsession that everything else in life can be related back to and even when you think it wouldn't be possible to link the two, they still find a way. What's more than this, for some people a 'cutie mark' does in fact exist in some way through the tattoos that they choose to get, which are usually representative of their passion or their interests.
The idea that every man thinks only about sex might actually be indicative that sex is actually the default obsession, and that those who have moved on to other obsessions are people who have moved beyond that primacy. This has led me to a rather amusing conclusion, that those people who seemingly have no defining interest or no obsession that you can immediately associate with them, are actually obsessed with sex, whether they express that openly or not. There is of course an extension of that theory which would say their obsession is actually something taboo or something they don't feel comfortable talking to other people about, which still may or may not be sex.
So, what is my obsession? What can I relate almost everything in life back to in my mind? For me that's hard to pick just one thing. Although I would say I can relate almost anything to politics or philosophy I wouldn't say either of those are really my obsession. I'd probably say if I had a cutie mark it would likely be something that represents writing, as that's something I have done for as long as I can remember. When I was kid I wrote on my computer although the first PC I had, my Amstrad CPC 464 didn't have any way to save what I wrote so none of it was preserved. In later years I got another desktop and eventually a laptop of my own. That laptop I would spend hours at a time sitting writing elaborate stories. Sadly due to hardware failure and general loss of disks and CDs over the years not much remains of what I wrote on it. On more than one occasion I accidentally formatted the hard drive without backing it up and lost quite a bit. You would think I became better with age but as recently as 2 or 3 years ago one of my external HDDs died and I lost hundreds of GB of data none of which was backed up.
In terms of the internet and blogs like this one, I have had many over the years. I ran websites on Geocities back in the day - I completely forgot that existed until a few months ago. I ran many others, each in their iterations served a purpose when I wrote them but all were deleted in the end. Services either closed down or the blogs I ran came to a natural end for me. Narrative composition is something of an interest that is growing on me even now as it gives me a way to start, process, and conclude ideas without the need to leave them open ended or return to them in future, in essence the finality of their self contained nature is their most appealing aspect for me right now. I'm continuing to explore this interest to see where it leads.
Take a moment and think about each person in your life, and think about the one thing you tend to associate with them more than anything. What topic of conversation does everything eventually lead back to? What belief or guiding principle do they relate everything else to?
There was a time when I was a moderator on an online forum, and although I never made the connection before, I have realised looking back that most members had a "thing" that they were known for. I've taken that realisation and looked at various social media platforms and I've been noticing a pattern that emerges. Whilst people have a wide range of hobbies and interests, there is always one thing that is prominent more so than any other. There is no general answer to the question of what that is, it varies from person to person. What I find fascinating about this revelation is that it doesn't just apply to real life experience, it also applies to the character development of fictional characters on TV shows and Movies. Whether those characters are meant to be believable or not is irrelevant.
This made me think of a cartoon series called My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. In the series every pony has a symbol on their rump called a cutie mark. The cutie mark represents whatever they are best at, or if you will, whatever their "calling" is or vocation for lack of a better explanation. I had a humorous thought of what the world would be like if people actually had cutie marks. What would they be? For some people it's rather easy to answer that question. As I said above, I came to the realisation that most people both real and fictional all seem to have at least one obsession that everything else in life can be related back to and even when you think it wouldn't be possible to link the two, they still find a way. What's more than this, for some people a 'cutie mark' does in fact exist in some way through the tattoos that they choose to get, which are usually representative of their passion or their interests.
The idea that every man thinks only about sex might actually be indicative that sex is actually the default obsession, and that those who have moved on to other obsessions are people who have moved beyond that primacy. This has led me to a rather amusing conclusion, that those people who seemingly have no defining interest or no obsession that you can immediately associate with them, are actually obsessed with sex, whether they express that openly or not. There is of course an extension of that theory which would say their obsession is actually something taboo or something they don't feel comfortable talking to other people about, which still may or may not be sex.
So, what is my obsession? What can I relate almost everything in life back to in my mind? For me that's hard to pick just one thing. Although I would say I can relate almost anything to politics or philosophy I wouldn't say either of those are really my obsession. I'd probably say if I had a cutie mark it would likely be something that represents writing, as that's something I have done for as long as I can remember. When I was kid I wrote on my computer although the first PC I had, my Amstrad CPC 464 didn't have any way to save what I wrote so none of it was preserved. In later years I got another desktop and eventually a laptop of my own. That laptop I would spend hours at a time sitting writing elaborate stories. Sadly due to hardware failure and general loss of disks and CDs over the years not much remains of what I wrote on it. On more than one occasion I accidentally formatted the hard drive without backing it up and lost quite a bit. You would think I became better with age but as recently as 2 or 3 years ago one of my external HDDs died and I lost hundreds of GB of data none of which was backed up.
In terms of the internet and blogs like this one, I have had many over the years. I ran websites on Geocities back in the day - I completely forgot that existed until a few months ago. I ran many others, each in their iterations served a purpose when I wrote them but all were deleted in the end. Services either closed down or the blogs I ran came to a natural end for me. Narrative composition is something of an interest that is growing on me even now as it gives me a way to start, process, and conclude ideas without the need to leave them open ended or return to them in future, in essence the finality of their self contained nature is their most appealing aspect for me right now. I'm continuing to explore this interest to see where it leads.
Can you convince yourself you are happy if you are not?
There's a performer I like whose work I quite enjoy, but they once said to feel happy they stand in front of a mirror and smile at themselves until they feel happy, they said if you do it long enough, you convince the body that you feel the emotion and it alters your state of mind. I find this idea disturbing. For one, I believe every emotion is valid, both positive and negative, and I believe that you should not repress those emotions. If you feel happy then you should feel happy, and if you feel sad then you should feel sad, emotions are a reflection of our mental and physical state, so they should be genuine.
If you were to break a leg, and you were to feel pain, and you were to try and walk on that leg and felt more pain, you would not continue to walk on it until you felt numb to that pain and were able to convince yourself that your leg is fine. There is an obvious reason why you wouldn't do this - because you broke the leg and pretending it isn't broken isn't going to fix it, and being able to numb yourself to the pain isn't going to fix it either.
When it comes to emotions as expressions of our inner state, it is important to be honest about them. If you were to actually take this person's advice, not only would you create a false sense of security, but you would actually put yourself in much greater danger, setting yourself up for a far greater fall when you confront your emotions in a state of mind that has allowed them to build in silent repression for too long. Returning to our analogy, if you were to convince yourself that your leg was fine and you were to go and do something that is intensive like ice skating, you would likely cause a severe injury that might cause your leg to go beyond the point of repair, making it impossible to fix something that could have been if you hadn't ignored it.
As people we seem much more willing to tolerate mental health problems than we do physical. If any physical illness causes us such distress and impacts our life to the point where living it day to day becomes difficult then we would seek out help. When it comes to mental health however, even when it becomes difficult to live our lives day to day, we are often reluctant to seek professional help. One reason people seem reluctant to do this in my opinion is the belief that if they seek help they will simply be offered medication and told to go home. That also happens with physical health too and can be a reason many people are reluctant to see a doctor until it becomes serious.
The trouble with waiting until something becomes serious, is that our perception of what is serious is often an underestimation, or to put it another way, things become serious much earlier than we are willing to admit. There is of course the melancholic contemplation that the reason we do this is because secretly everyone wants to die and life is about convincing both ourselves and other people that we don't. I guess that can only lead you to one question - deep down, do you want to live? If the answer is yes, then you need to tackle your health both physically and mentally. If the answer is no, then you need to tackle it all the more, with the mental component being the most pressing.
If you were to break a leg, and you were to feel pain, and you were to try and walk on that leg and felt more pain, you would not continue to walk on it until you felt numb to that pain and were able to convince yourself that your leg is fine. There is an obvious reason why you wouldn't do this - because you broke the leg and pretending it isn't broken isn't going to fix it, and being able to numb yourself to the pain isn't going to fix it either.
When it comes to emotions as expressions of our inner state, it is important to be honest about them. If you were to actually take this person's advice, not only would you create a false sense of security, but you would actually put yourself in much greater danger, setting yourself up for a far greater fall when you confront your emotions in a state of mind that has allowed them to build in silent repression for too long. Returning to our analogy, if you were to convince yourself that your leg was fine and you were to go and do something that is intensive like ice skating, you would likely cause a severe injury that might cause your leg to go beyond the point of repair, making it impossible to fix something that could have been if you hadn't ignored it.
As people we seem much more willing to tolerate mental health problems than we do physical. If any physical illness causes us such distress and impacts our life to the point where living it day to day becomes difficult then we would seek out help. When it comes to mental health however, even when it becomes difficult to live our lives day to day, we are often reluctant to seek professional help. One reason people seem reluctant to do this in my opinion is the belief that if they seek help they will simply be offered medication and told to go home. That also happens with physical health too and can be a reason many people are reluctant to see a doctor until it becomes serious.
The trouble with waiting until something becomes serious, is that our perception of what is serious is often an underestimation, or to put it another way, things become serious much earlier than we are willing to admit. There is of course the melancholic contemplation that the reason we do this is because secretly everyone wants to die and life is about convincing both ourselves and other people that we don't. I guess that can only lead you to one question - deep down, do you want to live? If the answer is yes, then you need to tackle your health both physically and mentally. If the answer is no, then you need to tackle it all the more, with the mental component being the most pressing.
Self Interest
Do you consume your own content? This might sound like an odd question to ask, but there is something deeper at play when you ask it of a person. If you are a creative person who is involved in the production of content for consumption, there is inevitably the question of whether you consume your own content. For example, does a singer listen to their own music? Does a game developer play their own game? Does a chef eat their own food?
Those three questions demonstrate the concept but the perception of those three isn't equal. Asking if a chef eats their own food seems like the most asinine, you would assume the answer is obviously yes they do. That's not exactly clear however whether it is true in practice. There are celebrity chefs here in the UK, one in particular who I won't name who has a vehement objection to junk food who could be considered to be on a crusade to eliminate it - the same chef is fat, and clearly does not eat healthy food all the time, or even in moderation. They didn't get that way eating the healthy balanced food they supposedly advocate.
Asking if a game developer plays their own games seems less asinine and more inquisitive because there is no instinctual answer. As for the singer, in their case there comes into play the concept of self indulgence and ego tripping, to the point where many people would actually find it egotistical if a singer actually said yes they did listen to their own music.
Beyond the disparity in perception, the very nature of the question ultimately comes down to something more fundamental - do you find yourself interesting? That's the real question that is being asked, as you and your work are inevitably associated to the extent that people perceive your work to be a definition of who you are as a person. If you create content that is dark, sombre, macabre, or noir, then people assume that's a representation of your personality, and that it indicates how you would be in life if they knew you. Whether or not this assumption and association is fair, isn't easy to answer.
For me personally, my work often revolves around what other people want. The only exceptions to this would be my writing which is something I write for myself first and foremost and if others find it interesting then that is a bonus. With regards to my writing, I have to consume my own content at times for the sake of proof reading etc, but I also consume it at other times too. I often look back on the things I wrote long ago to see how I have grown as a person, to see how my style has changed, and to an extent to get a glimpse into my mindset of that moment. The odd word or phrase that pops up in passing indicates thoughts and feelings that were prevalent in my head at the time.
As far as the work I create for other people is concerned, I rarely consume that content, if at all. In almost all situations it is created for someone else's purpose, to cater to their interests, and to be a representation of them not of me. If you relied on that as an indicator of who I am or what I am really like, you'd likely build up a representation that was the furthest thing from accurate as you can get.
Going back to the original question then, perhaps the answer can simply be defined by another question - who was that content created for? Still of all the question that underpins this whole inquiry is whether or not you find yourself interesting. I would like to think that most people do find themselves interesting, but I'm not exactly sure if that is a fair approximation, this is something I need to delve into a little deeper.
Those three questions demonstrate the concept but the perception of those three isn't equal. Asking if a chef eats their own food seems like the most asinine, you would assume the answer is obviously yes they do. That's not exactly clear however whether it is true in practice. There are celebrity chefs here in the UK, one in particular who I won't name who has a vehement objection to junk food who could be considered to be on a crusade to eliminate it - the same chef is fat, and clearly does not eat healthy food all the time, or even in moderation. They didn't get that way eating the healthy balanced food they supposedly advocate.
Asking if a game developer plays their own games seems less asinine and more inquisitive because there is no instinctual answer. As for the singer, in their case there comes into play the concept of self indulgence and ego tripping, to the point where many people would actually find it egotistical if a singer actually said yes they did listen to their own music.
Beyond the disparity in perception, the very nature of the question ultimately comes down to something more fundamental - do you find yourself interesting? That's the real question that is being asked, as you and your work are inevitably associated to the extent that people perceive your work to be a definition of who you are as a person. If you create content that is dark, sombre, macabre, or noir, then people assume that's a representation of your personality, and that it indicates how you would be in life if they knew you. Whether or not this assumption and association is fair, isn't easy to answer.
For me personally, my work often revolves around what other people want. The only exceptions to this would be my writing which is something I write for myself first and foremost and if others find it interesting then that is a bonus. With regards to my writing, I have to consume my own content at times for the sake of proof reading etc, but I also consume it at other times too. I often look back on the things I wrote long ago to see how I have grown as a person, to see how my style has changed, and to an extent to get a glimpse into my mindset of that moment. The odd word or phrase that pops up in passing indicates thoughts and feelings that were prevalent in my head at the time.
As far as the work I create for other people is concerned, I rarely consume that content, if at all. In almost all situations it is created for someone else's purpose, to cater to their interests, and to be a representation of them not of me. If you relied on that as an indicator of who I am or what I am really like, you'd likely build up a representation that was the furthest thing from accurate as you can get.
Going back to the original question then, perhaps the answer can simply be defined by another question - who was that content created for? Still of all the question that underpins this whole inquiry is whether or not you find yourself interesting. I would like to think that most people do find themselves interesting, but I'm not exactly sure if that is a fair approximation, this is something I need to delve into a little deeper.
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