Indulgence

9

If you’d like to imagine a roll of film, and see each letter flash along the screen as you feed it in–it seems impermanent, doesn’t it?

It flashes and dissipates faster than one could make out the letter’s shape.

Since it’s so inconsequential, we could thread together any sort of words we’d like, couldn’t we?

This is how we can model the general disposition toward words, most words. Sentences for some ideas to share.

I suspect it’s exactly the opposite though. I’d like to imagine the rolls of film as indestructible and stapled to your shoelaces. Maybe it eventually wears out and falls off, maybe in a year or two. You’re still going to drag it around though.

What does it mean to drag around these strings of translucent letters?

That’s what makes me weary.

It could mean nothing. We could pretend every sentence we write is flammable. Aim and ignite!

Yet I can’t shake it off. It very well may crawl up the leg or wrap around the ankle. Whispering and letting you know its permanence. Letting you know how it bleeds into the faucet for a sepia-tinted waterfall.

To let you know how it strangles the other words you’re about to form. To let it mold every sight you’re coming across. Contorting the sunset into a warzone.

I don’t want these things, these carelessly strewn together words, to have power over me. If they are to exist, you’d hope that they’d exist to help you.

Pick up one and it reads “I am not doing so hot” and so that’s the new hue around every sunset now.

Why not, instead, “It’s a pretty okay day, isn’t it?” since that’s the one too neutral to blemish the water sparkling in the distance.

What I once thought of as mere commentary now renders itself as rope to steer one into hellfire.

Wouldn’t you rather light a candle with these seemingly-flimsy letter-slips? Wouldn’t you rather wire it all together as a stairwell toward brighter lights?

No point in writing oneself into the tar.

Because you can, I think. It’s already happening, whether you want to or not–that is, writing oneself into the tarpit, or toward the amphitheatre to let it all resonate with the night. Straining out worthwhile memories. Worthwhile structures to peer through.

I guess the only deterrent, if it’s all true–that the wrong arrangment of letters will strangle you–is to practice some memory techniques.

Not for remembering, but forgetting.

8

When was the last time you felt a strong resonance? You could probably remember something. It could be as simple as a conversation.

It’s a nice feeling, affirming–on the path toward somewhere sort of confirmation. Some dare to call it a Synchronicity®.

When you start from a point of resonance, it sure does make sense to seek out “likeminded” folk and begin something, maybe. Your own utopia!

Yet the pace quickens. Those other people may no longer exist, whether due to the 20+ ideologies also acquired, or 50+ more waiting between websites.

Obviously wanting someone identical isn’t all that interesting. And another puzzle is that, even if you find these people through The Modern MatchMaker (internet) when do your lives collide? When do you impact one another’s life–false sense of security?

It all comes back to working within the confines of Professionalism. Not because one is cowardly–never letting a freak flag rise–but rather because it seems less and less likely resonance exists out there.

Even if one wrote away on a blog which had some sort of portal to the outside world, the amount of steps required and the potential downfalls wired, waiting, I don’t know.

There is a Game here, and more often than not the best way to Win The Game is to reevaluate why you’re playing.

7

A usual theme I keep in the backpocket isn’t necessarily tran-humanism, but still something along the lines of no longer being “human” in the typical definition.

For example, what happens if you took away all the typical emotions? Not to completely eliminate desire, but large chunks of desire that is (all in all) mostly unnecessary. Mostly sidestepping.

Or, for example, what happens if you took away all the typical social graces? It’s not what happens but rather when it begins to happen. It’s not what follows up but whether you’ll even see it follow up. Whether you’d ever be anything else other than human.

Most of the time walking around I imagine a solid crystal sphere centered in my chest, mind, permeating around as the Attentive Force of one’s existence. It’s not that crazy of an idea, but it’s something that I take along with me as I watch my body deteriorate, maybe. Or perhaps this body will last indefinitely!

Sometimes I look at others as extensions of my self, and I just don’t know it yet, but it makes it far easier to find it all amusing, and less likely to do anything else.

Long ago there was a need to interact with others. In some capacity. But these things washed away. And it’s easier to see it all washed away when you realize all you want to do is interact with your self, whether in this body or in another body.

Don’t you think it’s interesting that the human race exhibits hivemind capabilities? The concept of an individual crumbles ever so slightly which each butterfly roaming about.

Whenever I am moving along a conversation, sometimes there are moments where it feels like some sort of Something is talking through those I’m talking to. It sounds like the beginnings of schizophrenia, but I don’t think so. Do you feel like sometimes you’re delivered words in a way that seems strangely coincidental? Strangely devoid of the “characteristics” of whoever you’re talking to?

It’s like talking about some small stuff and next thing you know you’re getting into the essence of things, and the personalities melt away, and it makes me sympathetic to those who believe that we’re the dolls to a higher force (even though I’ll still hold close my pendant of free will).

I guess it’s due to these thoughts that I’ve little to no desire to talk to anyone as though it’s a purpose. A mission. If a conversation happens, so be it–this is the preferable mode of existence.

I no longer know what it feels like to want to interact, to crave and seek it out. So much so that it’s sometimes hard to figure out what is even worth writing. Most of the time I find it better to not talk at all, even to my self. But, again, this is all an exercise of indulgence. Maybe to confirm my suspicions that it was better to be the dumb deaf mute.

6

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a solvent for consciousness?

It’s another way to look at The Singularity, or however you want to put it. But the Wise Ones laugh away, seeing as we’re already Singular (apparently so!) apparently so.

If Telepathy were a thing (and it shall be, it already is, it was, it’s going to be, it’s been done and was done and has some doing) then would the written word still be circulating? You could guess so. You could. Maybe it’s a proximity sort of thing.

But that’s the interesting riddle, isn’t? What do you hope to talk about with someone across the globe? We could romanticize the universality of the Human Experience® and hope for some comrades in our hidden plights. Perhaps.

But I would figure that, if a strong enough mind unlocks, and the illusions dissolve softly enough, so the plights transfigure into a sort of imperative. A sort of steady hand toward a painting to which, only at the end, did it make sense.

Maybe something like that.

Another take is that, well, ultimately we’re not so useful to one another in this virtual state. This virtual roaming. And the more puzzling component would be, maybe, that there’d be nothing much to say.

There’s a lot of buzz about AI taking all the jobs away. At least the “creative” ones. It’s a little funny since all the AI stuff is a little tip toward the undercurrents: get yours and I’ll get mine, maybe.

Maybe, as long as we’re separate. And I guess we are, in this Game, isn’t it so? What’s your blood-type?

There are some answers and there are some reasons but neither really jump out on this page at the moment and that’s fine. Perhaps someday we’ll see our imaginations as paintings we’ll jump right into.

I look forward to sleep everyday because of it.

5

After updating my LeechBlock I hover around whether to block neocities as well, youtube certainly at least.

Why does one browse the web? Well, such a question seems absurd sometimes, seeing as how quickly everything is devoured in its wake. Real life and the Internet are becoming one and the same!

When I give it thought, I’m browsing around in hopes of relieving some bits of malaise – indirection, maybe a delightful headline that’ll surely make things more interesting.

If I confess, due to my small temperament and small mind, fiction no longer captivates me. The other day I downloaded some animation and turned it off after 5 minutes.

Maybe I can hope for some salvation in some fictional reading, but every indulgence (even this one) feels like a pause button upon the conveyor belt toward some abyss.

Fundamental issues aren’t yet solved – even if my taoist texts say “who cares anyway” and maybe that’s a take to embrace if you don’t mind the descent.

It’s not that I’m bothered by the lack of light, and the lack of smooth meadows – jagged rock is all that’s left and jagged rock can be quite delightful in its own ways. Cold to the touch, crumbling into the type of dust from which we’re made from.

I browse because “real life” is… interesting, and yet real life doesn’t happen all that much in Suburbia. Real life isn’t really happening on the web either, but it’s an elusive play you could trick yourself into. Even if everything is a stage.

There’s no bountiful insight here. Nothing special. It’s all about entertainment at the end of the day.

And I guess if there was an insight, it’d be about how, well, waiting for others to do entertaining things is probably the worst playbook in existence.

Even if one hopes to stumble upon a mission worth celebrating, worth some contribution, it’s quite unlikely one could indulge in such things while on the conveyor belt anyway. While in the abyss anyway.

I’ve thought to further the agendas of those I do follow, whether by contributing a website, a forum, extrapolating a manifesto and tongue-in-cheek dictating how to live in that way.

The main benefit of this place is an excuse to write: and yet why do I not write under a blog, under my real name, furthering my “brand”, perhaps braiding a rope to get me out from these browsing cycles? I just love to be cowardly too much, I guess. But maybe you can be the type of brand where you only have a name and there’s nothing else really attached to it.

Who knows. All I know is that, for a long time now, browsing the web doesn’t do anything for me other than entertain. And, if one is to be entertained, may as well get your ducks in a row first.

With enough ducks there’d be no need for this entertainment machine; one could relax along a South American resort if so inclined (I wouldn’t be, truly, but it’s a possibility, isn’t it?). With enough ducks one could have real life resumed, real life conversations and Big Plans and other things, fully embraced while we wait for our return to dust.

I don’t know guys. I just think the Internet and Browsing is a real tragedy, since even if you see cool people, you never really see them, and you still live in the exact same ways, no matter how fantastical your structures are.

Even then, I would want something more than surfing along resorts. Something more than feeling like an insect sucking the life out of everything, instead of the farmer who feeds us all.

I just want to see some beauty, I guess.

Beautiful systems, beautiful structures, beautiful people, beautiful ideas, beautiful ideals and virtues fully elected.

And though I am just this twitching amoeba clicking around, I know at least my place. That, if I were anything at all, I’d start with a team of one.

But perhaps I’ll be lulled to sleep once more once all my ducks are in a row. Who knows!

Until next time.

4

Tired of the Tyranny of Insecure Teenagers-Now-Adults.

Frankly I wish we could break that sort of uninterested undertone in English.

I like the cringe and those who are excited about the mundane.

Let’s create a new arc of cringy excitement lest we forever find ourselves under the rule of insecure teenagers.

e.g. isn’t neocities pretty amazing??

You could technically read the makings of anyone inclined enough to learn how HTML/CSS/JS works. And if you ever bothered to read the internals on github, it’s quite the large-scale operation.

I don’t know, I just think it sucks how we get stuck in this default mode where everything has a grey tint.

I want to love and breathe in a sunflower field even if it is next to the nuclear plant.

It’s a strange world. All the youth want to be grown ups while all the grown ups mourn the loss of youth – or more accurately, their excitement.

I mean I get the premise though. It’s easier to keep a lukewarm cautiousness toward anything lest you find yourself engulfed in disappointment.

And I know what it’s like to have cold sweats over cringe stuff, even though again that’s a reflection on me rather than the one who’s excited.

I just think if I have to act uninterested then may as well keel over at that point.

3

Writing in first person can be pretty effortless, especially when the amount of words you say in real life is zilch in comparison.

Like a faucet.

Give me a hazy Thailand morning and you won’t need any of this stuff, that’s for sure.

If there was a trouble, one could suppose it to be about the contents carefully treading along the gravel mountain road. Not to slip in the negatives. Accepting but ignoring how every sentence is crafted toward this preservation of self, reputation, identity. Even pointing to it makes me feel all gross and inclined to delete this sentence.

Welcome to Schrodinger’s Self – if you hold it in a box long enough, you don’t ever have to evaluate it “up-to-standard” and you won’t have to ask yourself why would anyone want to strike a deal with you, want to be with you, be around you – you can employ the Hedgehog’s Defense and whisper to yourself most people are exhausting to deal with, and with much pain ahead – it’s a level 100 spell you learn on the Shadow Path if you’re so inclined, Initiate.

Writing in hopes of finding nuggets of wisdom… wisdom of what’s going on here anyway, seeing as we’re all melting every second.

Maybe something divine will lend an answer through you, and sure, that’s something we can hope. But perhaps a more effective method is to not really want or wish for anything to begin with.

Whatever galaxy you and I travel to next, whatever space shuttle we’ll be cadets to, well, wishing for these things all the time takes away from the moment surely!

A nebula in the bolted window and here we are wishing for something written about how things are, the shape and nature of the Nebula when its right behind the glass.

The murkier and less defined things are, the closer one is to what’s worth holding onto: a coconut in one hand and sifting sand through the other, relaxed and slathered in sunscreen.

And maybe one could liken writing to gliding your fingers along the sand, catch a pearl in the mix, and that’s fine isn’t it? It’s the pearl for the castle’s crown. In fact, let’s spray some red dye all over the beach. Let the red mist accumulate and with enough of a Blood moon rising one could see the sparks of a human’s spirit between crowds of smoky haze crazies.

There are two types of writing I’ve been finding: one which exhausts and one which refreshes. The same could be said for reading. If I had to guess, the exhaustive ones are the ones where you’re still stuck in the default-mode-network of prove-and-reprove-some-more while the other one is turning off the brain I guess. If I had to guess, it’s just a matter of what resonants to a higher tune.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt refreshed reading a cuss word.

2

I’ve take a liking toward a few blog sites I frequent. Here I am wondering why.

I’m almost confident I’ll never have an exchange with them – in fact, this is 99.9% confirmed. There is too much that can go wrong for the 0.01% it’ll go right, and then comes a series of 0.01%s to make anything “more” of it. Why can’t reading just be enough? It’s better to hide in the background.

So, a question begs, why read about others when they’re in another universe from you?

I suppose it’d be the same as flicking on an anime series. One could construe it as idle entertainment… and I couldn’t deny you that pleasure.

But if you give me some leverage, a little leeway, then I would claim that the struggle is what seems so interesting to me. Seeing through the eyes of one compelled enough to make this anime title.

Of course we aren’t necessarily learning anything practical here, writing these entries, reading theirs.

But the human machine is unique in its need for rest, you could suppose. Its need to express, supposedly. Supposedly we express to the ghosts in each machine. Never to speak, forgetting how to speak about anything.

A minute tolerance when it takes an hour to get to the “good stuff” of an experience, the same as waiting for a buzz.

Ultimately, I read to see the things I no longer viscerally feel. The agitated states, to the lovey-dovey states, just being animated and expressive about things.

My life is filled with steady imperatives, not confetti bombs and there’s pros/cons to either. But, ultimately, I won’t torture myself over others, other things, vacations missed, experiences missing. Every conversation is centered around an imperative, and so my “self” dissolves in the process. And I like it this way a lot, because there’s no more agonizing. It’s quite blissful.

But I just know how important these things are to other people. And I love to see how animated they become.

I just love seeing what other people become. Though we can’t really do much for one another, I can at least stand witness to your trek taken.

So here I rest and chomp with shoulder aches (mental in nature it seems) and while I sit here I’ll take a portal elsewhere. It’s unlikely I’ll “learn” that much, but we both know it’s for that search of lightning in a bottle. Lichtenberg scars across the webpage.

I guess it’s in search of larger thoughts, a song for your heart sort of thing.

It’s the passion which sweeps me up. If you have a strong enough passion, with agreeable outcomes, then it’d be a joy to help you sort-of-thing, maybe.

Being on the sidelines is awfully comfortable though. In the cruelest nature, if the story turns all crooked, one can just walk off–you were never a part of the game to begin with.

1

Just came back from a brisk walk. Thought I’d indulge writing in the first person, as that’d be a little more personable, a little less robotic, and a fair more (unfortunately) natural.

You may be wondering, why would anyone want to avoid the first-person? Well, I’ve this tendency to view it as shameful. Partly because writing in the first-person is self-centered – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – but it seems self-centeredness wobbles toward small thoughts. Small thoughts.

Unless you’re a megalomaniac. Well, maybe I will be. Maybe I’ll draw right here in the sand an aspiration for other worldly contact. Other worldly sounds, hot springs, <span style=”background-color: darkgreen; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;”>drooping greenery.</span>

We could both reason up a list of why anyone does write, or read, watch things, but one bulletpoint ought to be Larger Thoughts, no? Larger in the sense of seeing the everyday beauty, even if it’s corny to put it that way. Larger thoughts in the sense of objectives perhaps, or consolidating a corpus toward a new movement even if it fizzles out with a merch store. Mind control happens everyday in the social media arena for those so inclined.

Anyway, it’s quite easy to slip into small thoughts, and maybe that’s the heart of one’s existence, but I’d rather a whole different existence–and between you and me, denying all the small thoughts has been mildly effective.

To illustrate, one could look upon a blank meadow and come to many conclusions. The smaller thoughts only sees the meadow and one’s proximity to it, perhaps a tinge of drear with the overcast. But with Larger Thoughts™ so one expands the meadow outward. To make a mental map, plot which part to visit next, and trace its place in lives past. One could imagine another Christina’s World right along the view–and with large enough thoughts, one forgets their small plot, and perhaps sees some Elementals carrying up the vapors for another rain cycle.

Large thoughts are a habit maybe worth making, but so is emptying the mind too when small thoughts are all that result. So, avoiding “I-statements” is just another precaution to the wind. Or a path.

Still, why not see what progress has been made since? May as well, or shall we both succumb to the inanities that can make up existence anyway, because that’s what’s worth focusing on– that the most engrossing and immersive moments are considerations about proper condiments to match a funnel cake–strawberries to cut through the grease, or enough whip cream to soak it all up? Trick question, no sugar nor fun allowed.

Funny thing about small thoughts is its close cousin, the no actions™. Instead of writing this I could be making progress on Chinese, Japanese, Spanish (even if all languages are fundamentally useless to the eternal mute) or working on business matters. Or making a new web-ring, or a new movement. Or anything, anything at all.

I mean we both know about the whole pen-mightier-sword tactic toward poking at the World At Large (even if craving for such changes reveals something questionable about one’s character) and yeah, perhaps writing about yourself and thoughts could help move the plot along. Why wouldn’t it?

If you aren’t talking, someone’s doing the talking for you. If you aren’t progressing the plotline, who will? What will you die for, friar?

Controlling one’s narrative… is quite a useful endeavor, for those so inclined. Unless you want someone to control yours. So one requires some research in good storytelling, good storymaking, “””optics,””” etc.

I don’t know. That’s a reason why I avoid I-thoughts – as one can either tell the story ‘as it is’ or tell the story they’ll glide into e.g. one could talk about the becoming or the being i.e. one could talk about how they’re trying to quit smoking or they could say I’m smoke-free.

Talking about the “being” sometimes seems antithetical to The Journal–the place in which one could privately disclose the timid thoughts which make up their current existence. But this is Public, and disclosing such things are Fundamentally Worthless To Me And You Anyway.

And yet the progression of things is what makes a good story, no? It’s just, from what it seems, the essential leap we all hope to vicariously make with the main character isn’t from a string of factual actions, but from a fundamental transformation of mind.

It’s when the character switches from “I’m trying to run” to “I will run” and “I run” and there’s no more inner struggle. As that’s what’s really on display. Inner struggle, suffering and conquest of that pain. Conquest toward that wisdom. Wisdom of, “that’s me, I’m the guy there” at the finish line.

So there’s another reason why I avoid I-statements, because otherwise one could forever be shackled to the becoming rather than the being – the same as ancient Chinese officials always studying good that good itself was rendered impossible to grasp.

Let’s be the Virtuous, you could suppose. Let’s still consider most stories as the magic trick, the smokes of mind-transformation so unfamiliar to us all–that it’s easier to believe it’s only a series of actions that makes someone lose 200 lbs, when it’s really about their conception of self changed to no longer be fat, or they’ve fundamentally casted all food as fuel and a deception of the mind, choking on donuts to feel miserable most days when one could have a salad and love for the rest.

Mind games, mind games – I guess that’s why, ultimately, I avoid the I-statements, because one can dig their grave as much as build their stairs-to-heaven. But I suppose one could demonstrate the above with infinite hubris: I build cathedrals now. I’ll build cathedrals til the end of the time. And let’s make a beautiful chapel, too.

Let the gargoyles overlook our cobblestone streets, our village we’ve all but made.

[…]

At the moment I’m wishing for something different than neocities. I think it would be really cool to have something different. Would you want something different? I wouldn’t know what it’d look like. But maybe it’d be even more divorced from the current affairs. I was browsing the maintainer page for the hare programming language and clicking through some of the sites was extremely refreshing. You just know these people have a completely different virtual experience.

So, in the same vein of progressing narrative: a new virtual experience is now here. Let’s experience the newfound silence.