tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40541626296876786372024-03-13T18:45:20.683+01:00Asylum for ThoughtsA sanctuary for the mind, where one can easily contemplate about everyday thoughts regarding the soul, humankind, philosophy, psychology, politics and World at large.mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-82394318729545028462017-01-30T07:00:00.000+01:002017-02-06T12:51:16.430+01:00I Dream of Death<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I died into a bed of a small cabin. When I wake I already know what has happened to me. The cell is reminiscent of changing rooms in swimming pool facilities; the walls are bare with pale colours. I can come up with no expression for their warm hues. I'm not familiar with the capacity of this place − it seems I haven't been dead for a while. I look down to my body and there is no corporal confusion or any other post-traumatic effects that bodies are supposed to endure after a physiological change. This leads me to believe that the laws of nature my reasoning got to instinctively know are now gone.
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I get up and go to the door, but my reflection in its mirroring surface stops me. Is this how I looked like before I died? I don't recognise myself, and yet I remember my former life so clearly. Shrugging, I open the door. The corridor outside reveals what seem to be cabins like the one I died into. Their entrances are reflective on the front, too. There is someone waiting for me outside and I notice the same face that looked back at me from the mirror. I stare at myself silently, knowing inexplicably that I am here to guide myself, according to the principles that shape this place into order. So I turn back to the entrance in order to look at myself again, to shake off the feeling of irrationality. I look a bit chubby and ageing.
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"You are about to go back," I say to myself, "and you will continue where you left off."
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I understand this not literally, but from the viewpoint of reincarnation. Then, opaque buttons appear on the mirror, allowing me to change any parameter of how I look and what my surroundings are.
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"Of course, you are not obliged to follow recommendations. This machine allows you to set the finest details of your future life script." I turn to face myself. "It will calculate the consequences and sacrifices to any set of variables."
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I open the door to be alone and focus on the design, but the other me stops me just before I am to shut the door. "Don't worry. You cannot make mistakes, only delays... And, take your time. You have eternity."
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I shut the door, realising that this is not what I believed in at all in the life I just died from and, just as this thought splatters across the canvas of my convictions, everything around me darkens and I can only see the stars.
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"Hey!" I shout, but there is no answer. I look around to see that I am in free space, immobile. I feel no force affecting me. I try to mimic swimming, yet even if I do move, there is no way I can tell. I start to panic and shout, I kick and scream for what seems to be decades before I remember that where I am now, there mustn't be time. So I despair, letting the sorrow roll tears down my cheeks and only when they freeze up do I notice how numbingly cold it is around me. I curl into a ball and shiver, feeling like the centre of nothingness, alone and with a growing sense of fear that − this − is it, now and ever.
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Then I hear a sound. I straighten out and shriek in surprise as my feet touch a cold, glassy surface. I look down and I still see the infinity of astral lights. Around me, though, I can sense barely visible corners of a room and in this room with me is a small box so black that it serves as a contrast to the darkness of the universe. On the box is a hole even shadowier. I hear the sound again, like troubled breathing, coming from inside.
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"Who is there?" I ask.
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A pale, torn voice replies: "Death of deaths." Then, a crusty, white hand appears in the opening and, pointing towards me, shakily pulls out the rest of the dry and crumbling spectre that is commanding it. "Now is the time for the halt."
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The dread that was ever strong in my being just a breath ago is now gone, and a stunning serenity takes over me.
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"I can grant you the wish to end this all once and for all." The apparition says. "Hear my proposals."
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I feel almost wonderful, even if I can understand that according to how my mind reasoned while I was alive, this ghost would be beyond eerie to confront like this.
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"I can strip you of your immortality. I can make you one with the void. Accept my offer and you shall neither suffer nor enjoy anymore."
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There is a trick to this, I suddenly think as I begin to make sense of the situation. Why did this entity appear before me, why does it offer such irrevocable pacts? All I manage to reply, however, is: "I relish existence far more than to give it up for the lack of pain."
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The demon is still for a moment, its sunken features stop shaking, its hollow skull ceases breathing, and suddenly: "Then give me all your flesh, and you can stay immortal and bodiless, relieved from carnal oblivion."
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"Then I would be like you, serving only one purpose, without any chances to be refined."
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As I give my denial, the calmness that kept my fright hindered breaks as a dam after an aeon of neglect, flooding me with alertness to how dangerous my conversational partner might really be.
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"Then hear me, defiant of transcendent death! Accept my final offer or experience all you have gathered up until here backwards of its progression! May your death be your birth, and may your birth be your death!"
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I shudder at such a prospect, yet the punishment appears even worse. I fear going back to what I had already endured, deconstructing all my practicality in the process; but then I remember: "No! I shall not accept any of your offers. You are nothing to me since I am and you are not!"
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The cold ghost howls deafeningly and approaches to swallow me whole, its mouth darker than the hole the thing crawled out from, and I scream in desperation as I get sucked in by a force that shreds me into long, agonising strings of hellish infinity.
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Then I explode. I am all the possibilities that were and will be, there is the nothingness that can be bent to my will, to create perpetual ranges of complexities. So I create a past for myself to look back into, but I see that it has fallen apart, there is nothing there anymore. Now, I can understand that it is only I, it was just one arching phenomenon all along, and for existence to remain preserved the notion of myself must disintegrate. Thus, I melt into the possibilities that be and create sound to have music, which will resonate the echoes of all strivings.
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Just the moment before I disappear to all that I was and will be, I hear myself for one last time: "...you will continue where you left off."
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I wake up.
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<center><div class="zoomtilt">
<a href="http://www.astroeder.com/vdb141_ccd_eder_en/" target="_blank"><img alt="ghost nebula death space reincarnation eternal life infinity" height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/LJfljw5.jpg" title=""vdB 141 - Ghost Nebula region in Cepheus" by Iván Éder - click for image source" width="700" /></a>
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This writing is a part of the <span style="color: maroon;"><u><a href="https://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.se/search/label/Dream%20Distillery" title="Posts of Dream Distillery @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">Dream Distillery</a></u></span> series of posts.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-71433580569030869672016-01-04T07:00:00.000+01:002016-10-12T14:24:51.119+02:00Lost<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I have memories of times when I had almost nothing to remember whatsoever...
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A few hazy instants of me being carried by my mother in a grocery store, in former Yugoslavia. I remember the completely empty shelves. The understanding that they are not <i>being</i> as they used to... There were things on them before. Father is talking to the owners. We wanted something.
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Me sitting on the concrete of the Main Street in Bečej, watching as a lean rush of blood flows from my knee. Its warmth is surmounting the dull pain, its deep crimson mesmerizing me with the knowledge about a significant property of my flesh. My father smiling and saying the words that carry the meaning: "It happens, son. Does it hurt? No? Then let's clean You up and continue." Mother wiping the blood clean. The weather was hot, I was wearing shorts.
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Grandfather, I called Him Deda, not bringing a toy with Him this time. I can't really recall His physical gifts as much as this incident when there was none but a piece of personality carving wisdom: "I couldn't. It can't happen every time. It's not a habit to receive gifts. A gift is an appreciation of the moment and the bond between the giver and receiver, it is not for itself." From then on I know that I am not alone in this world, that there are many people who relate with each other and that little toy birds and cars are mere objects to relate among people with.
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Or when I was with my other grandparents... My grandpapa whom I called Tutu is driving the car and we are going uphill to Their mountain gardens, up with the old Škoda on an impossible, ninety-degree slope. It's a physically impossible thing, yet I remember it as clear as looking through a spotless window.
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Most of these are fond <u><a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/human-memory.htm" title="How Human Memory Works @ How Stuff Works" target="_blank">memories</a></u> from the first perspective, and seemingly distorted by the lack of comprehension of the worldly order, overlapping post-experiences and who knows what else. Back then I couldn't form memories as I do now since I was missing the necessary acquaintance of the human ways of knowing. Vice versa, I cannot be sure that I can understand those memories now since my mind was taking record of stimuli in a wilder manner than it does now.
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Lately, I have decided to unravel more of my past than I cared to before. Understanding how we came to be by the events in our lives, or even those before our birth is a significant tool in unlocking our current reality. This is an impressive adventure on its own, and it also brings out the suppressed memories which were buried beneath the vigilant watch of the guardians called Fear & Shame.
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Like that one time on a bus with my Mother, when I recognized a boy from kindergarten who never talked, and He recognized me as well. He joined our group in the institution later than I did and even left us by that time this event occurred. I didn't dare to mutter a greeting, as I stole a marble from Him. The most beautiful marble I have ever had.
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A similar incident, when I wept for a Pokémon Trading Card Game <u><a href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Booster_pack_(TCG)" title="Booster Pack (Pokémon TCG) @ Bulbapedia" target="_blank">booster pack</a></u> to my Mother, and despite not having money for far more important things, She bought it for me. I received a <u><a href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Chansey_(Base_Set_3)" title="A rare and elusive Pokémon that is said to bring good luck and happiness to those who manage to catch it. (Links to description of the specific card @ Bulbapedia.)" target="_blank">Chansey</a></u> in it, a <u><a href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Holofoil" title="Holofoil @ Bulbapedia" target="_blank">rare holofoil</a></u> card of a cute Pokémon bringing luck and happiness. I remember my Mama's tears.
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Or once in Hungary, when in a wheat warehouse of a children camp's I fought alone against a friend, over what was probably our first futile masculine outrage, and lost after being pushed onto the ground full of grains.
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When I wanted to scare my dear friend on the school playground by throwing a big block of ice from a distance, hoping it would land just beside Her, but managed to hit directly the top of Her head. I remember running there to say sorry, to explain, the teacher comforting Her, Her hurt gaze through Her tears with the burning accusation of an unspoken inquiry: <i>"why?"</i> This was a different kind of defeat. Not like the one in the previous memory − being physically bashed to the ground over some silly misunderstanding, but being emotionally asked for accountability after a silly physical accident. Assault doesn't seem to make things right since.
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My grandmother, I called Her Baka, always called me Her "Sunshine". The last time we saw each other, in Her dementia caused by multiple sclerosis, She called me Her "Gloria". I cried then, and I cried when my other grandmother went into a diluted state of mind after years of immobility. I don't think I cried because I saw Them as They were. I cried because I couldn't spur up the maturity to see them for what They <i>are</i> instead of what They <i>were</i>. They both departed eventually and left memories of shared and cherished moments, but my self-induced pain lives on as a guide for the present.
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How can I forgive myself for things that have no resolution in the so cold tangible or world external to me? It is not an unknown viewpoint that I might never have learned to know better if I hadn't done deeds wrong and thought about them. Morals are <u><a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00429-012-0380-y" title="Parsing the Neural Correlates of Moral Cognition: ALE Meta-Analysis on Morality, Theory of Mind, and Empathy" target="_blank">learned, but also understood</a></u>, for the better or worse. <u><a href="https://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.com/2015/03/red-shoes.html" title="Red Shoes @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">Stories</a></u> are a necessary component to life.
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My Stepfather told me some of His determining recollections: when His grandfather sat down to tell stories of war and peace. Each time They gathered, the children were entranced by His words. Stepfather sat there among the others and knew: "I want to have a life by which I can tell stories like these to my grandchildren." To live is to have stories, so let the stories be epic.
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I remember the brief period of my life when I used to steal. We were poor, I was hungry and my body was developing, so I stole a lot of food. I even got caught twice. I saw nothing bad in it since the food was getting spoiled and thrown away anyway. Yet, eventually, I stopped. I believe in the parole <i>'be the change You want to see in the world'</i>, and I don't want to live in a world in which people are stealing. But that's not all there is to me ceasing the ventures towards my idealistic career of a master thief.
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When I was a small kid, we were in a café in Budapest, and this guy came by and stole my Stepdad's shoulder bag. There wasn't that much money in it, but all of His identification papers, car keys, and some photos were gone with the crook. Stepfather's passport was in the bag and He couldn't visit His sick mother for months on as a direct result of this theft. The relatives said that every time the door opened, in Her death bed She was hoping for Him to come. She passed away before He managed to get all the papers in order.
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Stealing is not a simply physical thing. I didn't secretly make a little glass marble mine, which in my mind resembled a fantastic planet, but I took a keepsake of memories and parts of someone's identity with it. I took away what was probably a gift – a token of a bond. I made a benefit of possession, but likely lost a taciturn friend and took events from Him of which the potential impacts I cannot even imagine. My curse is this knowledge, and my blessing is having a story to go with it.
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Most of us are dependent on physical mementos in an un-Zen way because we like to be reminded of the good and even bad days of our lives. As it can be seen from the flashbacks above, nothing is black and white in the inventory of the mind. We get so filled up with information, especially since this impressive global connection arose, that we may find it harder and harder to consider events gone, especially as we age. Our moments are lost forever, as they are not practically existent for us in the constant of now. What we rally to remember is the only proof that those people we used to be and used to know are the progenitors of what presently <i>is</i>.
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As it was with the novelty of my blood flowing down my thighs, followed by the smiles of my parents, I don't necessarily need to remember this event's memory to know that falling is okay. But every time I think of my falls, I will know how I learned the fact that falling is a necessary part of learning. Whenever I receive a gift, my grandfather whispers about the importance of cherishing the person with the intention of giving. The Pokémon Chansey, which I still keep as the most precious, for me will always be the symbol of exploits that might be more important than those that satisfy my short-termed cravings. I remember it as a symbol that brought a complex of past experiences to a peak that burst into an intricacy of revelations: our ever so worsening financial situation turned into comprehension, Motherly love making clear the fact that it is stronger than rationality – it is stronger than what might be good for me, even at the expense of later internal struggles of my Mother and I –, I saw how foolish I was and how I was cast under a delusion by corporate conditioning, and that I dared to sacrifice the happiness of a deeply caring person over something that is practically a cat in the bag. That was the last booster pack of cards I got.
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There is limited exploration into the levels of the authenticity of memories. According to <u><a href="https://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/130/1/88" title="The Dreamy State: Hallucinations of Autobiographic Memory Evoked by Temporal Lobe Stimulations and Seizures @ Brain - a Journal of Neurology" target="_blank">repeated experiments</a></u>, electrical stimulation applied to certain brain regions can reproduce vivid visions of experiences past. It happens rarely even in carefully controlled conditions and the periods evoked within one's memories are generally unpredictable. Since we don't have more than the spoken word as proof of subjects, we can't know if these mnemonic visions are perfect reoccurrences of past events (i.e. if in such a situation a person could observe new details) or are these relived sensations just the stored versions of already subjectively encoded phenomena. Furthermore, we don't know if all memories could be accesible via similar methods, or just an exclusive few.
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I again see the white <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0koda_100" title="Škoda 100 @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">Škoda 100</a></u>, incredibly riding against a perfect angle and gravity on a dirt road to a mountain garden, where I discovered my first favorite fruit, the plum, on a beautiful late summer day. Years later my grandmother, I called her Mumu, always offered me plums and remembered me through Her eyes. She kept telling me of the very same moment I see through first perspective – me holding a plum and cleaning the white-blue <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicuticular_wax" title="Epicuticular Wax @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">wax bloom</a></u> off it with my hands – She saw a merry little child smiling in anticipation while She was pulling carrots. Later 'plum' was the first English word I intentionally memorized. Now my favorite fruit is raspberry and when I learn new phrases in foreign languages I usually ask to know how to describe a beautiful late summer day.
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">Lost and mused on memory lane.</span>
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What happened exactly, and does it matter? We don't have an opportunity to put electrical currents into our open skulls whenever we wish to, so if there are any hopes for further discoveries in this domain, they remain to be seen in the probably distant future; leaving us with a fading history that is relentlessly being scrambled and revised each time we observe parts of it again. This happens even through the pages of diaries, although diaries definitely help <u><a href="http://www.memory-improvement-tips.com/keeping-a-journal.html" title="Keeping a Journal to Remember Events" target="_blank">retaining a more correct picture</a></u>, among <u><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/feb/15/psychology-usa" title="Keeping a Diary Makes You Happier" target="_blank">other benefits</a></u>. The same way I rationalize and romanticize my memories described above. Knowing how both of my grandmothers ended up, I can use the benefits of my <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocortex" title="Neocortex @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">neocortex</a></u> (namely: reasoning) to avoid dementia by doing correct exercise and eating the required nutrients. That might be a way to set things right in my mind and beyond: to do what would have been the right thing to do when I did the many of my "errors"... To live a life of having great stories to share, in every sense.
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We need to remind ourselves who we are; that our consciousness is really the same since we first knew of it, although we are not of the same mind and body as from just a while back. The aware processing of our decisions is the subject of all that we <u><a href="http://www.human-memory.net/types_declarative.html" title="The Human Memory: Declarative (Explicit) & Procedural (Implicit) Memory" target="_blank">effectively remembered</a></u> throughout our lives. We just want to remember the dying echoes before we die ourselves and we want the World to listen to the structure of our times, akin to the episode when my family and I wanted something from a shop's depository during the <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_757" title="United Nations Security Council Resolution 757 @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">UN sanctions</a></u> and rising <u><a href="http://www.rogershermansociety.org/yugoslavia.htm" title="The Worst Episode of Hyperinflation in History: Yugoslavia 1993-94" target="_blank">economic hyperinflation</a></u>.
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">"Although people are eager to fit Their experiences into frameworks in order to pack them into Their mind-drawers as memorial categories and then summon them from there and lurk them, like accumulated treasure; the essential moment alone is the only heritage. The dissolution of loneliness doesn't emerge from a craving towards adventures already lived, but rather from the awareness that, within themselves, our adventure companions all await the next act.
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Somewhen a word, somewhen a life."<br /></span></div>
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Do You have any determining and/or <u><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-s-your-first-memory/" title="What's Your First Memory? @ Scientific American" target="_blank">first memories</a></u>, or some of their fragments?
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Are there any among You who had a diary from a very young age? Do You still read them?
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Let others know in the comments below. ;)
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-88831067715888034622015-11-16T07:00:00.001+01:002017-01-19T13:17:29.378+01:00Final Day, Act One<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A seraph approached me last night<br />
Gave me a burning letter and flew away blazing<br />
As I broke the wax stamp a black phoenix fluttered before me<br />
It took me to the fractal spiral and shattered my body<br />
And with it all of my self-proclaimed sins<br />
The eternity that is to be was one and I was told that<br />
There is nothing to regret and there will never be<br />
If I should go through this scabrous wildwood again<br />
I would, just to live again that night when we met at the cemetery<br />
The bird sent me back to believe that there is nothing to regret<br />
Aye, there is nothing to regret<br />
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When the time comes for gentlemen Their ethics to deprave<br />
I’ll be standing in front of my children’s grave<br />
I’ll be asking with a brain gone illogically brave<br />
Where is my promised final day<br />
That has been taken from the grievous away<br />
Who will kindly grant it to me<br />
Where are the pages of Genesis Lost<br />
And who will pay the cost<br />
Where is my promised final day<br />
That has been taken from the grievous away<br />
Who will kindly grant it to me<br />
Where are the pages of Genesis Lost<br />
And who will pay the cost<br />
Better than my noose in the company of I to be tossed<br />
I to be tossed<br />
Who will kindly stand in front of me and say<br />
"There is still a cigarette to finish in the ashtray."<br />
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</style><br /></div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-78939894544433358772015-11-02T07:00:00.000+01:002016-10-11T16:55:16.380+02:00Inverted Pyramid<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Back when I spent a year of my life as a full-time volunteer, during our initial meeting in the organization I was working for, we – the volunteers – were entertained with a peculiar world view, which was given to us as an insight to how the organization works. This theory had no name, nor specific details. It was just a basic outline of a simple idea. I keep thinking about it since, and today I would like to share it with You. My version might have a bit more of an in-depth shape in order to deliver its message in a (hopefully) more applicable manner, but its main proposal remains the very same. I have given the concept the name "<span style="color: maroon;">Inverted Pyramid</span>", which task was not hard to achieve, as You will soon see. It is not to be confused with the <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid" title="Inverted Pyramid @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">metaphor</a></u> used by journalists.
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Before we get to it, I would like to share some background information on it. Mainly, the <i>Inverted Pyramid</i> is a theoretic socio-organizational structure and an outline for functional behavior. A structure such as this can benefit us greatly. Some of You have undoubtedly heard of many scientific works pointing to the increasing troubles we, as a collective, have. These troubles are among the most significant we have ever had, and their weight might just be superseding all poverty, wars and ruthlessness combined. On this blog, I already mentioned two scientific explorations of these dangers: the one about a modeling of societal collapse, and one which was a warning to humanity back in '92. I am now also drawing attention to a <u><a href="https://theconversation.com/humanity-is-in-the-existential-danger-zone-study-confirms-36307" title="Humanity Is in the Existential Danger Zone, Study Confirms" target="_blank">recent one</a></u>, which reminds us about the necessity of bringing change to the paradigm of our worldwide system. This need is not a mere idealistic, new-age dream, as many people tend to write it off: we either do it or the society as we know it perishes anyway.
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Instead of waking us up to our senses, all these mentioned forecasts are mostly bringing out the pessimists in us. I meet so many people who are at least vaguely aware of how deep we sunk in troubles, but I can count on one hand how many of them actually have a positive attitude towards our prospect. When I ask how we should proceed to successfully respond to these challenges, the answers I usually get go along the lines of "we ought to die anyway" or "there's nothing to be done". These defeatist views are not present because all people are inherently fatalistic. It is because we are not used to thinking far outside of our daily concerns and are bombarded with useless information all the time.
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Personally, I am exasperated by the fact that my senses are besieged with logos of companies and products, many of which are actually <u><a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/029023_corporations_crimes_against_nature.html" title="Corporate Atrocities Against Nature May Ultimately Destroy Human Civilization" target="_blank">jeopardizing</a></u> our <u><a href="http://www.livescience.com/9956-humans-survive.html" title="Can Humans Survive?" target="_blank">possible salvation</a></u>. Marketing keeps us using up and demanding more and more resources. We are <u><a href="https://designschool.canva.com/blog/visual-marketing/" title="10 Scientific Reasons People Are Wired To Respond To Your Visual Marketing" target="_blank">wired</a></u> to behave this way. I stumbled across some debatable writing of Julian Assange, but this one thought-raising sentence of His definitely has a point in regards to this consciously often bypassed phenomenon of commercial conditioning:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">"Google's colorful, playful logo is imprinted on human retinas just under six billion times each day, 2.1 trillion times a year – an opportunity for respondent conditioning enjoyed by no other company in history."<br /><u><a href="https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/" title="Google Is Not What It Seems" target="_blank">~ Julian Assange</a></u></span></div>
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Imagine a world where instead of the invasive logo of an unhealthy soda drink, You could actually observe useful knowledge... For instance tips on how to deal with stress, develop emotional intelligence, or be a better critical thinker (more on the latter two below). How many troubles could it solve, if we were stimulated to be well functioning, mentally and emotionally healthy problem solvers instead of quickly reacting consumers? In addition to the propaganda of profit-driven economy and its servants, there is also the media which being manipulated or not, shows only a part of reality. Sadly, <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.com/2014/09/they-say-rumor-has-it.html" title="They Say Rumor Has It @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">journalism today sunk in overall quality</a></u>, often citing bad sources or inventing misleading information.
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I'm not sure how many of You have played the <i><u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri" title="Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri</a></u></i> video game (or any other title from the <i><u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(series)" title="Civilization (Series) @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">Civilization</a></u></i> series). I find it to be one of the most enlightening gaming experiences anyone could ever have. In an enjoyable and reasonably understandable style it manages to illustrate what vast knowledge, extreme levels of micromanagement and executive expertise are necessary in order to (successfully) govern. The apparent randomness of ecological circumstances and behavior of ideological/political leaders in the game go to show how life is also conclusively unpredictable (which is the actual <u><a href="http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2012" title="A Relevant SMBC Comic" target="_blank">reason</a></u> we don't live in a utopia). <i>Alpha Centauri</i>, among many of its lessons, showed me the essence to the widespread pessimism among people: being un- and wrongly-informed facilitates us in inventing pictures of a doomed World full of misery...
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...A picture which is not true, by far. We are actually progressing <u><a href="https://youtu.be/-UbmG8gtBPM" title="Professor Hans Rosling's Don't Panic: the Truth About Population @ Youtube" target="_blank">pretty well</a></u>. I am one of those in this planet, who took the task of dispelling the curse of ignorance closely to Their hearts. I tend to do this by avoiding the fallacy of believing I got it all figured out: we cannot know everything and we can only hopelessly try to calculate variables in search for a formula of rescue. But, I for sure know that we can learn enough to craft the best out of what lays at hand.
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The key tendency of humans is to improve what we already have, that is what natural selection favors. We are <u><a href="http://aeon.co/video/philosophy/jesse-prinz-on-wonder-the-emotion-that-makes-humans-unique/" title="Jesse Prinz on Wonder – How Wonder Makes Humans Unique by Giving Rise to the Inspiration and Inquiry at the Root of Science, Religion and Art" target="_blank">driven by wonder</a></u> to discover and advance. As a general rule, we want to make things go well, we want to prosper. There are no grand-scale conspiracies bent on destruction. The <u><a href="https://youtu.be/pRGhrYmUjU4" title="Human Rights Explained in One Beautiful Two Minute Animation" target="_blank">human rights</a></u> were not developed as a misleading hoax. We want to <i><u><a href="http://www.demoshelsinki.fi/en/2015/07/16/10-nordic-principles-for-a-hyperconnected-planet/" title="10 Nordic Principles for a Hyperconnected Planet" target="_blank">make it</a></u> together</i> − sharing responsibility makes life easier. No human shortsightedness is profound enough to root out all communal traits and render a person capable of functioning in isolation: we need each other. We are social animals.
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There is an abundance of initiatives showing our good global will, like the <i><u><a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/" title="Millennium Sustainable Development Goals" target="_blank">Millennium Development Goals</a></u></i>, or the <i><u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations" title="United Nations @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">United Nations</a></u></i> and its <i><u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change" title="United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">Framework Convention on Climate Change</a></u></i> (next to be held in December 2015), and the <i><u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Nuclear-Test-Ban_Treaty" title="Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty</a></u></i>, to mention only a few. Did You know that <u><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/the_world_is_not_falling_apart_the_trend_lines_reveal_an_increasingly_peaceful.single.html" title="The World Is Not Falling Apart" target="_blank">violence, oppression, armed conflicts</a></u>, as well as <u><a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/10/04/world-bank-forecasts-global-poverty-to-fall-below-10-for-first-time-major-hurdles-remain-in-goal-to-end-poverty-by-2030" title="World Bank Forecasts Global Poverty to Fall Below 10% for First Time; Major Hurdles Remain in Goal to End Poverty by 2030" target="_blank">poverty</a></u>, are on a constant decline, and that <u><a href="http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/europe-target-20-percent-renewable-energy-2020/2015-02-17" title="Europe on Target for 20% Renewable Energy by 2020" target="_blank">renewable energy</a></u> is on a steady rise? Or how much natural areas we <u><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/10/22/the-world-has-protected-more-of-the-ocean-this-year-than-ever-before/" title="More of the Planet Was Protected in 2015 Than Ever. Few Noticed Because It Was Underwater." target="_blank">managed to protect this year</a></u>? Some lesser-known collaborations with more modest capacities are also out there, like the <i><u><a href="http://theopenutopia.org/full-text/introduction-open-utopia/" title="Introduction: Open Utopia" target="_blank">Open Utopia</a></u></i>, <i><u><a href="https://united-earth.vision/en" title="United Earth" target="_blank">United Earth</a></u></i>, <i><u><a href="http://gf2045.com/" title="Global Future 2045 International Congress" target="_blank">Global Future 2045 International Congress</a></u></i>, the counter-culture of the <i><u><a href="http://www.the-other.info/2014/rainbow-family-living-light" title="The Rainbow Family Tribe: the Call for an Alternative" target="_blank">Rainbow Family</a></u></i>, and many, many more...
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All of these are a testimonial to our inborn enthusiasm towards good life. Viewed from an individual's perspective progress can seem inconsistent and slow, but it's here all around. Of course, just because there are some benevolent tendencies in overall progress, the more destructive and even decadent flows of our workings are not any less influential. Often, I get asked typical questions: "is this it?" and "can't we do better?" The answer to this cynicism is that we actually are doing better – this <i>is</i> it. We might not make it in the end, but we sure do aim to; even if we embarked on a sustainable future out of <u><a href="http://earth2045.com/" title="Earth 2045 (Yeah, it is a commercial; one that is actually doing a good job by spreading good ideas, while not throwing the service forcibly in our faces. It is a neat example of what I was talking about.)" target="_blank">sheer necessity</a></u>.
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A lot is awry with our current societal models, even in successful countries, which are having a large role in shaping globalization. All aims are underlined with wealth. The practical synonym for accomplishment is profit. Prosperity is measured by GDP and the quarterly increase of revenue. "Money makes the World 'round," the saying goes. Most of what is in the modern world is subordinate to this idea. Personal creativity and uniqueness are tailored for the markets and corporate branding. Working hours are set according to supposed quantifiable productivity. This is <u><a href="https://youtu.be/JvJTUZaivCI" title="Is Capitalism Bad For You? – 8-Bit Philosophy @ YouTube" target="_blank">nothing new</a></u> – I already touched this topic in one of my <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.nl/2014/09/into-land-of-molded.html" title="Into the Land of the Molded @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">previous posts</a></u>. This world is visibly tailored for a minority, which we can see in the <u><a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/01/01/what-we-know-about-inequality-in-14-charts/" title="What We Know About Inequality (in 14 Charts)" target="_blank">raising economic inequality</a></u>. I am not bashing our semi-democratic capitalism. It is a magnificent standard which made us achieve the most wondrous development and personal freedom we ever had. Yet as everything, it is nearing its conclusion.
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Taking the next step towards an even more improved society has its demands. It needs practical solutions and time. We need innovative ideas and their trialing, and as we speak, courageous undertakings are actually taking place. Sweden is about to <u><a href="http://www.sciencealert.com/sweden-is-shifting-to-a-6-hour-workday" title="Sweden Is Shifting to a 6-Hour Work Day" target="_blank">experiment</a></u> with a 6 hour working day. Several basic income pilot programmes have been <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Pilot_programmes" title="Pilot Programmes of Basic Income @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">recently tested</a></u> around the World. Both of these go well together with the high likelihood of robots taking over most, if not all, of our labor in the <u><a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/08/when-robots-take-all-the-work-whatll-be-left-for-us-to-do/" title="When Robots Take All the Work, What'll Be Left for Us to Do?" target="_blank">foreseeable future</a></u>. The US legal system launched a new form of company models this year: <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation" title="Benefit Corporation @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">the benefit corporations</a></u>. Such companies are required to consider Their profit-maximizing decisions in ways that are favorable to our environment. Then there are the game-changing technologies that are a part of the optimistic outlooks towards our future, the details of which I am leaving for one of my upcoming posts.
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Things are far from being dandy, but we are transgressing from instinct to real problem solving. There is a lot of fuss about the paradigm shift, and all I can say is that some great change is all around. All of what I described is a part of it. It just looks slow, but in a few hundred years our era will be summarized in just a few printed paragraphs within elementary history books. (Yes, paper books will <u><a href="http://mashable.com/2013/01/16/e-books-vs-print/" title="Why Printed Books Will Never Die" target="_blank">prevail</a></u>.)
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But what is a paradigm? Let's get to the bottom of the semantics of our context. <u><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paradigm?s=t" title="Paradigm @ Dictionary.com" target="_blank">According to Dictionary.com</a></u>, the philosophical, social and scientific meaning is:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">"a) a framework containing the basic assumptions, ways of thinking, and methodology that are commonly accepted by members of a community,
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b) such a cognitive framework shared by members of any discipline or group."<br /></span></div>
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The phrase "paradigm shift" was actually popularized by Thomas Kuhn, who applied it for the domain of science (from which parallels can be drawn towards other areas of human endeavors). To <u><a href="https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/Kuhn.html" title="The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Outline and Study Guide)" target="_blank">oversimplify His view</a></u>, there are two faces to science: the <i>normal</i>, puzzle solving <i>science</i> and the <i>scientific revolutions</i>. The latter are the bearers of paradigms, they set the frameworks for the puzzle-solving science. Over time, scientist "solving the puzzles" encounter series of <i>anomalies</i> or data that indicates an inconsistency in the general way that things are considered. Then, the factor of individuals comes in, when certain people generate new frameworks (general theories) which compete among each other. Finally, one framework manages to explain most of the critical points the previous couldn't and leaves the least to doubt. A new paradigm is born. However, a new paradigm doesn't solve some of the problems that the previous one did, but it does apparently provide explanations to a larger amount of questions. So, the new view is not necessarily the direct result of an accumulation of knowledge, but an effect of a fundamentally different understanding of the constantly gathering information. To put it in different words, the new paradigm qualifies by being able to offer a platform on which <i>normal science</i> can solve a greater number of puzzles, but does not promise to bring humanity closer to explaining reality. We might never know which paradigm's framework was the closest to the supposed objective truth since we will, with each and every new paradigm, live in a different Universe, as perceived by its subjective individuals.
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This means that in order for the World to change, we need a profoundly alternating view of how things function. The <i>Inverted Pyramid</i> is a draft that attempts exactly this change. It restructures the values in levels of power, responsibility, who serves who and for what purpose. It is not, in the Kuhnian sense, the "creative leap" − the main force behind the necessary revolution − but, hopefully, it might be one of the ideas that will lead to it.
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For a while now, the politics of the World seem to have the tendency towards a final unification. Arguably, this alliance, the nature of which remains to be seen, could have been anticipated from the very beginnings of conscious socialization. This underlying and cultivable tendency is a basic assumption of the model I am to describe: <maroon>unity</maroon>. It is opposed to a centralized power in the traditional sense, where the top of the pyramid exerts most of the influence, while enjoying the highest priority of privileges.
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Any unique system is challenged by all its respective domains and (eco)systems, which need independently regulated functioning in order to flourish. Anything from individual people to geographical regions, or from small creative teams to policy planning ministries need their own specifically arranged guidelines, otherwise the dependency on the central execution of limited capacity increases its entropy ever so rapidly. We can often observe that a type of governance which works great in one place only does harm in the other.
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Although the ideas which follow will include elements of some, at times, contradictory ideologies I see practical value in: thinking which resembles egalitarianism, libertarian democracy, socialism, and anarchism, I have no intentions of covertly propagating any of these views. I only offer a simple framework, regardless of the philosophy I use to support it. In the least, it is a very flexible design – it can be revised for any kind of organization in ways that can considerably improve its functionality. So, here it is:
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<span style="font-size: 10px;" "padding-left: 50px;">Hover over the image with your mouse pointer in order to magnify it.</span>
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<a class="zoom" href="https://i.imgur.com/ABpqfOv.png"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/waRBhpS.png" width="300"></a>
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<span style="font-size: 10px;">A PDF version of this image can be viewed and downloaded by <u><a alt="liquid delegative democracy heterarchy sid meier alpha centauri" href="http://www.mediafire.com/view/x963gr7b6772ww8/Inverted_Pyramid_PDF_by_Asylum_for_Thoughts.pdf" title="Inverted Pyramid PDF by Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">clicking here</a></u>.</span>
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Note that the word "government" used in this context is a term in its literal sense, as in "political direction and control over a community", rather than (necessarily) referring to a "national state". A parallel can be drawn between the groups of the <i>Inverted Pyramid</i> and those of <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_ecological_model#Ecological_systems_theory" title="Social ecological model - Bronfenbrenner's ecological framework for human development @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems</a></u>, although are far from the same. In the case of Bronfenbrenner's, the groups are areas of influence over one's development throughout life, or social sectors with different aptitudes of impact. The parallel only exists in the levels of authority of these systems over the course of planning and execution of individual's lives, but with an overturned alignment of influence and accountability. When I earlier wrote that we don't really think that much outside of our daily matters, I was referring to the natural instinct of being involved mostly within the micro- and mesosystems in Bronfenbrenner's model.
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To those familiar with the concept, the <i>Inverted Pyramid</i> might also strike significant resemblance to <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy" title="Delegative Democracy @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">delegative democracy</a></u>. The similarity exists indeed: a democratic constitution of this kind abandons representatives, who could manage avoiding legal accountability in regimes designed for benefiting a few instead of many. Instead, as implied by the <i>Inverted Pyramid</i>, the executives of the system are delegates who represent an active political role and <u><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/magazine/who-needs-a-boss.html" title="Who Needs a Boss?" target="_blank">possess ownership</a></u> over what They do. A delegate can be practically anyone, and although Their power can be voluntary, it is much more limited under the pressure of the mass, with the possibility of a certain form of <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism" title="Ostracism @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">ostracism</a></u>.
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Especially the "specialization" and "re-delegation" idea of this "liquid" democracy resembles a heterarchical setup, which is a welcomed possibility in the <i>Inverted Pyramid</i>. I highly recommend to educate Yourself further on the concepts being mentioned, if You haven't already. :) Being an active politician and the heterarchy have already been <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.nl/2014/08/indignation.html" title="Indignation @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">discussed on this blog</a></u>.
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The key difference between existing models and this one is service through cooperation. I mentioned above how we in general lack some quality training in <u><a href="https://youtu.be/6OLPL5p0fMg" title="Critical Thinking @ Youtube" target="_blank">critical thinking</a></u> and <u><a href="http://www.helpguide.org/articles/emotional-health/emotional-intelligence-eq.htm" title="Key Skills for Raising Emotional Intelligence (EQ)" target="_blank">emotional intelligence</a></u>. For any society to work properly, these two sets of skills are of basic significance. The <i>Inverted Pyramid</i> assumes a cooperative altruism, which would handle conflicts and clashes of interests in a constructive and assertive manner, with the aim to benefit everyone directly included and excluded. The essential sense of unity is a prerequisite for a system like this to work; while the understanding that <u><a href="http://www.globalissues.org/article/590/corruption" title="Global Issues: Corruption" target="_blank">corruption ultimately damages</a></u> the welfare of the whole <i>as well as the individual</i> is vital to any system.
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After all that has been said and written, it is obvious that the path that could lead a successful organization towards a practical utilization of an <i>Inverted Pyramid</i> would have to be paved with enlightenment. This is only the first of the challenges, with many more to follow in its wake. As I alleged already, the <i>Inverted Pyramid</i> is not claiming to be a universal scheme for a unified government, nor does it offer a solution without challenges. As all methods which address the managerial structure of diverse personalities who are its subjects, it has inherent difficulties: it's hard to satisfy just everyone. And since it is based on a certain ideal and standard of morals, it definitely leaves a lot of space for rectification. Let's just think of it as a mere mindset suggestion on how organizations, which choose to incorporate a similar philosophy, could work in general and how some of them already work. It is a simple and tested approach to managing, which I received from a mentor and did my best to improve it as I saw best. I firmly believe that the Inverted Pyramid could save more problems than it would cause if executed through well-thought, long-termed planning.
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Special thanks to Elina Primaka, who helped me out a lot with the graphic for this post! Check out Her portfolio by <u><a href="http://elinaprimaka.com/" title="Check Elina Primaka's Graphic Design Portfolio!" target="_blank">clicking here</a></u>!
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What do You, Reader, think? Will we build a more cooperative and compassionate worldwide system? Leave a Figment below.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-92149439855422535522015-10-27T19:21:00.001+01:002016-10-12T14:22:11.793+02:00A Malevolent Defect<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Up until now, I intentionally avoided writing about the current immigrant situation in Europe. My reason for this is that there are many people with a <u><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/2015/09/09/slavoj-zizek/the-non-existence-of-norway" title="The Non-Existence of Norway" target="_blank">much better insight</a></u> into the topic than me, who are actively discussing and acting upon the affair. Adding my own opinion just seems redundant. Be that as it may, it happened so that today two similar online projects were called to my attention; one being done in the Slovenian, the other in the Croatian language. These projects are focused on a certain aspect of the whole immigrant issue in their respective countries, both of which's languages I speak. And this certain aspect I always found to be the most alarming of all. Its scope surpasses the concerns around the immigrants. The circumstances in progress purely demonstrate a fertile ground for observing this phenomenon well, and these two websites provide an excellent viewpoint. Thus, I decided to write an exclusive blog post, sharing the message of these websites, in English.
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The most distressing facet being addressed in the two projects is the aggressive public opinion of some citizens. I am not talking about mere xenophobia and the failure to tolerate other members of our own kind, – frames of mind which represent enormous problems on their own, – but about the openly hostile intentions with the aim to hurt those struck by a great tragedy; a tragedy I would never wish for anyone to endure.
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I usually argue that the third reich received the most appropriate of punishments from history: it became the prime example of <i>what not to do</i>, and the followers of the regime are one of the most widely used symbols for catharsis, i.e. people who are mercilessly killed in movies and video games, and have jokes of adolescent humor being tailored about them. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly obvious that historical facts alone are not enough to make the ancient saying "<u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magistra_vitae" title="History is life's teacher. @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">historia magistra vitae est</a></u>" uphold its wisdom for the individual's attention.
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<center><div class="zoomtilt">
<a href="https://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/archives/barchpic/search/_1403086899/?search%5Bform%5D%5BSIGNATUR%5D=Bild+101I-186-0160-12" target="_blank"><img alt="pogrom jewish man cicl violence lviv july 1941" height="550" src="https://i.imgur.com/dEqyA1l.png" title="Click for image source." width="352" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">A pogrom in progress. Lviv, July 1941.</span>
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There are several efforts, especially around Europe, that focus on illumination about the atrocities of the Second World War and the dangerous deeds that can come from ignoring facts about human behavior. There is plenty of knowledge written on the psychology of evil, and I'll leave that subject for a future post. The point I want to emphasize here is that in order to avoid maliciousness, all we need to do (in most cases) is to <i>know</i> about the nature of a tendency which leads us to succumb to acts of violence. Sadly, some people are raised to be bigots, and, after appropriate education, public ridicule is the next best thing which might open Them to the possibilities of admitting to somewhat more philanthropic ways.
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In my following post, I will mention how ill-informed we commonly are... It is tragic to think that even in Europe, the cradle of fascism, some people still dare to wish for the reiteration of the true horror that will hold its marks for times to come. Many people had it with this attitude, and so did someone from Slovenia. They made a simple blog called "<u><a href="https://zlovenija.tumblr.com/" title="ZLOvenija" target="_blank">ZLOvenija</a></u>" that raises attention to our twinge on two levels. One is a public presentation of hostile comments on social media, accompanied with the names and photos of the responsible individuals. The other is the critical style of the blog. This style mainly consists of a manifesto, which declares a concern towards the necessity of the existence of a blog like it is, and the title. <i>Zlo</i> in many Slavic languages means <i>evil</i>. Then, someone from Croatia found out about ZLOvenija and created a similar blog, with the title "<u><a href="https://lijepanasa.tumblr.com/" title="Lijepa Naša" target="_blank">Lijepa Na<span style="font-size: 13px;">š</span>a</a></u>", which means <i>our beautiful</i> – the very beginning of the Croatian national hymn and a catchphrase illustrating the love towards the home country, often sadly misused for the purposes of <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism" title="Jingoism @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">jingoism</a></u> – and in this case this idiom is its own parody. Its slogan is "mr<span style="font-size: 14px;">ž</span>nja ima lice", meaning: hatred has a face.
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The manifesto of ZLOvenija begins with a quote:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">"Without the Hösses, the Eichmanns, the Goglidzes, the Vishinskys, but also without the railway signalmen, the concrete manufacturers, and the government accountants, a Stalin or Hitler is nothing but a wineskin bloated with hatred and impotent terror. To state that the vast majority of the managers of the extermination processes were neither sadists nor sociopaths is now a commonplace.
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But the ordinary men that make up the State – especially in unstable times – now there's the real danger. The real danger for mankind is me, is you."<br /><u><a href="https://books.google.nl/books?id=pFs-2JVkUcYC&printsec=frontcover" title="The Kindly Ones By Jonathan Littell @ Google Books" target="_blank">~ Jonathan Littell</a></u></span></div>
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It continues:
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"This page should not exist.
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This page should not exist, because we would like to believe that our fellow citizens, neighbors and relatives are people who do not want to torment, humiliate and kill. Not us and not others.
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This page should not exist, because we would like to believe that the society, in which we were formed (family, school, church), did everything it could in order to prevent unreflected hatred and violence of any kind.
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This page should not exist, because we would like to believe that the history, which still didn't manage to count all its dead, is sufficiently obvious.
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This page should not exist, because we would like to believe that we built the society on the heritage of the ideas of enlightenment and human rights.
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This page should not exist, because we never wanted to put ourselves in the role of arbitrators and moralists. We know that a society in which people are forced to take matters into their own hands and adjudicate is in danger, and we are aware of the pitfalls that common judgments and ideological confrontations pose.
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This page should not exist because it is an extreme, because it arose as a response to the silence of those who are supposed to speak, those who have been elected to talk soberly at a time when the majority renounced reason. Still they did not.
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This page should not exist because it testifies to the fact that all other methods of maintaining the basic standards of civilization are defunct, and all that is left to us is merely showing a mirror. Here you go, stare into (your own) evil.
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This site will cease to exist when things turn for the better."<br /></span></div>
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I believe that sums what is at stake.
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When the best option to call out for common sense is open shaming, when free speech equals irresponsible foolishness, and when heavily traumatized and broken people are regarded as some kind of an infectious curse, then all our assumed idealistic values as species sensibly fall flat, showing just how far we are from being a kind and caring group we all pretend to be.
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And if such is the case, we need more projects like ZLOvenija and Lijepa Na<span style="font-size: 13px;">š</span>a. We ought to make the false sense of superiority as something uncool, as something that is to be despised. This duty arises as a necessity since the case seems to show that we, humans, instinctively need something to loathe. Let it then this affinity towards destruction be aimed at ignorant beliefs, rather than ourselves.
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<b><span style="color: maroon;">Update 1:</span></b> Yesterday, the ZLOvenija blog ceased with its initial activity. A post explains:
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This page is laid to rest.
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As of today, we will no longer publish new content. The photos of those who regret the dissemination of hate speech, we deleted. Other photos are temporarily removed. The columns of Reader’s Letters and Removed Photos we maintain as an archive.
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The project ZLOvenija had three objectives:
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- to launch a debate on the problematic of hate speech
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- to warn people that the web is a public space and that their words have meaning and weight, for the surroundings just as for themselves
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- to put a mirror and condemn every intolerance and violence
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The method of "pillar of shame" is an extreme one, but no less extreme are the statements which call out for killing/shooting/slaughtering/burning/beating. These are not "opinions". These are not about the freedom of speech, but of instigation that would have to be condemned by any human, regardless of political affiliation or worldview. Left and right, ours and yours, all should be aware of the problematic of such a style of expression and its toxicity. One hostile statement feeds the other – and when the discourse of violence becomes the norm, what follows?
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Evil digs in slowly and almost indiscernibly. That is why it is so important that we tirelessly warn about it. It is important that the governing bodies immediately learn of it, and that competent institutions keep it at bay. It is, therefore, important that it is unequivocally condemned first by those, who should stand as the highest moral authority of the state. When it tips over the edge, it will be too late.
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<b>That is why it would be good if more attention, rather than the controversial methods which were used by ZLOvenija, was devoted to what we highlighted.</b>
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Thanks to all who have helped in spreading this web address, for the encouragement, support, and reflections. Thanks to all who contributed with content. And above all, thanks to those of you who will from now on, during your coming disagreements, pick more tolerant ways of expression.
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This site should not exist. And yet it occurred.
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This statement is followed by anonymous apologies of those who were formerly publicized by Their hateful comments. Most of these contain the confessions on how their writers acted impulsively while being inadequately informed. I looked around a bit and learned that the administrators of ZLOvenija, under the pressure of incoming pledges for removal of content, decided to open an option for that. This option required the deletion of the original post containing hateful speech, and a letter which would be displayed instead of the previously identifiable photo.
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As expected, some people are more stubborn. Besides the few who decided to retain Their right to speak as They wish, there is a section with general letters of readers, most of which are questioning the methods and even the underlying ideology of the website. As a direct result of ZLOvenija's existence, an extremist social media page called its followers to refrain from hateful commenting, since Their personalities could be publicized. Like plenty others, this extremist page called the actions of ZLOvenija illegal. As another commentator pointed out, that is not entirely true. Although the following may clash with the laws of Slovenia any any other countries, the <u><a href="https://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.com/2014/08/too-late-is-never-introduction.html" title="Too Late is Never: An Introduction @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">terms and conditions</a></u> of <u><a href="https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms" title="Statement of Rights and Responsibilities" target="_blank">Facebook</a></u> state:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture).<br /></span></div>
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The point was definitely made. All of my respects to the creator of ZLOvenija, who not only managed to raise attention and a debate, but acted as promised, and when things turned for the better, i.e. some people taking the effects of Their own words more seriously, the ridicule was stopped.
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As for those, who haven't changed Their minds, there's a rough journey ahead. I would summarize Their sentiments in the closing of a threat to ZLOvenija, which attempted to rally people displayed on ZLOvenija in order to sue its creator(s):
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">What if there is someone who will understand these posts as an opportunity for headhunting and who will attack, even physically assault, or, god forbid, kill the people you crucified here?<br /></span></div>
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<i>Exactly.</i>
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<b><span style="color: maroon;">Update 2:</span></b> Shortly after ZLOvenija's conclusion, Lijepa Na<span style="font-size: 13px;">š</span>a followed, with a <u><a href="https://lijepanasa.tumblr.com/post/132349144628/lijepa-na%C5%A1a-ide-u-mirovanje-za-sada" title="Lijepa Naša goes to rest. For now." target="_blank">final post</a></u> of similar content to that of its inspiration. The author(s) do add that:
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"People who hate, people who have extreme attitudes, people who call upon murders, lynching, concentration camps and torture are not 'somewhere out there', they are around us. They have faces, children, husbands, wives, dogs, cats, chickens, they go to vacations, they like flowers, they hang out with us."
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Therein lies the real danger. People within the masses who create atrocities are not born twisted. They just act on natural impulses under the excuse of doing what They think is right. Sharing thoughts with people in conversation every day, while ill intended information (and even propaganda, still) spreads by the word of mouth can lead to unintended consequences. Not many of us would actually want to cause harm onto others, am I right?
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The way to a suitable degree of altruism nowadays must be carved from seeking out true information (which is <u><a href="https://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.nl/2014/09/they-say-rumor-has-it.html" title="They Say Rumor Has It @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">way easier than it may sound</a></u>) and standing for it when it is challenged by false senses of righteousness, which wouldn't be acceptable in a reversed situation. Because just like the people fleeing from religious insanity, each and every one of us could suddenly lose all the comfort we take for granted. Wouldn't it be nice if people understood us for what we are then, instead of taking us as a symbol that justifies loud and imprudent opinions?
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Do You know any similar projects in other languages, or do You plan Your own? Let others know in the Figments below.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-23523427723327597892015-10-19T07:00:00.000+02:002016-10-12T14:21:08.172+02:00Paranimalia: Deer Witch<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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If it wasn't obvious by now: I love writing. This pleasure exceeds the pages of <span style="color: maroon;">Asylum for Thoughts</span>. One of my ongoing writing projects is entitled <i><u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.nl/search/label/Paranimalia" title="Tales of Paranimalia @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">Paranimalia</a></u></i>. As I see it now, it will contain short stories, all of which tell tales by forging motives of animals and mythological creatures into the fabric of the wording, but with a specific twist each. The animals will never be directly depicted as They are usually imagined. Rather, Their symbols are to be used as stepping stones for hopefully enjoyable plots.
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Until recently, I thought of these series as a project only to be publicized once it is finished. I changed my mind. In order to one day finish the whole collection, I'm proceeding in <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.com/2014/08/perpetuum-mutato.html" title="Perpetuum Mutato @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">smaller steps</a></u>. A neat element to this approach is that I can also tell the story of each story (i.e. what inspired me, and how the writing evolved until its ripeness). These descriptions will follow after each of the texts.
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Dear Reader, I present You the first narrative of <span style="color: maroon;">Paranimalia</span> I penned, the: <i>Deer Witch</i>.
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<a href="http://www.judywilloughby.com/index.aspx?sectionid=1208874&productid=1857097" target="_blank"><img alt="the deer witch silhouette" height="359" src="https://i.imgur.com/12M2t2V.png" title="Deer Woman by Judy Willoughby - click for image source" width="250" /></a>
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<div class="center-justified"><i>“How interesting is your modern language of English, no wonder that the great powers made it be such a strong force of influence. It can conjure far more correctly than your average practitioner takes into regard. Behold.
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I am what I see with my eyes. Eye am.
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With meye all-seeing I, eye can unweave the obscurity of meye bonds and dance away meye mortality.
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With meye hear eye can ear the rhythm of verve booming in the tuning fork for truth that are meye hands.
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With each immeasurable particle being held in the spotlight of meye flowing desire, eye can sea the looping door to purity.
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Let meye moan of metamorphosis unravel the fractal eternity of meye antlers. Meye I’s open with radiating ashen light, and dancing in a circle around me, eyem conducting meyeself to open the fissure to sanctity.”</i></div>
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My mother told me stories from the time I was a little girl, how I kept retelling her my dreams about the Deer Lady. I couldn’t remember this mysterious woman, not until three nights ago. As far as I can recall, I always felt a special connection towards deer. In zoos, my heart would have ached at the sight of their constrained majesty. In the uproar of consumeristic rubbish on sale, I couldn’t help but fancy the deer with hipster glasses gone mainstream. A few years ago I couldn’t have guessed that behind this attraction there could be anything beyond a simple quirk. I did inexplicably feel that there was something pivotal just a bit farther past my realization, however.
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Now, with my vanishing ego, I can oversee how circumstantial events actually align into a plan so great, that it encompasses aeons of such essence-bending latitude, that our caged mentalities cannot even begin to fathom it. I have been teaching history of science to kids during my professional life and I have to admit that I’m not alone with my secret craving to be divine. Children are far more sincere about what lies behind their actions, and their unreserved objectives of supernatural ambition are, at the same time, charming and agonizing to look at. Unlike them, however, my understanding of omnipotence never got crushed by the limitations of human existence. I never compromised with the fact that I am powerless and bound, just because I cannot move the vase off the edge of the shelf with my mere sight. I always wanted to be a goddess, although I never openly articulated this. An aspiring intellect among crippled angels can never be met as bearable. Through suffering through this inequality in understanding, and seeing how easily the young can be influenced against their will, seeing them become repeaters of the same self-replicating mistakes of their ancestors - I learned to estrange myself from bonding. I crave to be singular, a whole for itself, an absolute. I want to restore what has, since bygone times, slowly faded into passivity by the human epigenome.
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Don’t confuse me with an antisocial, unloving and uncaring person. The memory of me deserves more than that. I have known love and I have let it evolve. Now, with my thoughts swapping places with an eternal dream, I still know about compassion towards children who need to receive the proper continuation of collective knowledge. Even with the absurd outcome of slow social evolution, I can appreciate the responsibility towards the wonder that the young are. I know how to love kids, and I also know how to love men. Romantically, friendly, platonically, casually, ideally, painfully, playfully, pitifully, wildly, you choose. I also crossed from friendships into affairs with females - a progress which only deepened my passion. I was intensely involved with women secretly and openly. I adored them, cared for them, I was turned on by their labyrinthine scents, and heated by the provocative swings of their moody frame of mind. Regardless, I haven’t even considered throwing away my freedom for the sake of involving myself with any of them. Only once it had crossed my mind to bargain my ambitions for a spurious sense of security. Only once, before fate arranged itself in my favor. Only once, and I keep seeing this filmstrip repeat the most behind my dying eyelids; these cherished pictures of brief days in a different spirituality, pulses of bestial kindness filling up our veins, intoxicated mirth jiggling throughout the summer warmth, and then the cold and grey cutting of the tram accident. In reminiscence, that petite episode of my social life was the closest to what I feel now, and that is emancipation.
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The determination that followed and which hardened itself around my motivation made me venture between the occult tomes of sorcery. I gave up my work, took my savings and <i>knew</i> my effort will be paid with another form of energy than that of the monetary type. Devoted growth cannot be bought with an indirect contribution, such as purchasing a service with wealth earned through labor. It must be sought after straightforwardly, as only then we can collect the essential lessons. What I began seeking for was out of reach even in our emerging age of informational overflow. What assets I hunted are deemed as things dark and sinister, and I involved myself in acts prosecuted and ridiculed throughout the ages of humankind. However, just as I unquestionably understood that I was meant to break out of my imprisoning body, I recognized how wrongly the world judges the lack of illusion. I fought against the dualistic division between white and black magics, and the ridiculous assumptions that come with this biased view founded on the depolarization of electrical potential in the human brain. I absorbed myself into grimoires of witchery and traveled the rainforest in search of indigenous shamanesses, just to realize that such ideologies are the perplexed and popularized remnants of perennial cults. I realized that the pristine shapers of authoritative principles of this world excluded all thought from their worship, using only the elemental force of consecrated motion. Language is an exceedingly influential act on its own, but is incapable of the precision mantric-kinetic movement can harness. I ceased speaking and got estranged from the unreasonable mess that society is. My vocalizations got reduced to groans as I uncovered ways in dancecraft of abiding authenticity and suffered the consequences of trial and error.
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Gradually, my body grew ageless and my perception got amplified. I was able to witness and walk among sceneries of before inconceivable realms and intermingling virtues. I grew aware of the inestimable scope of being. What I have come to love most is Mother Nature, the dominant womb in which all there is to be known grows. I cannot care more for minuscule parts of Her; and for the fragmentary memories of past loves, I shed a tear for each, just as these old quixotic fallacies would demand.
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By dancing to the precise rhythm, I could share the minds of Her magnificent creatures. Across all spheres of actualities, choosing among biological, ethereal, mechanical, gravitational, holographic, luminescent, crystalline, or acoustic of Her living things, the qualia I relished the most was that of the deer. Their majestic posture and strapping lope relentlessly filled me with the sweaty potency of freedom I could not feel in any other state. With their nocturnal vision, I could observe the properties of the night no apparatus can faithfully measure. The instinctual displays of dominance aligned flawlessly with my sentiment of superiority. For me, being a deer was finally discovering home. Before I knew, I incorporated their characteristic and dynamism into my own rituals. When I got the repetitions right is when She first reappeared, bringing back the certainty where my vocation originates from. She also brought the presque vu feeling that the realization I have been working towards will come not on that night, nor the next day when She comes for the second time, but during the third trance. And here I am now, already feeling my reasoning slipping away, sensing Her drawing nearer ad nearer.
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Oh, and what a sight She is! I can see Her approaching, just as She did a few nights ago, taming me with Her restful words and serenity possible only in possession of a comprehension overly vast, only to tease me then with sentences so perfect, that my subconscious blossoms with the raging pride of recognition of what my actual crux is. There are clouds vaporizing from Her bronzed nostrils as She stops for me to admire Her as if Her noble, vigorous stance is reflecting the promises of my own destiny. Her eyes are eclipsing planets, looking down to me below Her crown of densely branching horns. Her whole transcendental flesh is scorching with metacelestial grandeur.
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With open arms, She delivers Her pledge:
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<div class="center-justified"><i>Tonight eye sing you the beginning of meye song<br />
Each night brings a new stanza of reincarnation<br />
The third night in order you will sing along<br />
Revolution comes with reiteration
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Anew eye come inevitable<br />
Meye plan prevails impeccable<br />
Elucidates your desires<br />
Your self eye cast into pyres
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Now eye lift you from lethal curse<br />
It is now that you stop your rehearse<br />
Into evocative performance you immerse<br />
By the end of meye final verse<br />
Reality you shall traverse</i></div>
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And I practice all the dances I have ever perfected, all chained in an unfolding pattern of similarity, leaving the bounds of space and time I multiply my selves to dance in a multidimensional analemma around and through myself, seeing myself close my eyes and dive into the waves of omniverses pulsating through my veins, inexorably leading me to be devoid of conditions, full and eternal.
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<div class="center-justified"><i>Meye I’s see you trough the words you read, accepting your puny indifference towards the cooperative consent to live in fear of freedom. Savor this fear you feel, as it is a part of me and meye view. Fear freely, as you cannot fear away from me. Your input will lead to better alignments of possibilities blessed into existence by meye ever revolving maternity. Adore.</i></div>
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<b>The Story of the Story</b>
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During my thorough research into the occult many moons ago, figures of powerful people with antlers, especially women who appear in dreamy realms, reached my attention. They didn't leave any particularly strong impressions, but I did imagine Them from time to time.
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Years later, I learned from my closest friend that as a child, She talked about this creature visiting Her. She didn't remember it, Her mother told Her. Around that period we also got acquainted with deer as our mutual <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.nl/2015/03/red-shoes.html" title="Red Shoes @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">mythology</a></u>. In a way, I also thought of my friend when shaping the character.
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And then, another close friend sent me a link to a musical artist, <i><u><a href="http://rone-music.com/" title="Rone Music" target="_blank">Rone</a></u></i>, whom I started exploring. It was only a matter of time until I came across the video for His (current) top-track, which acted as the last piece of the uplifting momentum:
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<center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kfoJUeyMsOE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center>
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The beats and images of this artwork have such a talent, that they managed to unite the refined figments of years worth of mental incubation into a seed of creativity. Somewhere at that time I was assisting a self-development training, during which we barely had times to sleep, not to mention writing. But, the concept burned in me.
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Just as the titular character, the embryo of the tale demanded itself to be written, as Its time had come. So, during breaks and before sleep, when I managed to wake up earlier to take a shower and during meals, I wrote. I usually prefer the keyboard and modern text editing software for writing. It makes my life easier. However, then I wrote everything on paper. It was the only way, the way it was faithful to the content's manually ritualistic conjuration.
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If I remember well, I finished the raw version in four days or so. Only after the training I had the time to digitize and edit it to my, and I suppose the Deer Witch's, liking. In return, She granted me the vision for <i>Paranimalia</i>.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-15630086850967786902015-10-05T07:00:00.000+02:002016-12-04T14:38:45.594+01:00The Extraterrestrial Paradigm<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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When humanity began mindfully observing patterns during our development, it was only natural to one night look up at the sparkling sky and dream up constellations. It's not far-fetched to think that the stars shaped our lives according to when and where they appeared, and what we thought of them. Trying to solve the meaning of life, we brewed many inquiries about the nature of what may spread far above the deep azure. For many of those we discovered solutions and thus achieved progress; yet there are a few we never got around figuring out. Belonging to the latter category, one of our <u><a href="https://youtu.be/7SWvDHvWXok" title="Chris Anderson: Questions No One Knows the Answers To @ Youtube" target="_blank">greatest unanswered questions</a></u> can be paraphrased in many ways: are we on this planet, as a semi-conscious <u><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/23/species-earth-estimate-scientists" title="Planet Earth is home to 8.7 Million Species, Scientists Estimate" target="_blank">group</a></u>, alone in the Universe? Are there other species in outer space, who pose Themselves with the same intrigue? Is life common throughout the Cosmos?
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Given the <u><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/28/nasa-scientists-find-evidence-flowing-water-mars" title="NASA Scientists Find Evidence of Flowing Water on Mars" target="_blank">recent discovery on Mars</a></u>, we might find (traces of) life on the Red Planet. What mostly interests the common human, however, is not mere life that is outside of our planetary ecosystem, but life that has organized itself into some form of civilization or a comparable structure of sentience. A contact with such being(s) would prove to be one of the, if not the, most important events to take place in humanity's history.
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The father of nuclear power, Enrico Fermi, had proposed His famous question "<u><a href="http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/documents/fullText/ACC0055.pdf" title="Eric Jones: An Account of Fermi's Question" target="_blank">Where is everybody?</a></u>", which gave birth to the famed <i><u><a href="https://youtu.be/sNhhvQGsMEc" title="The Fermi Paradox - Where Are All The Aliens? @ Youtube" target="_blank">Fermi Paradox</a></u></i>. In short, this apparent paradox questions the puzzling clash of the relatively high likelihood of interstellar contact between developed beings, with the fact that we haven't experienced such a contact. Some decade later Frank Drake, a pioneer in extraterrestrial life research, came up with the <i><u><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/drake-equation.html" title="Interactive Drake Equation" target="_blank">Drake Equation</a></u></i>, a probabilistic formula for estimating the number of other intelligent life capable of interstellar communication within the Milky Way. Its usefulness had been criticized many times over, although if it has at least some validity, then there should be at least two other such civilizations in our galaxy, regarding the <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#Current_estimates" title="Current Drake Equation Estimates @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">latest estimates</a></u> (valid during the time of writing this blog post).
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So far we haven't noticed anyone. My expectation is that meeting any kind of intelligent extraterrestrial life with our current and estimated future capabilities is left to a pure twist of fate, since the scale of different barriers leaves us stranded between passion and unlikelihood. Some readers might find this post biased because of this conviction of mine – however I do assure You that it comes from the most eager of attempts in understanding the topic as much as an enthusiast can. To counter the effects of my doubt, I'm also presenting views that speak in favor of interstellar contact. In-depth descriptions of the most popular and related topics have been <u><a href="http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html" title="The Fermi Paradox @ Wait But Why" target="_blank">written</a></u> by many other thinkers, so I encourage You, Reader, to broaden Your knowledge by bravely searching the vast Web. Furthermore, in this post I'm avoiding anything that might resemble <u><a href="https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/searching-et-no-evidence-yet" title="Searching for ET, But No Evidence Yet" target="_blank">conspiracy</a></u> or any similar sighting theories. I am in strong disbelief towards such topics, but I'm in no position to fruitlessly argue against them, so let's just leave them at this.
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<b>The Confines on Imagination</b>
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Let's begin with the obvious fact that we only assume a lot about the Universe. We have no actual understanding about its prodigious actuality, and what lies across its vastness.
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We invest a lot of faith in the idea that space alien life form(s) should be by any means comparable to what we can observe on earth − an attitude which projects Their supposed appearance, functioning, behavior and, usually, use of (computing) technology. This terra-centrism is being <u><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/forget-little-green-men--aliens-will-look-like-humans-says-cambridge-university-evolution-expert-10358164.html" title="Forget Little Green Men" target="_blank">scientifically justified</a></u>, and space alien morphology is regularly compared to our own <u><a href="http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html" title="Meat" target="_blank">earth-like organic composition</a></u> (or its derivative, the appointed technological-life design). The more visionary scientist-artists like <u><a href="http://www.pbs.org/exploringspace/aliens/designs/index.html" title="Designs of Alien Life" target="_blank">Joel Hagen</a></u>, <u><a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-will-extraterrestrial-life-look-180950029/?no-ist" title="What Will Extraterrestrial Life Look Like?" target="_blank">David Aguilar</a></u> and <u><a href="http://melodylee84.deviantart.com/" title="Hypnagogic Beasties, Mostly @ Deviantart" target="_blank">Lee Giles</a></u> seem to leave the semi-conventional evolutionary morphology, although Their expressive creatures are still inspired by how we understand evolution on Earth within its <u><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.08922" title="Comparative Habitability of Transiting Exoplanets" target="_blank">conditions</a></u>. Scientifically this sentiment definitely makes sense; I'm not here to dispute the effectiveness of such reasoning. It is, in the end, as plausible as anything. There is even a scientific proposition which exchanges the recently theorized dark-matter with <u><a href="http://www.baen.com/starsconscious.asp" title="Stars That Wander, Are You Bright: Are Stars Conscious?" target="_blank">consciousness of stars</a></u>! As a more exploratory approach, there is a dedicated branch of science, dubbed <i><u><a href="http://biopolyverse.com/2011/06/28/exobiology-astrobiology/" title="Exobiology / Astrobiology" target="_blank">exobiology</a></u></i>, which is concerned with life among the stars, and the effects of extraterrestrial surroundings on life as we know it.
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If, for a few minutes we allow ourselves to think about the sometimes weird (living) phenomena we can observe on Earth, today and in the distant past (i.e. remains from prehistory), how wild could we allow our fantasies to go while thinking of life beyond the sky? Maybe we are already looking at Them, and They back to us, but we simply cannot decipher each other as equals in the ability to intellectively respond.
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<center><div class="zoomtilt">
<a href="http://www.fractalcities.org/" target="_blank"><img alt="extraterrestrial space alien civilization conversation observing earth" height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/2WydjIz.png" title="A lávar-öck and s'talag'mite of the Harmonious Combinion during a typical SETI night, set on a peripheral outpost." width="700" /></a>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 13px;">Translation:</span>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 13px;">“Yo, vkRer, here's the formation the algorithm threw out. What do we think, is it finally a clue that our consciousness is not unique?”</span>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 13px;">“Nah, iiJuc, that is but a regular fractal pattern, just like the rest in our useless database. The algorithm is useless.”</span>
</div>
</div>
</div></center>
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<b>Challenges of Contextual Communication</b>
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If we eventually meet undeniably sentient space aliens, it's possible that we hit an insurmountable obstacle: we might be so different, that any attempts in bridging communication barriers would prove to be a <u><a href="http://english.lem.pl/arround-lem/adaptations/soderbergh/147-the-solaris-station/" title="The Solaris Station, by Stanisław Lem" target="_blank">futile attempt</a></u>. This is, of course, the exaggeration of the worst case scenario in trans-cognizant communication.
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Think about how different the communication systems of different animals on Earth are and the <u><a href="http://www.livescience.com/22474-animal-languages-communication.html" title="When Will We Learn To Speak Animal Languages?" target="_blank">challenges</a></u> these distinctions pose. A group of renowned people is already addressing our domestic issues with a project named <i><u><a href="http://www.interspecies-internet.org/" title="Interspecies Internet" target="_blank">The Interspecies Internet</a></u></i>. One of its founders, internet pioneer Vint Cerf, also stated the following about the initiative:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">“These interactions with other animals will teach us, ultimately, how we might interact with an alien from another world.”<br /><u><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/the_interspecies_internet_an_idea_in_progress" title="The Interspecies Internet? An Idea in Progress @ TED" target="_blank">~ Vint Cerf</a></u></span></div>
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We humans, think in a peculiar way. Our knowledge is memorial and symbolic (or at least, that's the best <u><a href="http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/cs405/handouts/psycho.pdf" title="Cognitive Psychology - Memory Models, Knowledge Representation; a handout by Dr. Kenrick Mock at University of Alaska Anchorage" target="_blank">emulation</a></u> we have of it). The way we understand the Universe is based on the <u><a href="http://www.wisegeekhealth.com/what-is-subjective-perception.htm" title="What Is Subjective Perception?" target="_blank">way we perceive</a></u> it through senses specific to humans. Unlocking an extraterrestrial communication system that is completely different than ours will be a challenge for both sides. Their "bodies" and "<u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain" title="Brain @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">brains</a></u>" are probably built differently. The might not think in conceptualized symbols.
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This reminds me of this great retrogame <i>Captain Blood</i> which adopts the assumption that all intelligent life operates on bases that are similar to our own. The main <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Blood_(video_game)#Gameplay" title="Gameplay of Captain Blood @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">interface of the game</a></u> works on concept-based icons. The player has to use these concepts to first understand the logic of space aliens, and then communicate in a way which makes bilateral sense. This endeavor is already challenging in the form of a game. (If any fans are reading this, there is hopefully a <u><a href="http://www.tiledin.com/captain.blood.legacy" title="Captain Blood Legacy" target="_blank">remake</a></u> on the way.)
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Speaking of logic and language... Dr. Hans Freudenthal constructed the <i><u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincos_(artificial_language)" title="Lincos (Artificial Language) @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">Lingua Cosmica</a></u></i> — a language designed for sending interstellar radio messages. Alexander Ollongren improved Lincos with the use of <u><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-intuitionistic/" title="Intuitionistic Logic @ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" target="_blank">intuitionistic logic</a></u>. As He describes in His book <i>Astrolinguistics</i>, logic could be our best shot at initiating a trans-cognizant chat. He took good care of detaching the core of His work from human arbitrariness:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">“Designers of sizable interstellar messages might easily be faced with the problem of how to deal with existential aspects as they occur in our 'knowledge of the world'. Surely topics to be described should exist, but in what sense? Scenes described in poetry 'exist' in a completely different way than descriptions of happenings in a historical survey. Whatever formal system is utilized to express aspects of human societies, it should be able to handle existence and representations of it in a logical sense. <i>De facto</i> the concept is explicitly predicatively used in . . . various aspects of Lingua Cosmica. One purpose . . . is to demonstrate how existence, regarded as a kind of impredicative certainty, can be embedded in Lingua Cosmica.”<br /><u><a href="https://www.springer.com/us/book/9781461454670" title="Ollongren, A. (2013), Astrolinguistics, New York, Springer-Verlag, p.183." target="_blank">~ Alexander Ollongren</a></u></span></div>
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Working with messages that were built with the very intention of making them understandable seems to be a way easier effort than deciphering possible "written" remnants of some ancient space-faring civilization. Without an <u><a href="http://www.universetoday.com/116634/communicating-across-the-cosmos-4-the-quest-for-a-rosetta-stone/" title="Communicating Across the Cosmos 4: The Quest for a Rosetta Stone" target="_blank">alternative to Rosetta Stone</a></u>, we would be clueless, just as we were with the hieroglyphs – unless we talk about mathematics.
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The most concise description of mathematics I came across is that it is a <u><a href="http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/why-math-is-the-language-of-the-universe/" title="Why Math is the Language of the Universe" target="_blank">language based on the universe</a></u> itself. As such, it is much more easily translatable. There are two difficulties when wanting to find common ground for different mathematical philosophies, which might be used by other advanced civilizations: the logic of <u><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/models-science/#Equ" title="Models in Science: Ontology of Equations @ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" target="_blank">models</a></u> and <u><a href="http://io9.com/5977095/why-we-should-switch-to-a-base-12-counting-system" title="Why We Should Switch To A Base-12 Counting System" target="_blank">numerical systems</a></u>. As long as the supposed space aliens share similar bodily senses (most importantly <u><a href="http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Analytical_Chemistry/Analytical_Chemistry_2.0/10_Spectroscopic_Methods/10A%3A_Overview_of_Spectroscopy#The_Electromagnetic_Spectrum" title="Overview of Spectroscopy - The Electromagnetic Spectrum">vision</a></u>), this shouldn't pose an insurmountable difficulty, as it can be also seen on the photos of the <u><a href="http://goldenrecord.org/" title="Voyager Golden Record" target="_blank">Voyager Golden Record</a></u>.
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As NASA scientist Douglas Vakoch points out, mathematics are not necessarily symbols or images:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">“At least as early as the Pythagoreans of ancient Greece, who noted the mathematical relationship between the length of strings and the tones that are produced when they are plucked, humans have been aware of the connection between mathematics and music.<br />
. . .<br />
Even if extraterrestrials do not have a sense of hearing, if they can construct radio telescopes they should be familiar with concepts of frequency, duration, and amplitude that also characterize music.”<br /><u><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457651000024X" title="Vakoch, D. A. (2011), The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition: A Report on International Workshops to Encourage Multidisciplinary Discussion, Acta Astronautica, Oxford, Elsevier Ltd., p.455-456." target="_blank">~ Douglas Vakoch</a></u></span></div>
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In the end, the possibilities for countering potential challenges might be narrowed only by the lack of will. Creative intelligence itself should prove to be the surest bridging for would-be, interstellar communicating efforts. Sadly, that is the least of our problems.
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<b>The Frontiers of Tangible Reality</b>
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The properties of the physical Universe might be marginalizing our contact craving efforts. We do know that the cosmos is so unfathomably enormous, and that useful information itself <u><a href="http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/physics/107-the-universe/cosmology-and-the-big-bang/terminology/651-wait-i-m-still-confused-why-information-can-t-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light-beginner" title="Wait, I'm still confused why information can't travel faster than the speed of light." target="_blank">needs extensive time</a></u> to travel (anything faster is <u><a href="http://www.nist.gov/pml/nist-team-breaks-distance-record-for-quantum-teleportation.cfm" title="NIST Team Breaks Distance Record for Quantum Teleportation" target="_blank">restricted</a></u> to small data and distances, for now), let alone anything more corporeal. Even if we managed to achieve some kind of propulsion that would enable us to travel at the speed of light, we would be <u><a href="http://www.space.com/15830-light-speed.html" title="How Fast Does Light Travel? - The Speed of Light" target="_blank">extremely limited</a></u>. We would hardly ever leave our neighboring stars. Faster-than-light movement (like the proposed <u><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/warp.html" title="Is Warp Drive Real?" target="_blank">warp-drive</a></u> – technology contracting space in front of a vehicle and expanding it behind) of any kind is highly uncertain at this point, leaving the boundary in technologically achievable velocity of movement to be under the speed of light. Actually, considering the way our <u><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/05/12/the-limits-of-how-far-humanity-can-go-in-the-universe/" title="The Limits of How Far Humanity Can Go in the Universe" target="_blank">understandings stand today</a></u>, we might never leave the galactic cluster we reside in even if we come up with more exotic technology, due to the ever-expanding void(s) between the clusters. Unless we find means of instantaneous travel, that is.
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It is also highly plausible that our scientific development is still in need of quite a <u><a href="http://mkaku.org/home/articles/the-physics-of-interstellar-travel/" title="The Physics of Interstellar Travel − To One Day, Reach the Stars, by Michio Kaku" target="_blank">few steps</a></u> in order to be able to interlink with highly intricate communication events. Any <u><a href="http://seanmunger.com/2013/08/18/a-trip-through-the-radio-bubble-and-through-history-the-opening-scene-of-contact-video/comment-page-1/" title="A Trip Through the Radio Bubble, and Through History: the Opening Scene of Contact." target="_blank">bubbles of information</a></u> we might be able to intercept are likely to be limited to us both time-wise (once it passes its gone) and encryption-wise. As the well-known Edward Snowden puts it:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">“When we think about everything that we're hearing through our satellites or everything that they're hearing from our civilization, if there are indeed aliens out there, all of their communications are encrypted by default. So, what we are hearing, that's actually an alien television show, . . . a phone call, or a . . . message between their planet and their own GPS constellation – whatever it happens to be, – is indistinguishable to us from cosmic microwave background radiation.”<br /><u><a href="https://soundcloud.com/startalk/a-conversation-with-edward-snowden-part-1#t=32:36" title="Neil deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk Radio − A Conversation with Edward Snowden" target="_blank">~ Edward Snowden</a></u></span></div>
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Or, there just might be an upper <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#Speculation_on_limits" title="Speculation on the Limits of Moore's Law @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">limit to what we can achieve technologically</a></u>. We can only wait to see whether we can draw far enough with our technology in order to reach out to deep-space species who could recognize us. In contrast, a space alien culture might be scientifically underdeveloped compared to us. They could be oblivious to the Universe's true(r) features, just as we were until the late 16<sup><font size="1">th</font></sup> century, when we believed in the <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model#Geocentric_models_in_fiction" title="Geocentric Models in Fiction @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">geocentric model</a></u>.
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We have come far since then, and we have achieved promising developments both technologically and methodologically. Lately there have been scientific investigations based on the <i><u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale" title="Kardashev Scale @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">Kardashev Scale</a></u></i>, which is a hypothetical method of measuring a civilization's technological advancement based on its total <u><a href="http://www.coseti.org/lemarch1.htm" title="Detectability of Extraterrestrial Technological Activities" target="_blank">energy utilization</a></u>. Although these <u><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.02624" title="The Application of the Mid-IR Radio Correlation to the Gˆ Sample and the Search for Advanced Extraterrestrial Civilisations" target="_blank">investigations</a></u> found nothing, there are more <u><a href="http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/the-future-of-seti/" title="The Future of SETI" target="_blank">to come</a></u>. Maybe we are basing too much on the speculations of the mentioned and widely accepted scale, which is commonsensically based on <u><a href="http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=33113" title="SETI: The Black Hole Alternative" target="_blank">our knowledge in physics</a></u>. Earth might be a pioneer among celestial bodies with its <u><a href="http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/454/2/1811.full.pdf+html" title="On the History and Future of Cosmic Planet Formation" target="_blank">environment</a></u> that supports consciousness. Or, perhaps, after figuring out the theory of everything or reaching a singularity, <u><a href="http://accelerating.org/articles/transcensionhypothesis.html" title="The Transcension Hypothesis − Sufficiently Advanced Civilizations May Invariably Leave Our Universe, and Implications for METI and SETI." target="_blank">transcendence</a></u> is the actual form of progression. Indeed, the <u><a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/0907.3432.pdf" title="Fermi’s Paradox - The Last Challenge for Copernicanism?" target="_blank">list of probabilities</a></u> is very broad.
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Then there is our economy-driven society. Unless we find a source of free energy, the financial support necessary for <u><a href="http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/project-icarus-workshop-update-34-the-ghost-ship/" title="The Ghost Ship" target="_blank">credible efforts</a></u> in space technology is darn <u><a href="http://i4is.org/the-starship-log/how-much-will-it-cost" title="How Much Will It Cost and How Soon?" target="_blank">hard to acquire</a></u>. If we don't manage to find ways of cost- and resource-effective manned transport that could achieve (or surpass the limits of) ultimate speed, our chances of finding intelligent life in space are wretched. If such is our case, and if some thousands of years into the future people do happen to meet space aliens, there will be only a selected few of our species to actually know about it. Moreover, unless we leave it up to <u><a href="http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/Evolutionary-Adaptation-in-the-Human-Lineage-12397" title="Evolutionary Adaptation in the Human Lineage" target="_blank">evolutionary adaptation</a></u> (which would last generations in the least), before any long-term journeys off of Earth, we also have to get around solving the problem of <u><a href="https://youtu.be/Y19fwDEfQ8E" title="Your Brain on Mars @ YouTube" target="_blank">physiological changes</a></u> in the human body that occur during space travel (perhaps circumventable via <u><a href="http://www.space.com/9439-biologist-space-travelers-benefit-genetic-engineering.html" title="Space Travelers Can Benefit From Genetic Engineering" target="_blank">genetic engineering</a></u>).
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Not everyone shares such a grim prospect, of course. Many well educated people are convinced that humanity will much <u><a href="http://100yss.org/" title="100 Year Starship" target="_blank">sooner</a></u> than later discover means to proficiently travel beyond our planet's premises. Impressive <u><a href="http://www.space.com/20155-hunting-intelligent-aliens-extreme-seti.html" title="13 Ways to Hunt Intelligent Aliens" target="_blank">efforts</a></u> are being made in order to discover life in outer space. Most prominently we have the <u><a href="http://www.bigear.org/vol1no2/sagan.htm" title="Cosmic Search Vol. 1 No. 2 - The Quest for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, by Carl Sagan" target="_blank">SETI</a></u> (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) enterprise, which includes <u><a href="http://www.setileague.org/editor/meti.htm" title="Making a Case for METI" target="_blank">METI</a></u> (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) and other related fields of activity with <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoarchaeology#Etymology" title="Etymology of Xenoarchaeology @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">similar acronyms</a></u>. The <u><a href="https://youtu.be/YE-GnnG5e-M" title="NASA: We Will Find Alien Life Within 20 Years @ YouTube" target="_blank">forecasts</a></u> in the advancements of relevant technology definitely look promising, especially those still in the <u><a href="http://i4is.org/the-starship-log/transcendence" title="Transcendence Going Interstellar - How the Singularity Might Revolutionize Interstellar Travel" target="_blank">domain of sci-fi</a></u>.
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A group of prominent scientists and entrepreneurs recently pledged to kick off an <u><a href="http://www.astrobio.net/topic/deep-space/alien-life/yuri-milner-and-stephen-hawking-announce-100-million-breakthrough-initiative-to-dramatically-accelerate-search-for-intelligent-life-in-the-universe/" title="Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking Announce $100 Million Breakthrough Initiative to Dramatically Accelerate Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe" target="_blank">unprecedented search effort</a></u> for extraterrestrial intelligence, with all of its data publicly available to boost the analytics. Other innovative technologies, like <u><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1465787600/project-dragonfly-sail-to-the-stars/description" title="Project Dragonfly - Sail to the Stars @ Kickstarter" target="_blank">Project Dragonfly</a></u>, are all proof that we are intrinsically and very enthusiastic about exploration, just as <u><a href="http://www.transparencynow.com/startrek/startrek1.htm" title="Star Trek and the New Myth of the Machine - as Seen in the Talosians, Trelane, and the Organians" target="_blank">Star Trek reflects</a></u>.
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<center><div class="zoomtilt">
<a href="http://frogisis.deviantart.com/art/Type-III-Civilization-526840894" target="_blank"><img alt="type three two one civilization" height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/FxIOmkx.jpg" title="Type III Civilization by Frogisis @ Deviantart - click for image source" width="700" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">Let the ether form from Your ambitious storm.</span>
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</div></center>
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<b>First Contact</b>
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So what if we do find extraterrestrial life? Beside the well based arguments from the astronomic community, there is science-fiction. I'm a fan of it, mainly in the form of literature. The genre's fantastic technologies, if actually developed, would ease the spread of our species across the universe. The space alien topic has been the subject of such <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_contact_(science_fiction)" title="First contact in Science Fiction @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">inventive speculations</a></u> that it's not far-fetched to imagine that we will, in a way, <u><a href="http://archive.seti.org/seti/seti-science/social_effect/cultrual_aspects.php" title="Cultural Aspects of SETI" target="_blank">be prepared for a first contact</a></u>. Most of us have an <u><a href="http://www.exopoliticsspain.es/pdf/Reactions_receipt_message_ETs.pdf" title="Reactions to Receipt of a Message from Extraterrestrial Intelligence: A Cross-Cultural Empirical Study" target="_blank">opinion</a></u> on what should be done if (the probability of) contact emerges. Naturally, there are <u><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39675346/ns/technology_and_science/t/what-do-if-we-find-extraterrestrial-life/" title="What to Do If We Find Extraterrestrial Life?" target="_blank">professional debates</a></u> and <u><a href="http://www.seti.org/post-detection.html" title="Protocols for an ETI Signal Detection - Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence" target="_blank">protocols</a></u> conducted as well. There is the <i><u><a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-05-rio-scale-quantifying-consequences-discovery.html" title="The Rio Scale: Quantifying the Consequences of an ET Discovery" target="_blank">Rio scale</a></u></i> for calculating the importance of detected uncharacteristic signals of potential space-alien origin. You can play around with the <u><a href="http://avsport.org/IAA/riocalc.htm" title="Rio Scale Calculator" target="_blank">calculator</a></u> to see the importance of fictitious signals from Your favorite novels and movies. It also has a counterpart, the <i><u><a href="http://avsport.org/IAA/smiscale.htm" title="The San Marino Scale" target="_blank">San Marino Scale</a></u></i>, a tool for quantifying the informational value of messages sent from Earth. It's useful to think about the question: "what types of <u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDrBIKOR01c" title="Vsauce: Messages for the Future @ YouTube" target="_blank">messages</a></u> should we send, and why?"
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Loving sci-fi, I could go on and on with ways of interacting with, and the imagined levels of development and motives of extraterrestrial civilizations, so let's rather just proceed with the idea that contact and eventual bonding with an advanced and benevolent civilization will happen. That's some positive <u><a href="https://youtu.be/gCBlAAtJA54" title="Vsauce: Are We Ready For Aliens? @ Youtube" target="_blank">jetsoning</a></u> right there. >:3
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Whatever the nature of the contacted life-form(s) might be, the <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_cultural_impact_of_extraterrestrial_contact" title="Potential Cultural Impact of Extraterrestrial Contact @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">impact on our society</a></u> at large is certain. The cultural, political, social, theological and scientific changes due to a paradigm shift which would follow have been theorized repeatedly. Among all the aspects of our lives that will be affected, fiction is my main concern here. Will novels written before first contact hold their belief value for the future generations? Or will they merely serve as a great insight into the pre-contact era, but will be hard to relate to? All our basic assumptions about reality would significantly alter, making it hard to imagine everyday concepts from prior the change. Even fiction could become less believable if basic assumptions about living are not present in it.
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Let's think about the emergence of the World Wide Web: the freshest of generations are growing in a World where the element of the internet is omnipresent. It is here, as a part of nature. Those of us who had the chance to see the World before the well developed (and still developing!) cyberspace, can still remember how it was before any information was just a swipe away. Already we have to imagine historical novels by removing certain variables from the paradigm of the characters. Their reality, which definitely had its time, is something we can only wonder about. Try to think through the magnitude of having another sentient race mingle with our own. The whole perception of norms would profoundly alter. If we take the mentioned domain of sci-fi, novels with humans interacting with other types of imaginative beings wouldn't seem as plausible as they are now.
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Or will they? Under the weight of current evidence, we might never know. I mentioned in one of my previous posts how our craving for interstellar companionship might not be more than mere <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.nl/2015/01/the-divine-projector.html" title="The Divine Projector @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">escapism from responsibility</a></u>. Who knows, <u><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2011/07/12/the-only-sci-fi-explanation-of-hominid-aliens-that-makes-scientific-sense/#.VgqqcdQ4bK4" title="The Only Sci-Fi Explanation of Hominid Aliens that Makes Scientific Sense" target="_blank">we</a></u> might be the ones who have the privileged duty to <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Replicating_seeder_ships" title="Self-Replicating Space Seeder Ships @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">seed the universe</a></u> with ever-evolving life.
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If You are interested in the topic, I suggest further reading:
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<i><u><a href="http://www.webcitation.org/6DA6MEvc2" title="Free!" target="_blank">Contact with Alien Civilizations</a></u></i> written by Michael A.G. Michaud, which explores the intricacies of contacting with space aliens;
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<i><u><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/archaeology_anthropology_and_interstellar_communication.html" title="Free!" target="_blank">Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication</a></u></i> edited by Douglas A. Vakoch, which draws from the accumulated experience of the titular sciences to better conduct possible contact;
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also written by Douglas A. Vakoch, <i><u><a href="https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783642377495" title="Priced..." target="_blank">Extraterrestrial Altruism</a></u></i>, a contemplation about the probability of benevolent ethics as a natural outcome in highly developed societies;
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and <i><u><a href="https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780387734538" title="Priced..." target="_blank">The Search for Extraterrestrials</a></u></i> written by Monte Ross, an intricate consideration of SETI efforts.
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What do You think, dear Reader? Will we contact extraterrestrial life during our lifetimes, or ever? How will we experience Them, and how will They understand us? How will we communicate? Leave Your opinion below.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-57979118630588496902015-07-02T14:48:00.001+02:002016-10-12T14:17:46.348+02:00Direct Democracy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A short and exclusive post this time.
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There are a lot of strange things going on and around the European Union lately, many of which raise baffling questions about its sovereignty. I am not here to discuss any of these since there are plenty opinions already. I would like to raise awareness to a particular campaign happening right now. It is <u><a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/greek-bailout-fund.html" title="Greek Bailout Fund" target="_blank">a crowdfunding campaign to bail out Greece</a></u>.
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The slogan is: "By the people, for the people." The initiative calls out the people of Europe (<i>and</i> the World) to donate a small amount of money in order to repay the national debt of Greece, as a third alternative to <u><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33296839" title="Greece debt crisis: Tsipras announces bailout referendum" target="_blank">the upcoming voting</a></u> on Sunday. The tone of the well-explained campaign has a slightly aggravated tone, one that speaks from the depths of frustration of many generations, I reckon. The following paragraph particularly explains the whole sentiment I'm talking about:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">"So come on, order a Feta and Olive salad, maybe wash it down with an Ouzo or glass of Assyrtiko Greek wine and let's sort this shit out."</span></div>
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How true. The <u><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/wilschroter/2014/05/13/the-politics-of-crowdfunding/" title="The Politics of Crowdfunding" target="_blank">idea has been around</a></u>, yet as far as I'm informed, this is the first time in history, that we have a chance of this scale: a large crowdfunding to solve a pressing political issue. Given the amount that is needed and the fact that there are five days left, it is a bit unlikely that it will succeed (even if the raised amount has doubled since yesterday). The funny part would be if it <i>did</i> succeed. It would be an unprecedented act of applied and democratic philanthropy.
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<center><div class="zoomtilt">
<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/02/political-yield/" target="_blank"><img alt="DESCRIPT" height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/YLMh85r.jpg" title="Click for image source in the article: Technology’s Role in Direct Democracy" width="700" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">For the birthplace of democracy.</span>
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I'm not saying this supposed success of the fundraising would solve the problems of Greeks. Their political leaders made way too many missteps for Their ride out of Their mess to be a smooth one. I'm not saying this would solve the problems of the Union. It is a question in itself whether a success of this campaign would even work. There are is an overwhelming amount of factors I haven't even begun to consider, like what would any of the referendum results implicate.
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What I'm saying is, though, that if we all chip in a bit and succeed, we will show our will to sort things out and help our neighbors in need, which I sincerely believe to be an intrinsic motive of the majority. It's not as much about solving anything, as it is about showing that we won't give up easily on our values as citizens of a much wider community, which became inevitable with the rise of the Web. And what is there to lose? If the campaign fails, we get our money back. If in five days we reach our goal, we will make history. The way I see it, we can only gain by giving away the price of a coffee or two for a day.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-70023543292479726742015-03-23T07:00:00.000+01:002016-10-12T14:16:44.770+02:00Red Shoes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I lost my mind quite some time ago.
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Sure at least some other people <u><a href="https://youtu.be/HTAdKdzWrgY" title="Gnarls Barkley - Crazy @ YouTube" target="_blank">share the same sentiment</a></u>. I know a few of us, and was asked by another mad individual: what made me go off the rails? Since me being <i>crazy</i>, as I experience it, is not suffering from any form of psychopathological issue in the <u><a href="http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/bluebook.pdf" title="The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders" target="_blank">clinical sense</a></u>. It's rather about being daring enough to create my own vision against the tide of fashionable indifference and challenge and rethink whatever I do in order to get an exclusive lifelong experience. People keep saying that I'm weird, and that's the only proof I got that my theoretical approach is more or less consistent with my behavior. This doesn't bring me to any better position than anyone else, which is also one of the reasons why I think I'm crazy. Life is just something my arrogantly aspiring human intellect cannot clutch, and trying to do so makes it slip a bit askew. What this ambition to have a peculiar living practice does bring me, though, are stories. I keep hearing people don't tell stories as much as some previous generations supposedly did; that kids swipe away content on demand on Their screens instead of venturing into the wondrous world of the mind's eye.
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Occasionally, I saw some people living talelessly, but I have to admit I saw more of the contrary. Spring has come and with it the time came for me to put on my red shoes again. I walked, hopped and <u><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26524-magic-shoes-how-to-hear-yourself-instantly-happy.html?full=true" title="Magic Shoes: How to Hear Yourself Instantly Happy" target="_blank">tapped a lot of merry beats</a></u> in them in the last two or so years. While wearing this crimson pair, I partook in many anecdotes in the making - obviously I was surrounded with adventurous people and couldn't see much of those living without stories.
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Are You out there, <i>people without stories</i>?
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<center><div class="zoomtilt">
<a href="https://500px.com/okfotography/" target="_blank"><img alt="my pair of red shoes" height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/GVJCwoX.png" title="Got 'em cheap. |click for photo artist's page|" width="630" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">My spunky pair of red shoes.</span>
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I couldn't imagine my life without stories. With each person I know, in each group I am, we build stories "to tell them to our grandchildren". These stories gradually grow into legends and eventually mythology. These mythologies are the spirit of friendship and love. They are the interrelation above personae, something that fills us with unique memories, be they great or not so good.
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We can only hope to get to know our own selves as much as we can. As far as knowing other people we meet goes, we have anecdotes to build and relate to - little fables that leave us with even tinier impressions, which can build up a whole library worth of narration.
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(Sometimes these libraries get burned to the ground and that is one of the greatest forlorn in life.)
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Let me demonstrate how to disregard what has been said before and build discrete content for ourselves, in hopes to experience something novel. Not so long ago, I met another soul stepping around in red shoes. Both of us wearing them was one of the fundaments of our mythos, without actual rationality or regard to wider circumstances behind it. It happened so that we got interested in what do the <span style="color: maroon;">red shoes</span> symbolize outside of our point of view? So I did a little research, and this is what I got:
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Millennia ago, long before we had the Gregorian calendar, red cloth coloring was rare and made from crushed shells of the murex sea snails (driven to local extinction by the demand), mainly <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia#Economy
" title="Phoenicia Economy @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">produced by the Phoenicians</a></u>. It was expensive, so only wealthy folk could afford it. Whoever appeared in red footwear (or any other clothing of this color) was immediately recognized as the part of the ruling classes. There were even <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Shoes_(Choctaw_chief)" title="Red Shoes (Choctaw Chief @ Wikipedia (contains link to the Muskogean chief)" target="_blank">at least two Native American chiefs</a></u> who gained the name <i>Red Shoe</i> which, at the same time, was also a high war captain rank. The Romans made a sort of a tradition out if it, and slowly the Catholic Church recognized it as the official <u><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/mar/12/why-pope-wears-red-shoes/" title="Why the Pope Wears Red Shoes" target="_blank">papal shoes</a></u> (and <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_Slippers" title="Papal Slippers @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">slippers</a></u>).
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Enter Louis XIV who invented a control system for potential rivals. He was giving permission to <u><a href="http://www.thefashionhistorian.com/2010/11/red-heels.html" title="The Fashion Historian − Red Heels" target="_blank">aristocrats to wear red heels</a></u> but only if They behaved well enough (and how shameful it was not to have red heels, just try to imagine). Since murex wasn't an option, He had to import cochineal from Central America, a species of insect producing carminic acid which is still used in a <u><a href="http://gentleworld.org/natural-colors-carmine-cochineal/" title="Natural Colors – Carmine & Cochineal" target="_blank">wide range of products today</a></u>.
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From this it is evident that at first it was mainly the physical scarcity of <strike>processed, special flesh</strike> coloring which turned red shoes into something exclusive (except with the Indians who had <u><a href="http://nativeamericanencyclopedia.com/color-meanings-symbolism/" title="Color Meanings and Symbolism of the Native American Indians" target="_blank">Their own symbolism around the color</a></u> already), and then with the French monarch it was more of a concept which was tied to a material object. The next guy in line to add substance to the metaphor took it purely into the mental level and wrote a moralistic narrative. The man was Hans Christian Andersen with His story "<u><a href="http://hca.gilead.org.il/red_shoe.html" title="The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen (1845)" target="_blank">The Red Shoes</a></u>". He portrayed the red shoes as the supernatural commodity of vengeance for craving to achieve self-realization through neurotic assent towards conformist and narcissistic demands. The author's inspiration for the story is also interesting, as <u><a href="https://books.google.nl/books?id=FAqM5rxWWKwC&lpg=PA548&ots=akcHKsqcO1&dq=in%20that%20case%20I%20may%20as%20well%20spoil%20my%20leather%20too&pg=PA548#v=onepage&q&f=false" title="Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism @ Google Books (quote from the footnote at bottom of the linked page)" target="_blank">according to Slavoj <span style="font-size: 12px;">Ž</span>i<span style="font-size: 12px;">ž</span>ek</a></u>:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px">Andersen himself located the origins of the story in an incident he witnessed as a small child – in a wonderful example of the self-destructive, uncompromising stance:
His father was sent a piece of red silk by a rich customer, to make a pair of dancing slippers for her daughter. Using red leather along with the silk, the father worked very carefully on the shoes, only to have the rich lady tell him they were inadequate. She said he had done nothing but spoil her silk. "In that case," he said, "I may as well spoil my leather too," and cut up the shoes in front of her.</span></div>
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Then we have the famous American Dorothy from Kansas, Her Technicolor version in shining, red shoes. In the original script and source novel the shoes were silver, but the people behind the movie made the decision to change the coloring and cement one of the <u><a href="http://oz.wikia.com/wiki/Ruby_Slippers" title="Ruby Slippers @ The Wonderful Wiki of Oz" target="_blank">main associations</a></u> we have for that movie. Even the acclaimed novel <i><u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_(Maguire_novel)" title="Wicked (Maguire Novel) @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">Wicked</a></u></i> takes advantage of this altered red version of the enchanted shoes on its wonderfully woven pages. The <i>Ruby Slippers</i> became so iconic that <u><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/aug/30/news2" title="Thief Slips Away With Dorothy's Shoes" target="_blank">a pair from the remaining props got stolen</a></u>. Was it for the money? I don't believe so.
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<img alt="wizard of oz 1939 movie poster" height="500" src="https://i.imgur.com/Nf8LtqL.jpg" width="390" />
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In this more modern conception of red shoes, they can be considered as magical objects, bringing withering doom or a ride to the land of marvelous dreams. Almost a decade later after Dorothy's new color, a retelling of Andersen's tale was made into a motion picture <i><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040725/" title="The Red Shoes @ IMDB" target="_blank">The Red Shoes</a></u></i>, with a more realistic, yet morally very similar outcome, where artistic lack of compromise leads to suicide. <u><a href="https://youtu.be/l_ivkVwIG9Q" title="Kate Bush - The Red Shoes @ YouTube" target="_blank">Kate Bush released a pop album</a></u> inspired by this second film. The more we approach our current times, the shorter and relative, yet still dependent on history the idea behind red shoes becomes. Probably the most original is Christian Louboutin (an interesting happenstance are the identical first names with the writer of the famous fiction), a prominent shoe designer, who made red soles His trademark. He even registered a <u><a href="http://carsandlife.net/2012/12/what-is-the-colour-code-of-christian-louboutin-red-soles.html" title="What is the colour code of Christian Louboutin red soles?" target="_blank">specific shade of red</a></u> to be His own. He made a virtue of womanly self-obsession in our contemporary era where wealthy decadence is the epitome of goal making.
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There are many more creations that draw from tradition. I would only mention four of which I happened to come across and liked since I'm not writing a book here and my point is actually beside the intrigue of memetic evolution...
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One comes from the universe of <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.nl/2015/02/dungeons-and-daddy-issues.html" title="Dungeons and Daddy Issues @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">Dungeons & Dragons</a></u> in the form of a cursed item known as <i><u><a href="http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/SRD:Boots_of_Dancing" title="Boots of Dancing" target="_blank">Boots of Dancing</a></u></i>, inspired by Andersen's story.
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The second is a deep theory recording by Jungian analyst Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, entitled <i><u><a href="https://vid.me/FLGL" title="The Red Shoes: On Torment and the Recovery of Soul Life" target="_blank">The Red Shoes: On Torment and the Recovery of Soul Life</a></u></i>. What I particularly like about Her idea is the relevance to my post, as She favors "handcrafting" our own living selves over giving in to social pressure (as failing equals with self-destruction). This arrival to an authentic self is done through a bold pilgrimage to build our inner library, with us writing and letting those worthy donate some of Their own books onto our shelves of unique structural design.
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Then there is a book <i>The Creative Mystique: From Red Shoes Frenzy to Love and Creativity</i>, which draws initial inspiration from the movie <i>The Red Shoes</i>. <u><a href="https://books.google.nl/books?id=gYDeG9ByLOcC&lpg=PA49&ots=ncGGqhesAR&dq=the%20red%20shoes%20myth%20and%20the%20story%20of%20camille%20claudel&pg=PA49#v=onepage&q&f=false" title="The Creative Mystique: From Red Shoes Frenzy to Love and Creativity, chapter: The Red Shoes Myth and the Story of Camille Claudel" target="_blank">It deals</a></u> with the nature of creative processes analyzing great female artists, and proposes self-expression as a cure to the dangers of obsessive compulsion caused by trauma. Drawing again an ambiguous analogy between red shoes and creativity as a way of finding the lost self, I can deduce at least a faint similarity with the previous example.
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Finally, there is this Japanese nursery rhyme (with <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akai_Kutsu" title="Akai Kutsu @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">some controversy surrounding it</a></u>):
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<center><div style="width: 500px"><span style="font-size: 14px;">A young girl with red shoes<br />
was taken away by a foreigner.
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She rode on a ship from Yokohama pier<br />
taken away by a foreigner
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I imagine right now she has become blue-eyed<br />
living in that foreigner's land.
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Every time I see red shoes, I think of her<br />
And every time I meet a foreigner, I think of her.
<br /><br />~ Ujō Noguchi</span></div></center>
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As it can be seen, all of the most recent visions are connected to women and Their freedom, identity and self-expression. In conclusion, the red shoes transform their wearer(s) into noble, miraculous beings whose self-righteousness exceeds the everyday convenience of being tamed by external or internal nuisances.
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And now, disregard all of this claptrap. Just screw it.
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All this history has nothing to do with my red shoes. I just bought them because my parents suggested that they would look nice on me and I agreed. The engaging stories I hear with my inner ears whenever I put them on were made by walking in them spontaneously, and <i>not</i> by trying to figure out some tour guides' tips for sightseeing. What I mean is that there is no need to accept stories other people pretend to have figured out. The mythologies we co-create shouldn't be viewed as an immediate continuation of cultural tradition. If there are any historical bits and pieces, they better only serve as consistent building blocks that fit in the unsullied premise made possible by the unmatched connection of circumstance and observation. A connection unique to each bond between people, singular by nature like fingerprints. No mythology might make sense to any potential interpreter who has missed its experiential significance.
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A dear friend asked me recently which my favorite fairy tale is (in a wide sense of the definition). I thought a lot about what that question even means. For a few years, I enjoyed going traveling alone and having the best time of my life. But all I actually got are stories I cannot ever fully share with others. With more people to share adventures with, my own mythology could also increase in depth, thus I rather not walk about the World alone anymore. I was in my red shoes when I realized this, in the enchanted city of London, with a monumental mythology of its own. I think I got my answer back there.
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So far upon a time, besides The Little Prince, our very own tale of the Red Shoes is my most cherished one.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-80243706488181593212015-02-23T07:00:00.000+01:002016-10-12T14:14:46.938+02:00Superpersona<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Experiments have the property of not having a certain outcome. For this reason, self-experimentation can sound disheartening. I decided to share my own psychological self-experiment; either for the convenience of You not actually having to do it, but still read about the so far progress, or to perhaps bravely try it out Yourself and see where it leads us.
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Some of You might already know about the theory that describes how we humans wear behavioral masks for a variety of reasons, which we call <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_(psychology)" title="Persona (Psychology) @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">personae</a></u>. For the most part, we do this unconsciously, and I find that to be a shame. My reason for such logic is that, as with most things, if we are letting our psychical reality shape our behavior without our acknowledgment, our fate is less based on our supposed ability of having a <u><a href="http://www.bestpsychologydegrees.org/psychology-of-choice/" title="I do believe in its expandable existence." target="_blank">choice</a></u>. Therefore, I decided to coordinate my social roles, or to put it differently, I want to have a core sense for priorities to act upon. I'm sure that throughout history, certain people have already done things like this in Their own peculiar ways. By having an approach of my own which seems different enough from what I encountered so far, though, I consider this effort worth of its own theoretical framework.
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The way I came to realize the divergence between my cognitive and behavioral patterns in different social contexts (including the secure feeling of being alone) was when I noticed my wishes changing from one minute to the other. Like at times not eating sugary foods made me a proud person who is pursuing a healthy lifestyle, just a few flickers later the same thought made me suffer and feel as if I'm depriving myself of the deserved pleasures of life. Or this other time when my aunt found me making weird sounds while I was browsing the internet. What made my brain pulsate with excitement was rendered into shame by a simple change of circumstance.
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<img alt="superpersona persona richard burbridge mask" height="505" src="https://i.imgur.com/xt888Q9.png" title="Photo by Richard Burbridge" width="370" />
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">We might portray ourselves to be beautiful...</span>
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So I sat down and devised a strategy to even out my tendencies, in order to make my life easier. Hopefully.
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I figured that if I could manage to polarize some kind of encompassing intelligence throughout my personae that would consider the statistics of how I think, feel and behave across the forces of an identifiable immensity of the situational puppet-string pull − I might be able to find out what I want overall, and maybe even more. The phrase I put together for describing this harmonizing decision maker which dwells in the background of an observing consciousness, this entity behind masks, is <i>superpersona</i>.
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The task is to observe the fluctuations of my relations to separate ideas, traversing as many situations as possible. If this is done persistently enough, patterns, which can be compared between their relative contexts, emerge. Then, the best among all intents can be set to be followed at all times, even in situations in which a persona would prefer otherwise. Thus, the superpersona should emerge as a meta-choice administrator. How I do this is that whenever I have a craving for something particular, let's say a DRM free game, I don't act on the impulse. I let it stay with me for days and I try to remember it in situations when having or not the game is irrelevant. Once I can understand why I want it (cheap, supporting an empowering business approach, having the game to play when I grow grand old), and the reasons make sense in average, I either buy it or not. Another example would be wanting to invest my time into an online course about the interpretation of Queen songs. Why do I want it (understanding how other people see the way the creative minds behind the songs worked, gaining a new perspective on at least some songs, <s>being able to spread this information</s> show off)? Ah, now I see. What about when I'm washing dishes or building robots, does it still make sense? Well then.
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Since I coined a term, I wanted to check if there were any previous and similar endeavors. There are only two references I found about such an expression. The first was in an online dictionary (which demands money to show You the definition): "a deity or a collection of persons constituting a transcendent personality". Sounds alright to me. Yet, for my purposes, this definition misses the element of an intersecting awareness within an individual.
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The second description I've found is in Karl R. Popper's: <u><a href="https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jksadegh/A%20Good%20Atheist%20Secularist%20Skeptical%20Book%20Collection/Popper%20-%20The%20Open%20Society%20and%20its%20Enemies.pdf" title="click for PDF" target="_blank">The Open Society and Its Enemies</a></u>:
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">"Rousseau gave a new and most revolutionary answer. Not the prince . . . but the people should rule; not the will of one man but the will of all. In this way, he was led to invent the people's will, the collective will, or the 'general will', as he called it; and the people, once endowed with a will, had to be exalted into a super-personality; 'in relation to what is external to it' (i.e. in relation to other peoples), Rousseau says, 'it becomes one single being, one individual'."</span></div>
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Although similar to the previous, here the definition is more literal, as in the collective personality of a nation being "above" the individual's will, in the political sense. This philosophy seems to be timelessly intriguing (especially from the scope of the rest of the text) and I can compare it to what I already described - in a way, the <i>general tendency</i> is through which a person with an aim of reliability towards itself should act.
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Taking into recognition the above, I propose my definition of <span style="color: maroon;"><i>superpersona</i>: a consciously developed and maintained individual tendency to lean towards best possible choices, with subordinate regard to circumstance</span>.
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It is true, as I can note from my ongoing experiment, that practicing this wide-ranging self-control is, at least in some of its temporary conditions, a painful effort. Like when I won't invest money into something I don't actually need, but <u><a href="http://blog.storeya.com/2015/01/psychology-of-sales-mind-tricks-will-help-boost-sales/" title="The Psychology of Sales: 5 Mind Tricks That Will Help Boost Your Sales" target="_blank">the offer is so-so sweet...</a></u> Obviously, I fail miserably at times. I'm comforting myself with the thought that failing is a crucial part of the process.
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Now, what are the possible drawbacks of this approach to life? First of all, what if the overall master of decisions doesn't know any better than a "shattered" person? Or, if it knows for the worse, even?
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The second problem that might emerge is that the exercise to make a superpersona can also cast an illusion over the practitioner, so that She/He might develop a false sense of increased self-control.
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The third danger I actually got from the comic '<u><a href="http://www.comicvine.com/the-mask/4005-42252/" title="The Mask @ Comic Vine" target="_blank">The Mask</a></u>'. What if a successfully built superpersona ultimately takes over and brings about the complete dissolving of inhibitions? The comparison is a bit ridiculous since, unlike Big Head from the comics, there would be no bizarre divine powers, cracked conscience or wicked tendencies involved.
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">... or ugly in the eyes of others.</span>
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Anyway, for the few years that I'm forming this method, the building of my superpersona seems to be paying off. Overall I feel better about my choices and life in general. If I'm in the false impression that there is a connection between my life becoming better and the alleged effects of my self-experimentation, then I cannot see beyond the fences of coincidence. I do feel that I'm being able to exert a far more effective realization of planning beyond my daily whims. If I'm in illusion, well, I don't see any harm in it. My guess is that this increased confidence also comes with age.
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I can only wonder what the actual disadvantages of not doing this experiment could be. Perhaps some supposed <u><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/weakness-will/" title="Akrasia is the state of acting against one's better judgment." target="_blank">akrasia</a></u> − a confused state of mind which acts against good (if not best) judgment time and again. In retrospect, I feel like I made some decisions in my life that were against my best interest. On the other hand, if I hadn't made them, now I wouldn't be lying here writing this text, so...
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<u><a href="http://quantifiedself.com/2011/04/how-to-self-experiment/" title="How To Self-Experiment" target="_blank">Self-experiments</a></u> have the tendency of not having unbiased evaluations. For this reason, I leave this idea out here, as an initiative to be known, possibly without a functional resolution. If I ever reach a certain conclusion, I will surely let it be known.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-89599237388340011052015-02-16T07:00:00.000+01:002017-01-28T23:41:51.333+01:00Dream Distillery: Africa, You Voodoo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I present another "series" on this blog. The one I <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.nl/search/label/Now%20You%20%CE%A8%20Better" title="Posts of Now You Ψ Better @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">already started</a></u> is focused on clarifying principles from psychology. While this new one won't be outside of the mentioned scientific field, it is about exploring an area which I find to be missing a crucial angle of research. What I will be writing here are the re-imaginations and mash-ups of my most memorable dreams.
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Oneirology, the scientific study of dreams, found many answers, definitions and ways to interpret dreams. Today we even have a machine that can <u><a href="http://neurosurgery.washington.edu/Lectures/science.1234330.full.pdf" title="Neural Decoding of Visual Imagery During Sleep" target="_blank">record dreams</a></u>. The way I see it, we are only accessing our nightly involvements from the waking world, from the outside. Far from that being bad practice in itself, it still misses a fundamental element: comprehending dreams for what they are, from within the dream side. Hardly could we call such an approach <i>empirical</i> by consensus, which is probably the reason behind the notable lack of this method.
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These "dream semi-journals / short stories" won't be an attempt to unlock the secrets of the sleeping living. They will rather serve as expeditions into the intangible contents of my own symbolism, fur the sheer fun of it. The everyday common sense and logic may break under the conditions of my inspiration. These glances to a reality out of conventional time and space will have structural meanings of their own. Please, bear this in mind when reading. Comparing the inner rules to those of the external phenomena would, at best, be a philosophical effort. Instead, let's find out if we can leave our common sense behind for the sake of a different setup of reason.
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This series of posts is labeled as <span style="color: maroon;">Dream Distillery</span>. Let me begin...
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Frequently, I wake to realize that I'm tripping around the mysterious places of life. Forgot why - the journey itself must be the reason. Many of my friends do it too, and - You know how the saying goes - it's a small World. Actually I don't agree, but it's true that one can meet the strangest of friends in the strangest of places. I believe that there is a deeper principle behind these seemingly fortuitous encounters, perhaps a set of universal laws too intricate to be accepted as a fact which cannot be comprehended. So people just mentally shrug it off by saying that, sooner or later, we all end up in the same places, because the World is small. Which it is not, by any means. I've been on my journey steadily for decades now, and I'm not even that elderly.
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There is but one small and paradoxical region that can constantly provide fresh content for such a long time. The mind - what a vast place!
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I was visiting the old continent this one time when out of the blue, I encountered a bus full of my past schoolmates. Interestingly, they all knew and understood each other well, although were from different countries. As I'm a Traveler, I finished school traversing cultures. They meant to call me to join their tour as well, they explained, but couldn't get to me. So, it was all well that this statute of a chance behind the steering wheel of our lives enabled us to meet. We decided to travel together for a bit, and I never asked where we were actually headed. I never cared too much for the stops of the future. I was always just here.
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We were probably on the road for weeks, when I started missing the habit of walking alone. The vehicle's breaks screeched pressure on the wheels as it stopped in the middle of nowhere, as it seemed. We arranged that we meet in the next settlement, allegedly not too far ahead.
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As the bus evaporated in the sweltering horizon and as I looked around, for the first time in my life, I saw living toucans in a nearby field. I don't know how they got there, since as far as I know, they live in the rainforest. They were mesmerizingly beautiful, like huge parrots, but with even more colors. These specific species were tall, like flamingos, and their dominant color was red as in macaws, with white and feathers of all the colors of the rainbow. Their long beaks reflected the sunlight in such brilliance, that I stood there mesmerized for a timelessness which I would call long if I could only measure it. Lime green, dark purple, sunset orange and tropical yellow nuances of pigment danced in an uneven whirl, almost as if there was some sort of vivacious petrol flowing on the glib, watery surface of their rostrums.
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They looked friendly, so I waved, slowly regaining my thoughts from daydreaming, about how I will describe what I saw to the people who just drove away from here, an ageless eternity ago... Eventually I continued my journey down the road, only stopping to greet occasional, big dark buses which stopped by, with the passengers asking whether I'm in need of a ride. I kindly declined their air-conditioned offers.
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Suddenly, as cracked concrete began to fill up my surroundings, I woke again from my flow with the comprehension that I'm on a journey, for who knows how long, and it's not the background moving around me, but it's rather me mingling in it. And the strangest thing was that I was entering a town through a bus parking. There was no other entrance I could see, but this one. As I continued through a few glassy doors, I entered a fanciful hotel, with immense, classy halls. I was so surprised by the visually evident romanticism of wealth, that for a moment I couldn't decide whether I should just turn around and find another, more suitable entrance for arriving into the establishment, or continue. I wasn't exactly an image of a financially prosperous person, but as I peeked through the broad glass and wooden doors, I saw that many people in the cafeteria were pretty dirty, which I wasn't thanks to my compulsive hygiene habits. They must be adventurers, I concluded, disregarding the whispered suggestions of sandy winds still ricocheting in my echoic memory.
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I decided to play the pretentious polyglot, so I would fit in better. Knowing Italian to some extent, I went by the first batch of sitting tourists (they looked Australian to me) and greeted them with a cheery "buon giorno". To my surprise, they answered in the same language. To save myself, I had to admit my scheme to them. They were pretty upbeat about my style, so we giggled a bit and easily made friends. We mostly talked about the languages we each knew. There was this thick guy, a cute girl of my age, a woman in her forties, and a fourth fellow, who didn't talk too much, but still smiled a lot in a pleasing manner.
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It turned out that they all met in the settlement we were in, as the so-called fate arranged it. They decided upon settling here, at the hotel. Everyone was welcome to mimic this practice and join in, but only for a price: one must completely blend into the local society. This was the first time my intuition sensed something being awry in this town. The thick man explained how he was stripped from his belongings a couple of years before, and had to start working on the pier. In just a few years, he made his life effortless and full of joy. He made a successful performance, however, in avoiding any explanation about the particulars of how he achieved this.
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Is this life guaranteed for all, or was he simply lucky?
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After a while, I told my farewells and went out to see the pueblo. Besides the ordinary people, there were these curious ghostly images stuck in frames of repetition. The most striking was a phantom wrecking ball, hanging from the sky, smashing transparent images of buildings in the place of the current edifices. Another instance was a shadow of a black man, going around the fountain, never to pay any attention to its shimmering display. I just stood on the square the hotel entrance opened to, watching the people go about their daily affairs and all these specters continually performing fragments of actions, while the wind stealthily blew gradual layers of dust over my clothes. There was even a shadowy figure of the thick guy from just before, pointing to another image of himself, which was walking to the pier after two of translucent, dark skinned hotel personnel kept gesturing him that from now on, he must work in this town.
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Screw this, I thought, I better leave and meet my friends in another part of this "small" World. In that very moment, a petite, old woman walked up to me. Instantly I identified her as a witch. Not the charlatan kind of which mind you, but a real, wild broad with influence that can directly reshape her surroundings. I instantaneously remembered an important advice I received once: "it has no power over you, in which you do not believe". In this advice, I believed.
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She offered me a life of ease, but I sensed a subtle, yet rigid tone in her voice. "No thanks", I replied, "I'd rather just travel, that is good enough for me". A politely saluted and left to leave the square.
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The lady whispered a few sentences, but I could hear her loud and clear like the sound was, in fact, resonating throughout the bones of my skull: "YOU CANNOT LEAVE MY TOWN UNSATISFIED!" The echoes of her words were so strong, that I felt mental fatigue, a sudden surge of nausea, and all of the sudden my blood pressure dropped, fading a bit the world around me. The ghostly images were rendered realer, and called me to join them.
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I knew I had to do something quick, so I grasped for the closest inspiring memory I had - the toucans. In these strange circumstances and with a desperate focus, I must have opened some kind of a rift between odd events, linking directly from my position to theirs. I could suddenly see them still pecking about in the apricot desert field, a bit surprised by my appearance. I looked directly into their eyes, all of them at once, as if they were a representation of a singular sentinel being, and saw that they understand. They spread their wide wings with saw-shaped edges and flew towards me with a kaleidoscopic poise. As they grabbed me out of the witch's mirage, I heard her cursing her own damned luck. I gasped.
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Again, I woke to see, I'm traveling, now above Africa, carried by toucans of surreal beauty. I saw beneath the bus of my friends, as it was leaving the cursed colony. My colorful saviors descended low enough, so I could enter the vehicle through a ventilation opening on its ceiling. After the hands of my friends helped me squeeze in, we all waved goodbye to the birds of my dreams, forever thankful.
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Nobody was too surprised; we have all lived through stranger things. It turned out that my comrades had a completely alternate experience than that of mine. That's not odd - we all see different aspects of the same. Their version of the hotel was just a small motel, with an old beggar lady in front of it. The rumor goes that she was cursing her luck, as "rare are those", she argued, "who enter the town from its end".
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<a href="http://fineartamerica.com/featured/tu-can-toucan-lil-taylor.html" target="_blank"><img alt="colorful toucan painting" height="450" src="https://i.imgur.com/RNUl2VH.jpg" title="Birds like paintings transcending reality... |"Tu Can Toucan" by Lil Taylor - click for image source|" width="610" /></a>
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-18370821537188899862015-02-09T07:00:00.000+01:002016-10-12T14:11:37.620+02:00Dungeons & Daddy Issues<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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What happens in the dark? Not <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_cat_analogy" title="Black Cat Analogy @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">physically, but mentally</a></u>. What monstrous realities do we imagine into the reflectionless moments of the world, like those of basements without electricity? In order to find out, let's add a couple of torches, and observe the whispers between the shadows. This is how every proper game of <u><a href="http://youtu.be/4C5dQR-zk0U" title="Dungeons & Dragons Overview @ YouTube" target="_blank">D&D</a></u> <i>should</i> be played. That's how <u><a href="https://www.obsidianportal.com/profile/pedjaster" title="Both Bankrot and Grex Interfectors Mercenarshi were campaigns we used to play (text is in Hungarian)." target="_blank">we used to do it</a></u>, at least.
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We did it hardcore: we used continuously refined house rules, went into endless negotiations with the <u><a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Dungeon-Master" title="How to Be a Dungeon Master" target="_blank">DM</a></u>
in order to exercise the <u><a href="http://www.baen.com/dungeonsdragons.asp" title="Dungeons and Dragons:
The 40 Year Quest for a Game that Breaks All the Rules" target="_blank">limits of possibilities</a></u> that the multiverses of role-playing bring, listened to relevant ambient epic stoner, and quite often got lost between the boundaries of whatever is between our everyday personae and fantasy-flesh alter egos. (All this in a basement filled with dripping stalactites/stalagmites, of course.) Yes, we did it to pass the time and have fun. It's just a peculiar definition of fun. We did it to exercise our imagination and see how far we can go, when we bear the divine power of metamorphosis to take on roles of entities in worlds with yet undreamed qualities. How would we actually act if we could read minds? Or slit throats one after another in order to increase our reputation? If we lived among a gene pool of self-aware creatures <u><a href="http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm" title="Celebrating 30 Years of Very Stupid Monsters" target="_blank">so vast</a></u> that with practically every adventure we could meet previously unseen races? What would our philosophy be; and which factually existing gods would we bow to? Would we decide against pursuing magic? And <u><a href="http://www.radivarl.demon.co.uk/nick/adnd/psych.htm" title="Dungeons and Dragons Character Psychoanalysis Test" target="_blank">why</a></u>?
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As it turns out, leaving our own unconscious tendencies out of the picture is easier imagined than actually done. I had several characters throughout the years, of whom I'll mention the two I actually designed completely on my own. These characters lived, and they eventually died or went on quests to which our all-seeing powers had no interest in paying attention. When one of these two things happen, a player <i>simply creates</i> a new being to follow the rest of the adventuring party, who are destined to be played with by Their actual gods.
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Some <u><a href="http://dungeonsmaster.com/2013/04/quirks/" title="Quirks and Memorable Character Traits" target="_blank">personality traits, teaks and interests</a></u> might appear to be familiar <u><a href="http://www.easydamus.com/character.html" title="What Kind of D&D Character Would You Be?" target="_blank">throughout our reincarnations</a></u>. What I'm saying is that it happened to me. Let me introduce You to Tukur and Skie. They both have daddy issues.
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">Tukur Storm & Skie Lian</span>
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I aim to make this post as contextually independent from the world of D&D as possible, for the sake of any readers who might have no familiarity with its role-playing systems. So, a bit of an explanation in terms which do not originate from the rule books: Tukur is what You could call a weretiger, while Skie is half-dragon. One of the parents of each is not a human. You may have guessed it already that I'm talking about Their fathers.
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They feel abandoned and betrayed by Their padres. While not actually hating Their direct male ancestors, They undoubtedly have certain issues revolving around these figures. Both fathers left the mothers of the characters (Skie's dad killed the mother in the process; while the mother of Tukur died by actions caused indirectly by the existence of Her husband). They remain inaccessible to any kind of satisfying retribution. Both Tukur and Skie roam throughout Their own lives in search of a way to be better men (in Their own respective ways, since one of Them is evil), but not without a constant pressure in the back of Their minds that, in some incommunicable way, They were betrayed by Their creator<u><a href="http://writingwithaesop.blogspot.nl/2011/10/punctuation-proposal-pun-intended.html" title="Punctuation Proposal: The Pun-Intended Mark" target="_blank">÷</a></u>. Since both characters are male, They learned the secrets of the club from many, including non-biological fatherly figures. To finalize, Their heritage is freedom and longing after a unique and exotic figure, which they reject and want to disclose at the same time. They <i>feel</i> cursed.
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This is important because this invented abstraction of my own unconscious reality rather makes sense after some <u><a href="http://www.freudfile.org/self_analysis.html" title="Sigmund Freud's Self-Analysis" target="_blank">self-analysis</a></u>. Far from that my father is a monster of any kind, but He is somewhat of an unrealized genius, an intellectual freak. Him being my dad only adds to my perception about His extravagant nature. For years now, I tend to unlock the secrets of the modeling I received from my parents. I got the useful and admirable as well as the obstructive and rotten habits, including the gray zones of behavior carved into me. Just like we all did. So, I'm trying not to let the legacy of what He represents hit me the same way he got struck by His own "karma". Just the fact that I like role-playing shows that accepting reality for me at times represents a challenge. I'm doing my best to turn my "curse" into a blessing. Facing reality, whatever that may mean in varied contexts, is a way to stop my life being consumed by my sometimes uncompromising view of the world.
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Let's not go into full depth here. What I described is only one of the many insights and analogies I gained from reflecting on our D&D adventures. I'll let You imagine the rest as You wish. ;) The <u><a href="http://www.rpgstudies.net/blackmon/dungeons_and_dragons/" title="Dungeons and Dragons: The Use of a Fantasy Game in the Psychotherapeutic Treatment of a Young Adult" target="_blank">therapeutic</a></u> and <u><a href="http://www.blatner.com/adam/pdntbk/rlplayedu.htm" title="Role Playing in Education" target="_blank">educational</a></u> significance of role-playing board games is definitely something to be considered beyond pure gaming. This is <u><a href="http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therapy-soup/2011/01/therapy-tools-role-playing/" title="Therapy Tools: Role Playing" target="_blank">not a novel idea</a></u>. Games provide a way to <u><a href="http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1169&context=kaleidoscope" title="Needs Met Through Role-Playing Games: A Fantasy Theme Analysis of Dungeons & Dragons" target="_blank">observe and even develop</a></u> our personality constructs while having fun and creative pass-time with our friends. For those scared away by the complexity of the rules, there is a huge base of role-playing systems out there (my recent favorite being Numenera), which can provide a more casual experience. Recommended for all self-seekers out there.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-29123460339573727602015-01-12T07:00:00.000+01:002016-10-12T14:10:36.902+02:00The Divine Projector<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Do You have a pet? Observe it, Your real pet or the one You would prefer, in Your imagination. Don't do it only once, but for a while. Try to see It for what It is.
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Since I was a kid, I was trying to unravel <u><a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140127-cats-pets-animals-nation-dogs-people-science/" title="What Do Cats Think About Us? You May Be Surprised" target="_blank">what is the gaze of non-human animals hiding</a></u> when it's staring into our own. I have different theories about different species and individuals within species, and at least some of them, I believe, look at us in some kind of awe. We provide shelter, food, and constraint with conditioning techniques, leashes, bowls, cages, legal papers – not unlike how we sometimes act towards each other. If we humans are not aware of <u><a href="http://www.mastermind-business.com/subconscious-mind.html" title="The Conditioned Mind − Your Belief System" target="_blank">how most stimuli are affecting us</a></u>, and we mostly shrug it off as faith, circumstance or whatever force beyond and larger than us – how are we not literally a form of a divine power for pets? The saying that 'You should first get a pet to see if You are fit to have offspring' is not without merit...
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As toddlers, we look up to the World around us in wonder, fear, or mystery. Although we might have developed our view of reality throughout the eons of our existence, not much of our approach to it has changed. What we have now is a mere culmination of social evolution. We just might live in the most aware times in our known history. This can strike as a great paradox if we take into account how critical the state of our global society is. That's where the revelation lies: we have never been so conscious about the implications of our own actions. Yet, we still are not as enlightened as we, hopefully, aspire to be. Realizing the fact that we made and are still making some missteps doesn't make us more self-conscious in general. We still need symbols and magical thinking to concentrate all of our distorted judgments towards. We need beliefs based on deus ex machinas or scapegoats. Concepts like deities, aliens, prophets, corporations, celebrity trivia, shady rulers of the world (NWO), and whatever that can take the awareness of <u><a href="http://youtu.be/W4nSjPdT788" title="Rap News: The New World Order − with Russel Brand & Bill de Berg @ YouTube" target="_blank">the responsibility which lies on our own shoulders</a></u> upon itself. I'm not advocating the rejection of the mentioned concepts as untrue; the point is that we invent them, we add them as a scope to our observation, regardless of their objectivity.
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As if that is not enough, we take pride in celebrating some holidays with undisclosed histories. Hats off to those who practice in dignity. Most of our collectively engaged vacations have ripened into euphoric restlessness, which seeks catharsis from all the accumulating pressure generated in the hazy domains of our apprehension, where we hide what we all recognize to certainly be uncomfortable, but true. Holidays are not much more than symbolic cries for relief embedded into calendars, filled with the craving after a temporary succumbing into venerable ideologies old as humanity (love, togetherness, warmth, renewal, birth, giving, forgiveness, etc...).
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">No forgiveness.</span>
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But what are these tireless projections of ours? How many times have we actually projected (a) benevolent builder(s) instead of secretly conspiring, all-seeing punisher(s) out to either subdue or destroy us? (Another gesture of taking an imaginary hat off to Those who did.) Whenever we have a mystical experience, when we feel that we have been blessed by something out of our control, no matter how we afterwards label and transcribe it to reason, we can all account to a similar experience, and that is a certain sense of joy, a quale of <i>being</i>, a complex of sentiments that we truly <i>are</i> (whatever that means). How thirstily we exchange our own revelations for readymade, mutually designed beliefs? <u><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/conceptual-revolution/201412/holiday-warning-giving-can-change-your-life" title="Holiday Warning: Giving Can Change Your Life!" target="_blank">How eager we are to receive explanations, instead of exploring and sharing</a></u> a less lazy truth? I don't think that this experience of authenticity is exclusive only to us. It is not divine, we just stray away from "being us" so frequently, that we can barely count the times we felt goosebumps shiver through our body with that powerful feeling that everything is actually great. You know what I mean.
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The interpretations which are afterwards <u><a href="http://youtu.be/VNqNnUJVcVs" title="Vsauce: Is Earth Actually Flat? @ YouTube" target="_blank">painted on the abstract and slick canvas of our experience</a></u> are mere investigations of the only thing we can truly fathom – ourselves. We consistently made up stories throughout history to explain our own views of the World. I see nature as something that just is, without actually being separable into any kinds of categories. For categories, there is a necessity for comparison, and nature doesn't compare to itself, only some of its parts do, like ourselves. If we, for the sake of explaining, use the Jungian concept of <u><a href="http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Archetype" title="Archetypes" target="_blank">archetypes</a></u>, it might become clearer how our own immature, yet in a way impressively powerful nature is re-shaped into an abstracted, external and hidden force that directly affects our lives. For better or worse, if there is any power behind our actions, it is, in its entirety, inaccessible to our perception, leaving our destiny to our own <u><a href="http://www.joomag.com/magazine/tvp-magazine-issue-no-15/0687582001417455106/p06" title="Reason and Logic" target="_blank">reasoning</a></u>.
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Let's get back to observing the pet. You are, essentially, Their god. How do You act toward Them? Do You consider Them as friends? Family members? Amusement? Equals?
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Do You tie Them up? Control Their diet? Make fun of Them? Play every time They want to play? Or let Them go by Their will, and allow Them to grow demanding, drag You around and mark everything around with Their fur (or ooze)?
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Do You often consider what They might think or feel? By this, I don't mean "what You would feel or think in Their place". They are not human, therefore Their experience should almost certainly and significantly differ from Your own. What do those eyes hide behind the insurmountable divide of individuality?
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<span style="color: maroon;">So, are You a good god?</span>
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How can You, then, ever expect to be dealt with in return? Because nature doesn't consider all we do. It's abundant, mercurial and overwhelming. Our projections about the state of the World are a pledge for understanding, and without a <u><a href="https://www.academia.edu/9300118/The_Inoperative_Earth" title="The Inoperative Earth" target="_blank">disciplined pantheon of the human genome</a></u>, there awaits no salvation.
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">We think we can congratulate ourselves on having already reached such a pinnacle of clarity, imagining that we have left all these phantasmal gods far behind. But what we have left behind are only verbal spectres, not the psychic facts that were responsible for the birth of the gods.
We are still as much possessed by autonomous psychic contents as if they were Olympians.<br /><u><a href="https://books.google.nl/books?id=OhI3AgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false" title="Alchemical Studies" target="_blank">~ Carl Gustav Jung</a></u></span></div>
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-73909040390053378132014-10-27T07:00:00.000+01:002016-10-12T14:06:34.730+02:00Monu-Mental<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: white;">Directing breakdown and <br />disgrace before the whole cast<br /><br />
Too bad the mass is sightless with ignorance so vast<br />
Thirteen syllables, thirteen lines to force a new take<br />
Another posed act shot - fallow egos have been fed<br />
No one knew what could have been left undone or unsaid<br />
To the deepest dismay, no one cared, for goodness sake<br />
Artist's block strained the result to befall foully fake<br />
The mob heard laughter, didn't care about the tale's thread<br />
Self-worth high as the flame, violent minds packed with lead<br />
A crimson pond mirrors the wish to turn a new slate<br />
And who crawls beneath the debris can stand as the last<br />
Who observes with the sight from a script burned in the past<br /><br /><br />
Curtains seal, clap for the chronic <br />longing to create</span>
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You know that moment when <u><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/about/1992-world-scientists.html" title="1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" target="_blank">scientist warned humanity</a></u> of the danger it has posed upon itself? More than two decades later, we barely started raising our heads to question the severity of our behavior. The measured reality, in its pure informational form, needs an amazing amount of time to enter into common knowledge. As it's the same with every branch of science, psychology suffers much unfairness in the face of <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.com/2014/09/they-say-rumor-has-it.html" title="They Say Rumor Has It @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">rumors</a></u>. These misconceptions are not only damaging to individuals and professions, but stop the actual data from being useful on a larger scale. So, I decided to address some of these fallacies in a nonsequential series of posts, each dealing with a cluster of concepts, which, when better understood, can hopefully bring better understanding between and within people. Let's give it a shot!
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The first entry in the series dubbed <span style="color: maroon;">Now You <u><a href="http://www.all-about-psychology.com/psychology-symbol.html" title="Psi" target="_blank">Ψ</a></u> Better</span> is about the so-called "normality".
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"That ain't right."<br />
"This is not normal."<br />
"It's insane!"<br />
"They must be crazy!"
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Sounds familiar? We repeat these words in certain forms every day, but is that normal? Do we know what normality actually is? Let's get things straight: we have no certain definition of what is supposed to be normal.
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The topic belongs to the branch of science called <i>Abnormal Psychology</i>. One approach is to first define what is deviant, and the rest should more or less be normal. If we sat down with everyone, whipped out the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the <u><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/04/diagnostic_and_statistical_manual_fifth_edition_why_will_half_the_u_s_population.html" title="Abnormal Is the New Normal" target="_blank">majority of us</a></u> would have some sort of disorder (don't worry, the mentioned is not the only <u><a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/10/icd-dsm.aspx" title="ICD vs DSM" target="_blank">manual for diagnostic reference</a></u>). Defining lunacy is a hard task on its own, so let's not venture there. I would also like to point out that the <u><a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/08/06/the_definition_of_insanity_is_the_most_overused_cliche_of_all_time/" title="The definition of insanity is the most overused cliché of all time." target="_blank">misattributed</a></u> and infamous quote "insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" is <i>not</i> a proper definition whatsoever, nor is it a true description of reality. While an interesting idea, it falls short of validity after <u><a href="http://www.morrisinstitute.com/index.php?s=wisdom&c=weekly_insanity" title="Thoughts on the Widespread Definition of Insanity" target="_blank">contemplating about our routines</a></u>.
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So, lets' try to define normality. Today, we use a multivariate model for approaching this problem, which is the synthesis of all the attempts so far to understand what is normal. So, what fulfills the following criteria can be safely be assumed to be normal:
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1. Statistical model – what is average is normal. The most dominant behavioral patterns are considered normal. This approach is the most popular, but what happens if the average is dysfunctional and unhealthy, when observed from the outside? Healthy adaptation can only occur to a <u><a href="http://odphp.osophs.dhhs.gov/pubs/healthycommunities/defined.html" title="Healthy People in Healthy Communities" target="_blank">healthy surrounding</a></u>.
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2. The absence of sickness model – being normal is being completely healthy and functional. <i>Sane</i> comes from the Latin word, which means "healthy". But being mentally sane doesn't necessarily mean being normal (for example in a mental hospital acting irrationally can be considered normal). In this regard, the absence of pathology is <u><a href="http://who.int/about/definition/en/print.html" title="World Health Organization's definition of health." target="_blank">not enough</a></u>.
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3. Social standards model – normality is acting in accordance to accepted social and/or moral standards. These standards can be those of smaller and semi-isolated groups like in a workplace or those of humanity at large. Since normality is just perception, it is not infrequent that the level of (ab)normality is measured by the reaction of others towards the person who's behavior is being observed.
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4. The absence of everyday pain model – whatever brings sensations without inflicting physical, emotional or mental pain can be considered as normal. This is a controversial approach since stress itself is an everyday occurrence and it can be considered as a form of pain (more on that some other time). The famous proverb goes: "no pain, no gain." What is meant by this model is that people cease being normal when They experience everyday pain which is ruining instead of stimulating Them, thus disabling Them from satisfactory functioning.
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5. Natural model – what is an axiom in natural occurrences is normal. The problem with this approach that our social reality sways a lot away from what our instinctive tendencies are. It is natural for a bird to migrate according to the time of year, but is it natural for a human not to hit someone when they are irritated? No, it is not natural, but can be considered as normal in most societies by today's standards.
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6. Idealistic model – aberrant and normal are two ends of a scale, and the idealistic extremes can hardly be achieved if ever. Normality in this model is a theoretic concept which should be striven for. Since all of us constantly have different problems that are entering and leaving our lives, we can never be completely normal according to this model. Besides, after reading through this list, who is it to say what is the ideal normality?
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In the end, why do we need this label of "normality" in our minds? Why is it important to stigmatize anyone who is less fortunate or willing to adapt to specific circumstances than we are, instead of <u><a href="http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/fundamental_attribution_error.htm" title="Fundamental Attribution Error" target="_blank">understanding Their situation</a></u> and maybe learning from Them? Normal is just a moment of comparison. It doesn't exist universally or on a personal level.
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Next time somebody's acting <i>strange</i> and You are on the verge of calling Them odd, think again, freak!
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-87709390066429319832014-10-06T07:00:00.000+02:002016-10-11T16:17:46.098+02:00In Ourselves We Trust<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It seems to be plausible to think that since the beginning of our conscious thought bearing days we looked towards the inexplicable with awe and bonded it with the desire to give a comforting explanation to the sources of our fears. For reasons that concern the survival of our groups, we gathered together and invented rituals so that we could feel more at ease with our mortal destiny. Over time, as we started using more and more extensions of our will (namely tools), our groups became increasingly larger and some kind of centralization of authority on a bigger scale was inevitable to establish some kind of collaborative order. We invented countless rules in the form of religion to govern the behavior of masses, and with a good reason. Little did we understand that behind the semantic messages of sacred teachings there are certain meta-meanings, which give form to thought and behavior, and are much more significant from the point of <u><a href="http://embor.embopress.org/content/9/1S/S55" title="The history and possible future of human societies and civilizations." target="_blank">socio-cultural evolution</a></u>. To take an example: if a religious principle declares that people are to legally bond and not practice adultery, and a person still performs such a <u><a href="http://www.independent.ie/unsorted/features/sorry-i-was-unfaithful-my-brain-chemicals-made-me-do-it-26416540.html" title="Sorry I was unfaithful, my brain chemicals made me do it." target="_blank">natural act</a></u>, They might feel self-condemnation, which can further lead to psychological torment between the legally bonded and possible disintegration of Their association.
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If we consider evolution as not merely a biological process, we can certainly appreciate the thought of adaptation of culture. It is a necessary and inevitable course of progress. There is a neat overview of known human history as a single human life in the form of the "<u><a href="http://youtu.be/6uIe9koL1WU" title="The Longer Now @ YouTube" target="_blank">second insight</a></u>" found in the book <i>The Celestine Prophecy</i> (although the theory is a bit flawed due to being inconsiderate to non-western influences). In the fashion of its style, if we look at our history as an evolution of a collective and not as segregated groups and individuals, as species we have just left our infancy and don't quite know what to do with all the natural changes we are experiencing.
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If we examine the mentioned meta-meanings of schools of thought throughout religions (by which I mean what these ethical codexes <i>actually</i> propose to teach humanity), we can usually see how destructive these ideas are. With minor exceptions, the interpreted meanings of vaguely conceptualized "sacred texts" conditioned humanity to feel heavy <u><a href="http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/f/dissonance.htm" title="Why conflict can change behavior." target="_blank">cognitive dissonance</a></u> when acting naturally. This is not always bad, as what religion provides us with is a collective shaping of moral sense, to which its followers can relate to. Sadly, existing religions are not based on actual empirical data, furthermore they claim their morality to belong only to their <i>own</i> followers. What this essentially means is that the religious morality (in most cases) is not free. To be able to attain these ethics, an individual must give up on certain liberties. This is one of the greatest meta-meanings of all religions: <u><a href="http://youtu.be/Iwac6Uk-zyk" title="Sam Harris: Mindfulness is Powerful, But Keep Religion Out of It @ YouTube" target="_blank">sectarianism</a></u>. The underlying belief that we have to separate between different groups of people and that there must be a competition in the righteousness of morality.
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The idea of having the right to be "more" moral than other people has to be among the most ludicrous of principles. One of the greatest and unsolved debates in philosophy is whether there is a universal morality or are ethics reserved solely for thinking life. There are many valuable arguments for different scenarios, but one truth remains unshaken: we all have our subjective and often relative sense of morality, and, at least for now, we cannot comprehend any potential objective ethical values.
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The <u><a href="http://cogling.wikia.com/wiki/Categorization" title="Categorization in Psychology" target="_blank">categorizing minds</a></u> we have work on the very basic principle of comparison between ideas, objects and experience. For example Buddhism has a <u><a href="http://orlandoinsightmeditation.org/2011/comparing-mind/" title="Comparing Mind" target="_blank">whole theory</a></u> based on it. From the moment we realize that we require comparison and categorizing to make sense of the world, we can understand that there is no real division outside of our heads.
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What religion does is that it takes subjective perception and uses it to <u><a href="http://www.bolenderinitiatives.com/sociology/emile-durkheim-1858-1917/emile-durkheim-sociology-religion" title="Émile Durkheim's Sociology of Religion" target="_blank">convey control</a></u>. Usually, the magnitude of this accomplishment is confused with religion being means for certain people to gain rule over others (although he two have often been connected throughout history, unfortunately). The main idea was to set order between the many individuals that compose the human collective(s). Without such moral compasses, we would stray into rapid mutual destruction. The few of the religions that still mobilize masses have also become increasingly destructive in the era of global connection since they have their agenda based in uncritical acceptance and the schizoid idea of a constant omniscient judge. The meta-meanings of most of these religions are to accept certain behavioral patterns without analyzing them under the anticipation of punishment if done otherwise. Having such easily comparable axioms make people share them and from groups based upon them. Richard Dawkins bravely labeled these decadent memes as <i><u><a href="http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html" title="Viruses of the Mind" target="_blank">viruses of the mind</a></u></i>.
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The point is that we still need this control to live and work together successfully. Morals are arguably an extension of group cooperation. The more uniformed our collective moral compass is, the easier we get along. This is a dangerous idea, which can easily lead to fascistic, totalitarian and intolerant behavior towards other and/or subdued groups, which often might have different morals (however these dangers can be avoided by inventing the appropriate messages which shape common behavior). As morals are an evolution of our primal instincts, our society is still shaped in hierarchical order and we regard people on favors and wrongdoings (with the latter being based in some kind of suffering, and this pain sometimes originates from a discrepancy between behavior and semi-fabricated social norms). If we consider known history, the hierarchical structure is an unstable form of power and distribution of responsibility. Some people consider anarchy (an often <u><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anarchy" title="Etymology of Anarchy" target="_blank">misinterpreted term</a></u>) or heterarchy (a model of rule where control shifts depending on the project and competency of people involved) to be healthier alternatives. Both require less regulation, which raises the hair on any statist's head who thinks people are stupid (which way of reasoning seems to be a <u><a href="http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/if-youre-surrounded-by-idiots-guess-whos-the-jerk/" title="A Theory of Jerks" target="_blank">common human trait</a></u>).
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The latter is political structure. It is not an intrinsic understanding of the values of being altruistic and cooperative. It has and should have nothing to do with morality, only with the well-being of citizens. Secular states became a reality for a reason. Yet, in the last decades it has become evident how our relativistic view on life that is based on <u><a href="http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-moral-case-for-competitive-capitalism/" title="The Moral Case for Competitive Capitalism" target="_blank">free choice</a></u> has made <u><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full.pdf" title="The Tragedy of the Commons − a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen." target="_blank">serious problems</a></u> which threaten our very existence. We have lost some of our main moral teachings. Or was it that we never actually adopted them? Major religions have the <i><u><a href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm" title="Shared Belief in the Golden Rule" target="_blank">ethic of reciprocity</a></u></i> infused with the fundamentals of their root teachings. This is no chance, as having such a deep conviction is the ultimate regulator of conflicts. If statistics are correct, then taking <u><a href="http://www.mathsisfun.com/data/standard-normal-distribution.html" title="Standard Normal Distribution" target="_blank">normal distribution</a></u> into consideration, there will always be marginal examples of people who can simply be called misfits; yet if the population of Earth could accept the simple logic of the ethic of reciprocity as our essential own, I bet the existence of all finance that most of our social problems would be gone. The most common contra-argument to the proposal of the Golden Rule (and its preventive sibling the <i>Silver Rule</i>) is that some people would prefer to be harmed. The examples for this kind of behavior are rare and considered to be disorders. To make it a more secure core value, the ethic of reciprocity should be viewed from the scope of self-exploration and altruistic cooperation, since peaceful coexisting in creative abundance is the highest of values for <u><a href="http://www.threeleggeddragon.com/writings/simply/simple.social.html" title="Understanding the Human Being: Social Animals" target="_blank">social beings</a></u> such as we are.
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There are, of course many mindsets against religion altogether, with perhaps the most intriguing being the <i><u><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/max-stirner/#2.3" title="Max Stirner's Egoistic Future @ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" target="_blank">egoistic future</a></u></i> of Max Stirner. Even if we all accepted any kind of future as a desirable one, how to get there? The most obvious of paths, at least for me, is <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.com/2014/09/educate-me-plenty.html" title="Educate Me Plenty @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">education</a></u>, but it's definitely not the only one. A new kind of collective ethic thought, some kind of a new and mutually built religion could also help with the transitional period from the multiformity of crises to a new Renaissance. Instead of dogmatism, we could fuse a mindful philosophy of life that would draw from the pure sentiment of respect, responsibility, and knowledge. A concept of belief that is not imposed, but rather built fluidly <u><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feyerabend/#2.13" title="Paul Feyerabend @ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" target="_blank">without any mandatory frame of reference or expected result</a></u>. Because, as <u><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/" title="Bento Spinoza @ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" target="_blank">Spinoza</a></u> would put it, the supernatural is nothing more but the unexplained natural. What might help us thrive is a consensual value-system designed with the sole wish to soar towards the legends of tomorrow.
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Yeah, go on, call me a utopist.
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<div class="center-justified"><span style="font-size: 14px;">We were saying how very important it is to bring about in the human mind a radical revolution. The crisis − and there are always crises in the world, especially now − it seems to me, is a crisis in consciousness, a crisis that cannot any more accept the old norms, the old patterns, the ancient traditions, a particular way of life, whether it is the American way, the European way, or the Asiatic way. And considering what the world is now, with all the misery, conflict, destructive brutality, aggression, the tremendous advancement in technology, and so on, it seems to me, though man has cultivated the external world and has more or less mastered it, inwardly he is still as he was: a great deal of animal in him; he is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive, competitive, and he has built a society along these lines. The more one observes - and I think almost everyone sees it, unless he is totally blind, deaf and dumb - the more one is aware of the extraordinary contradictions of human beings, and of the great demands, intellectual as well as a demand at a different level; a demand which is not emotional, not built on enthusiasm, not sentimental, but factual. And to understand the factual, which is neither intellectual nor emotional, there must be a great deal of passion.<br /><u><a href="http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/1966/1966-11-05-jiddu-krishnamurti-3nd-public-talk" title="Truth is a Pathless Land" target="_blank">~ Jiddu Krishnamurti</a></u></span></div>
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-78931547002254760732014-09-15T07:00:00.000+02:002016-10-11T16:16:03.961+02:00Educate Me Plenty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As mentioned in the previous post, my schedule started getting denser not so long ago. Two weeks prior today, I also graduated with a bachelor's degree. The whole unnecessary ceremony crowned the two-year struggle with my research paper, which was inspired by the increasing problems in education at large. Although it dealt with an issue into which I invest a lot of interest, the thesis in itself was just a mandatory proof of my capabilities stuck in a frame of demands. In this entry, I am to approach the question of schooling reform devoid of wanting to live up to any expectations, except perhaps those of having a sensible proposal in mind.
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A few things have to be cleared first. My theoretical proposition is more of an outline to a whole system that cannot and shouldn't be developed by one or just a few individuals. To make it work, many other powerful political structures also have to be rearranged <u><a href="http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/E/etcivhaz.html" title="Hazards to (Extra)terrestrial Civilizations" target="_blank">if we desire to survive our own advancement</a></u>, and such an effort takes time more than anything. Our society succumbed to the depths it is in now throughout known history and we cannot possibly expect to arise from here in just a few years. Huge changes can require generations. I will also avoid criticizing the current system, as it is simple to point fingers at what we dislike around us. There is a fair amount of debate on the subject to be found on the internet, so I would rather write about a concept I see in my mind.
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Education actually begins on a pre-school level. The most effective way to help (future) parents get the most out of Their role is to teach Them how to do it as right as possible. There are playful activities which benefit <u><a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?q=Neuroscience%2c+Play%2c+and+Child+Development&id=ED427845" title="Neuroscience, Play, and Child Development" target="_blank">brain development</a></u> and strategies that <u><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jim-taylor/self-identity_b_2063761.html" title="Developing Your Child's Healthy Self-identity" target="_blank">promote healthy lifestyles</a></u> and <u><a href="http://www.parentingscience.com/mind-minded-parenting.html" title="Mind-Minded Parenting" target="_blank">provide open-mindedness</a></u>. For me, it is a mistake not to grant these advantages to kids.
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From the very start of someone's formal education, cooperation between parents and institutional personnel should be open and assertive. Bringing up each child in a different manner, in accordance to Their and the wishes of Their ancestors, can bring greater diversity in personalities and how They approach the challenges of life. Everyone has different interests and wishes, which dynamically change and evolve throughout life. Why not help them seek out Their specific fascinations right off? Some youngsters might show signs of special talents being formed, but They might not be too keen to invest any effort into expanding them. Sometimes talents need a bit of unforced push. I am convinced that most of the people will be thankful for it later in life. Adults can recognize when such stimulation is necessary and give a confidence boost to children to help them value Their capabilities properly.
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The necessary individual work might demand a lot of professional investment, but not everyone should be a teacher. I find the teaching vocation to be one of the most important. Remember, educators are professionals who guide the minds of people, which is a task with the highest order of responsibility. Choosing teaching as a profession should not be taken lightly. A system that truly cares about its educational values will put teachers under examination before giving out or prolonging a license. This doesn't mean complete control over professional investment, rather a verification whether a proper approach to teaching is present. The creative method of each educator should still exist – that's the whole magic of being a good mentor, who is a role model above all.
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<a href="http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?34737-Tool-Album-Artwork-skull-fetus" target="_blank"><img alt="mindborn of education and reproduction baby fetus in skull." height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/tAOpRhk.jpg" title="Mindborn |click for image source|" width="650" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">Human procreation is beyond being merely biological: our thoughts literally shape forthcoming lives.</span>
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What I liked most so far during my own education was the facultative type of classes. Let's take that style a bit further. Imagine not having grades to work for anymore, but only for the knowledge itself. Imagine not having classes set for specific ages, but different sets of classes arranged by ascending difficulty levels. Instead of compulsory attendance, everyone can audit at will. Exams are open for every level, without attempt limit, and are either passed or not. Forget about training people to be "cashiers" or "bankers". Having access to knowledge for different competencies can enable people to build Their own profile for life. The useless diplomas hanging on walls could be replaced for a little card which holds all the acquired proficiencies. Schools should be a wise mediator that helps people become what They would like to become. The issue of <u><a href="http://www.ascd.org/research-a-topic/inclusion-and-special-education-resources.aspx" title="Definitions of Inclusion and Special Education" target="_blank">inclusion and special education</a></u> would be eased as well, although special care is always welcome, not just in the case of people with particular needs.
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Statistics, among many other things, allow us to foresee occupations required in the future (through an assemblage of practices called <i>employment projection</i>). It would be useful making a kind of public portal where people could actually combine Their wishes with needs of our society (if They want). This idea might be useless if <u><a href="http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU" title="Humans Need Not Apply" target="_blank">human workforce becomes completely redundant</a></u>, but that's a story for another time. We miss many important and specific courses today, like practical empathy, healthy social relations, parenthood, diligence in personal space, finance management, resistance to hostile persuasion, conscientious drug use, etc... There is so much more knowledge out there that doesn't deal with what we have to give to others, but which has to do with ourselves. By taking care of ourselves, we benefit all around us. Wouldn't it be great if we could make the saying "all people are stupid" superseded? Because all it really takes is a bit of sensitivity to how other people resonate. If we all did that, the word "tolerance" would have a different connotation.
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As I mentioned, a profound change like what I'm describing here would also involve the reform of other areas of human activity. There are people who are perfectly fine with doing the same job for the most of Their lives, but there are also those who get mad after repeating the same routine for too long. What if by default workplaces simply existed unoccupied, and we could join any of them at will? For example, someone could go to work in an office for two months, then take a break for a week before going for a two-week crop harvesting session. The empty office would wait for the next person who wishes to work there. The jobs with the highest demand for labor could bring the highest pay, thus ensuring that there is no deficiency in the necessary areas.
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Let's not sway away too far into speculative political territory. The bottom line, at least for me, is that education should be free with an open access philosophy. There is no need to make experts in certain fields (unless individuals want to be experts by themselves), but rather make capable citizens who can form teams consisting of people with skills relevant to the task to be done. This approach is slowly becoming a reality with all the <u><a href="http://www.mooc-list.com/" title="Directory of Massive Open Online Courses" target="_blank">online course offers</a></u>. There are certain and potentially complementary ideas about labor force being thrown around, like the <u><a href="http://www.4hourworkday.org/" title="Global Campaign for the 4 Hour Work-Day" target="_blank">four hour work-day</a></u> or <u><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-minimum/" title="Social Minimum @ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" target="_blank">guaranteed income</a></u>. Another fundamental concept in education is two-way communication. No institution should have the power to know better what's good for individuals than the individuals themselves. What it should do instead, is to offer a successful plan of empowerment for the beneficiaries of its services, all while paying attention to feedback.
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Most of our educational systems are so dated, that we can't even realize how much our way of thinking is in need of a modernized outline. One of the most developed abilities we as humans have is adaptation. It is an awesome talent; I'm amazed at how we all willfully resist it. I find that through a more conscious approach in teaching fresh generations, we can create people who are aware of Their natural tendencies and are unprejudiced enough to have a good idea about how to re-mold what it means to be human in a way that can benefit not only our species.
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<a href="http://alek.nl/view_archive.php?id=100&tag[]=6" target="_blank"><img alt="serenity is the best teacher" height="470" src="https://i.imgur.com/fjGgr6l.jpg" title="The best way to teach others is through showing an example of self-mastery. |click for image source|" width="645" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."</span>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">~ Aristotle</span>
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-28311261134798925842014-09-08T07:00:00.000+02:002015-11-12T14:48:08.076+01:00Into the Land of the Molded<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A lot was going on for me last week. One of the events that occurred is that I started a one-year volunteering program in the Netherlands. To celebrate it in a way, I thought of writing about <u><a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Volunteer" title="How to Volunteer @ WikiHow" target="_blank">volunteerism</a></u>. It was fairly easy finding info which praises the communal and personal benefits of being a volunteer, but that's not the whole story. At least not the way I see it.
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During the last couple of months, I had the chance to observe how people (at least those from the country I was born in) react to the idea of volunteering. Our worldwide <u><a href="http://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/economic_economical.htm" title="The difference between economic and economical." target="_blank">economic system is not economical</a></u> anymore and as such it shapes certain expectations we have in our lives. Let's call these <u><a href="http://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/2009/normative-social-influence/" title="Normative Social Influence" target="_blank">conforming expectations</a></u> <i>social molds</i>, which make us feel the need to shape everyone and Their lives (including our own) into a predictable sequence of incidents. One of the most recognizable and encompassing of social molds is probably the one which sponsors the following pattern:<br /><br />
1. Be born.<br />
2. Learn. Go to school. Get molded.<br />
3. Find a partner for life.<br />
4. Get a job.<br />
5. Buy a house, loan Yourself for life in the process.<br />
6. Et cetera...
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The list goes on, of course, but the rest is irrelevant for the purpose of this post. Anyway, when people asked me about my plans in life, I replied that I was going abroad. Then, without exception, They all got excited. There were two common questions which I received: "are you going there to find a job" or "are continuing Your studies there?"
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The answer to both of those questions needs a bit of explaining, because yes, I did come here to work and also to learn and improve my skills. The problem is that these two questions have a molding agenda: they expect certain answers ("everything is going according to plan") with obvious contextual assumptions (that I'm getting paid and/or receiving a title along with a diploma here). Obviously, replying to these questions would have required higher efforts if I didn't want to mislead my conversational partners. I usually replied with: "I'm going there to be a volunteer." In the moments that followed my answer, I could typically see the sparkles of interest fade away from Their eyes.
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By the mentioned social mold standard, the term <i>volunteer(ing)</i> can trigger an unwanted set of background ideas. This reaction is a part of our deteriorating societal structure. An important point of my life's manifesto is to give my best in abandoning this old system. I'm not a demolisher and I don't go against all tides only to prove a point. We are all a part of the world (dis)order and we cannot simply abandon it. Yet, there are opportunities that were born from our habituated ways. I see volunteerism as being one of the paths to put away with the old and start building a more altruistic society, where we don't do things (solely) for the money. Money is a medium, it shouldn't be the goal. A friend once told me: "today, when people do something, they don't tend to ask themselves whether there is common sense in what They are doing, but rather if there is any financial benefit to be gained from it."
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The parents of my age group, who belong to the so-called generation X, grew up in a different World. They were promised a different result for Their hard work. This promise was broken by the incalculable laws of existence and immeasurable human ignorance. <u><a href="http://legalcareers.about.com/od/practicetips/a/GenerationY.htm" title="Common Characteristics of Millennials" target="_blank">Generation Y</a></u> was, however, born into a <u><a href="http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics#Youth_unemployment_trends" title="European Commission Unemployment Statistics: Youth Unemployment Trends" target="_blank">failing economy</a></u> and society that is evidently devouring itself. After all I've seen, I feel it would be foolish to continue as we are expected to. The only way to pull ourselves out of this sorry state is to devise new social molds.
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Our condition might seem irresolvable, yet I don't see any reason as serving this uncertainty as an excuse for giving up. I know I may have chosen a harder way of living. That's exactly what makes me want to learn and help people for the sake of socializing and computing ideological data to find solutions to our problems. Doing what we love to do, while surrounding ourselves with like-minded people is an amazing way to <u><a href="http://infed.org/mobi/social-capital/" title="Social Capital" target="_blank">smoothly contribute</a></u> to a "new" world, and with volunteering we can live just like that.
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As I already mentioned, there is plenty of info about the <u><a href="https://students.ucsd.edu/student-life/involvement/community/reasons.html" title="Top 10 Reasons to Volunteer" target="_blank">benefits of volunteering</a></u>, besides the two I mentioned (an efficient way to building a life and society we desire*). What about the downsides? There is rare mention of the amount of potentially unwanted strings that can be pulled by certain volunteering lobbies. Volunteering is not merely an ideology being built on a personal level. The organizations behind volunteerism have their own moral vision of the world, and thereby the volunteers' work is an extension of it. From the view of who is being helped by volunteers, their work might come off as an <u><a href="http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm" title="To Hell with Good Intentions" target="_blank">ideological invasion</a></u>. This might happen especially if, for example, a certain organization or group needs aid and whichever lobby is sending the volunteers has some requests to make the volunteering possible. Subtle expectations can greatly influence the particular party's way of development. I'm mentioning this because if we possess the knowledge about intentional reality, we can examine the probable superior intentions behind our volunteer work, consider their possible impacts, act more considerately, and perhaps put our own ideas into effect more efficiently.
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<a href="https://imgur.com/gallery/PjZh68I" target="_blank"><img alt="war through ages and history with weapons animated gif" src="https://i.imgur.com/PjZh68I.gif" title="War never changes. |click for gif source|" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 13px;">* Another dear friend once taught me that: one needs <i>not</i> to know what one wants,<br />it's more important to know what one doesn't want.</span>
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<span style="font-size: 13px;">With avoiding what we don't want, we can explore the rest and make sense of our passions.</span>
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Researchers categorized these influences much more neatly. They developed an approach for examining the contributions given and the standards promoted by volunteering organizations, called <i>moral resources and political capital</i>. Both can be divided into two groups. <i>Moral resource one</i> describes what morals do the volunteering organizations ascribe to themselves, while <i>moral resource two</i> deals with the influence of the accepted morality by a given society. <i>Political capital one</i> is the reputation which a volunteering organization gained throughout its existence, and <i>political capital two</i> is the strength of influence gained directly through the organization's own efforts. These elements are linked and can be arranged in different ways to bend each other.
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All of this might seem a bit overcomplicated as people are capable of picturing great details into the state of affairs around them. We like to overestimate the effort needed to make a change. I mean, I don't really get what's going on higher intentional levels in my situation, but I immersed myself into the experience. I'm breaking my habits and discovering new thoughts worth of implementing into reality. <i>I'm giving it a shot.</i> Besides, it's obvious that most people are still not open to taking the responsibility for Their own fate back into Their own hands. With this in mind, I'll finish with a proverb I was greeted with when I arrived here:
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<span style="color: maroon;">In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.</span></center>
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-22410557932053342452014-09-01T07:00:00.000+02:002017-09-25T15:21:23.089+02:00They Say Rumor Has It<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Restlessness smites me when it comes to rumors. I know about them, I had learned how they work and how ridiculous and even <u><a href="http://today.law.harvard.edu/spread-of-false-information-causes-dangers-says-sunstein/" title="The spread of false information and rumors poses growing risks to society and the economy." target="_blank">harmful</a></u> they can get. They form a separate domain, one that is completely made up, a weird world consisting of abstract scopes of illusive ideas. Let me introduce You to the parallel reality of <i>Rumorealm</i>:
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This conceptual realm, in which we live day by day, is built upon real-world data. The silhouettes of understanding which we can sense here are much different, though. They are intriguing replacements for uncertainty. As we walk through this place, our focus is captivated by how interesting the whole thing feels and authentic it seems. The real-world data which we're sure of (like time, places and people in them) make this illusory location ever so believable. It makes sense and that makes us feel good. Only two things matter here: insecurity of facts and the notability of the substitutes we make up for that insecurity. The progression of Rumorealm, however could easily fall apart if either of these two building blocks was missing (i.e. if events derived from real-world data were unambiguous, or the replacement rumors were unimportant) - except that we are pretty much wired to creating believable facade to cover up any <u><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11002-014-9332-z" title="A (Foolishly) Paywalled Article: Connecting the Dots: How Personal Need for Structure Produces False Consumer Pattern Perceptions" target="_blank">plotholes in our narrative</a></u>.
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Events here are mostly spontaneous, but they can also be generated willfully by the gods of deception, who reign supreme. We are avatars of these gods. By absorbing the data from Rumorealm, we mediate them onward and rebuild its phony fabric. We rearrange it to be simpler and shorter. We never forget the strong messages we received, but we make them easier for further tattling. Sometimes we can be met with correctional measures and are presented with true facts that debunk falsehood, yet we might forget the debunking proof in favour of a what it tried to debunk − caused by effects known as the <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_effect" title="Misinformation Effect @ WikiPedia" target="_blank">misinformation effect</a></u> and the <span class="bubblelink">backfire effect<img src="https://i.imgur.com/yIjElb1.png" align="top" height="17" width="17"><span class="bubbletext">To find out more, check the WikiPedia Aticle on <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Biased_memory" title="You might also want to read the whole Wiki article on Confirmation Bias, which is very related to the phenomenon." target="_blank">biased memory</a></u>, and <u><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1075547015613523" title="When Debunking Scientific Myths Fails (and When It Does Not): The Backfire Effect in the Context of Journalistic Coverage and Immediate Judgments as Prevention Strategy (Free Access!)" target="_blank">this</a></u> and <u><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11109-010-9112-2" title="A(nother Foolishly) Paywalled Paper: When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions" target="_blank">this</a></u> research paper.</span></span>. The essence of Rumorealm is to add our own little piece of <u><a href="http://www.umsabadoqualquer.com/966-jesus-na-terra-2/" title="Jesus on Earth" target="_blank">distortion</a></u>: we assimilate and emphasize information with our own understandings and fill in the gaps.
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Many of us walk around, sometimes admiring the shining pink light, and sometimes clenching our teeth from the grimness which laughs from the corners of our eyes. In the Rumorealm, we are surrounded by those who tell us what we want to hear, be that good or bad. All definitions encountered here are broad enough to be distorted in any way.
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Instead of striving to get out this dangerous place, we grasp for semantic tricks to assure its existence. It's enough to casually say "it's scientifically proven", "it has been documented", "I've read" or even "I've heard" to easily persuade others. She said he said. Thanks to a widespread, bad journalistic practice, in most cases it's not even a lie to say these things. How often do we <u><a href="http://blog.sfgate.com/rheingold/2009/06/30/crap-detection-101/" title="Crap Detection 101" target="_blank">actually check</a></u> for any veracious and/or scientific basis behind these claims? Not only scientific facts get misinterpreted and falsified, because events, statements and intentions get the <u><a href="https://clipboard.rit.edu/take.cfm?sid=30f30e" title="Rumor Survey about a Rumor You Heard" target="_blank">same treatment</a></u>.
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We should make a difference between a couple of similar social mechanisms, namely misinformation, <u><a href="https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2005/04/gossip.aspx" title="Rumor and Gossip Research: We Should Distinguish Between Rumor and Gossip, as Each Appears to Function Differently in Its Pure State." target="_blank">rumour and gossip</a></u>, and conspiracy theories. Rumours are a type of communication that can spread throughout social circles and publicly, and contain information that has a skewed view of actual events and containing some personal touch of belief. Gossip, a phenomenon closely related to rumour, are rumours shared between those with common history and interests and are about personal affairs of people who typically aren't present at the time of this sharing/spreading. A conspiracy theory is a layer of narrative that connects unassociated points in reality with alternate historical facts and outright lies, often forming an explanation about a malicious group (or individual) that take advantage of a majority that is oblivious to their scheme. A misininforamtion is an information that is false, simple as that, but it is encompassed in all of the described terms.
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Since the internet became an unavoidable portal to the world at large, <u><a href="http://www.mandatory.com/2012/08/14/10-notorious-internet-hoaxes/" title="10 Notorious Internet Hoaxes" target="_blank">we distort data</a></u> in unseen prolixity. Every type of media is flooded with misinformation (sometimes with the <u><a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory" title="Conspiracy Theory @ RationalWiki" target="_blank">best of intentions</a></u>, while at other times <u><a href="https://thenextweb.com/dd/2014/06/05/shrturl-co-youll-never-trust-shortener/" title="Shrturl.co: You’ll Never Trust a Shortened URL Again - This is an article about a service that has ceased to exist, at least for the time being." target="_blank">creativity</a></u> is the only limit). The cybersphere is also one of the best places to check the validity of whatever we don't <i>encounter firsthand</i>. I too have been the victim of my own fascination within Rumorealm. So many times I eagerly went on spreading information I found to underline my beliefs but was false. I signed online petitions without checking the actual facts behind them. I accepted how my friends behave behind Their backs without thinking twice, despite knowing Them better. I was amused by scientific twists I read in magazines but wasn't critical about their presentation.
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A great danger from living in Rumorealm is the rendering of important social tools insubstantial. Within the vibes of it, the essentiality of informational ripple effects and online activism about important issues deteriorates. The vital voices remain unheard in the deafening cry of an evolutional remnant that is the colelction of our fact-skewing psychological tendencies unfit for today's informationally embedded society.
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">"Have You heard?"</span>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">"Heard what?"</span>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">"Heard that You heard."</span>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">"Of course I have."</span>
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It is most unsettling when one can disprove the <u><a href="http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174" title="The Science News Cycle" target="_blank">factuality</a></u> of a journal article after five minutes of clicking around the web, for example <u><a href="http://snopes.com/" title="Snopes: the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation." target="_blank">here</a></u>, <u><a href="https://skeptics.stackexchange.com" title="Skeptics Stack Exchange: A Question and Answer Aite for Scientific Skepticism." target="_blank">here</a></u> or <u><a href="http://www.truthorfiction.com/" title="Truth or Fiction?" target="_blank">here</a></u>. I mean, what happened? I am in no position of criticizing journalists, as I am not one of Them and haven't got a proper insight into the deep intricacies of Their craft. Still, we have these wonderful tools called search engines and almost unbelievable investigation enhancing services already <u><a href="https://www.tineye.com/" title="TinEye: Reverse Image Search" target="_blank">in existence</a></u> and similar <u><a href="http://levan.cs.washington.edu/" title="LEVAN: Learning EVerything about ANything" target="_blank">emerging</a></u>. It has never been easier to find our sources. Certain publicly utilizable Machine Learning services allow us to cross-reference information, looking it from an amazing web view of interconnected material. Methods of checking up on data credibility <span class="bubblelink">are widely available<img src="https://i.imgur.com/yIjElb1.png" align="top" height="17" width="17"><span class="bubbletext">Summarized in the likes of the <u><a href="http://critical-thinking.iste.wikispaces.net/file/detail/hand+out.pdf" title="Critical Thinking Compendium's Handout" target="_blank">Crap Detection 101 Handout</a></u> and the <u><a href="http://crapdetection101.wikispaces.com/home" title="Crap Detection 101(.2) Classroom" target="_blank">Crap Detection Classroom</a></u> or <u><a href="http://jour101.wikispaces.com/Midterm+Questions" title="News Literacy Wiki's Midterm Questions" target="_blank">Credibility Checklist</a></u> teaching/study resources, as well as Carl Sagan's thoughts on the topic in <u><a href="http://people.senecac.on.ca/beth.agnew/FineArtofBaloneyDetection.pdf" title="The Fine Art of Baloney Detection by Carl Sagan" target="_blank">The Fine Art of Baloney Detection</a></u> and the <u><a href="http://users.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html" title="Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit" target="_blank">Baloney Detection Kit</a></u>. We also have the WayBack Machine, <u><a href="https://blog.archive.org/2016/10/24/beta-wayback-machine-now-with-site-search/" title="Beta Wayback Machine – Now with Site Search!" target="_blank">now with a search option</a></u>, so that even if some web pages are gone, we might be able to search in the past.</span></span>. A <u><a href="https://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/journals/pspi/misinformation1.html" title="Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing" target="_blank">recent study</a></u> on the topic of misinformation does not only give the reader an adept insight into its problematic but also succeeds in <span class="bubblelink">delivering proficient solutions<img src="https://i.imgur.com/yIjElb1.png" align="top" height="17" width="17"><span class="bubbletext_hlimit"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/lKfMe4A.jpg" height="1024" width="988"></span></span> on strategies for successful debiasing. I'm convinced that a journalist should feel the intrinsic obligation to enter keywords into these resources described and check Their statements for <u><a href="http://guides.library.jhu.edu/content.php?pid=198142&sid=1657518" title="Evaluating Information Found on the Internet" target="_blank">veracity</a></u> before publishing.
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Let's stay fair and not blame the journalists. Our whole society is dependent on rumors. It's how we convey trust. It's not unusual even for long-time friends to nod heads when pieces of obvious misinformation are passed between them. From where do these little lies come from, anyway? Some researchers (and most prominently Gordon Allport and Joseph Postman) concluded that rumors come either from rivalry in conversation (wanting to appear right and better informed), fear (explaining inconceivable happenings which make us dread), hostility (explaining why other members of society are bad by our moral standards), or expectation (forcing our wishes onto reality).
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We accept rumors because we cannot possibly check every bit of information we are provided with. It is only natural to seek out and verify matters that we find important, and not give too many cares for the rest. We want to make sense of reality, so we gullibly accept anything that makes sense <i>to us</i>. Since it's better to seek sense together with other people, and because it feels good to find common ground and to receive and give trust – we test our morals in each other. This brings us closer, so we all play this little game.
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We have the ability to drill a new approach in how we transfer information. As humanity as a whole grows to be more self-aware, this issue is already <u><a href="http://www.pheme.eu/" title="PHEME: Computing Veracity" target="_blank">being addressed</a></u> by professional enthusiasts. Why don't we leave Rumorealm behind and just simply live in a natural <i>real</i>m? It's pretty hard to imagine, as we all fall victims to human psychological reality, which is many things, but hardly is our reasoning based in <u><a href="http://www.shodor.org/workshops/forensic/lessons/perception.html" title="Perceptual Fallacies" target="_blank">objectivity</a></u> or memory being <u><a href="http://youtu.be/8OXEBf1Zp8k" title="10 Reasons Not to Trust Your Memory @ YouTube" target="_blank">accurate</a></u>.
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The issues described so far have been noticed in many circles worldwide, and attempts are being made to come up with solutions. Two major internet corporations have integrated their own measures into their <u><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/technology/google-will-ban-websites-that-host-fake-news-from-using-its-ad-service.html" title="Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake News Sites" target="_blank">algorithms</a></u> and <u><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-will-fact-check-label-fake-news-in-news-feed-2016-12" title="Facebook Is Going to Use Snopes and Other Fact-Checkers to Combat and Bury 'Fake News'" target="_blank">collaborative effort</a></u> options in order to counter the <span class="bubblelink">tide of misinformation<img src="https://i.imgur.com/yIjElb1.png" align="top" height="17" width="17"><span class="bubbletext">For more ideas on how to deal with misinformation, check out <u><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories-and-how-to-change-their-minds-82514" title="Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories – and How to Change Their Minds" target="_blank">this great article</a></u>, some <u><a href="http://docdro.id/DrLKENM" title="Seeing Reason" target="_blank">thoughts and insights</a></u> on the matter from NewScientis's journalists, or four (foolishly) paywaled articles: <u><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027714001632" title="Analytic Thinking Reduces Belief in Conspiracy Theories" target="_blank">here</a></u>, <u><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0270467614529707" title="Critical Science Literacy: What Citizens and Journalists Need to Know to Make Sense of Science" target="_blank">here</a></u> (these two regard what critical mindset tools we can use and should provide citizens with in order to be able to recognize faulty info), <u><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/rbtfl/E2rMtXxCbSziI/full" title="Knowing Our Options for Setting the Record Straight, When Doing So Is Particularly Important" target="_blank">here</a></u> and <u><a href="https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/journals/pspi/misinformation1.html" title="Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing" target="_blank">here</a></u> (these explore further options into what can be done).</span></span>.
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There is a great trick I found and that could be of help: acquaintance with truth seekers.
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Truth seekers are people who, despite the apparent futility of Their endeavor, give Their best to feel, understand and speak the truth. They are rare. The good news is that many of us have this profile, but only occasionally. Truth seeking behavior should be rewarded and encouraged. When someone faces us with our mistakes, we might feel uncomfortable. If we feel upset, that's actually a good sign that They hit the spot. When we react angrily in this kind of confrontation, people might cease with trying to examine our <u><a href="http://prometheanreach.tumblr.com/post/3719229094/shadow-projection" title="Shadow Projection" target="_blank">shadows</a></u>, and return to the cozy acceptance of Rumorealm. Instead, Their intention of challenging our reality and bringing the best out from us should be greeted with blessings. The true way to make people's expressed concerns about the inconvenient truth worthwhile is to examine them. Understand them. Take the effort to <u><a href="http://asylum4thoughts.blogspot.com/2014/08/perpetuum-mutato.html" title="Perpetuum Mutato @ Asylum for Thoughts" target="_blank">transmute</a></u> what they describe and make this process mutual.
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When surrounding ourselves with truth seekers, our circle of friends might change drastically and so may our reality. This is not about making reality look more positive (we already have a potential in Rumorealm for that); rather, it's about not forcing our egotistic distortions upon the world. It's about a maturing humanity and making everyone's life easier.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-25434659917192808892014-08-25T07:00:00.000+02:002016-10-11T15:59:41.751+02:00Indignation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Nearly everyone craves some sort of power. The most <u><a href="http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/power.htm" title="Power Theory" target="_blank">accepted definition</a></u> of power is all about having influence over those who have it in fewer proportions. It's the ability to get a person to change Their behavior against Their will. While this certainly can't be disputed, I think there are two distinguishable trends in might. There is the one already mentioned – the symptom of <u><a href="http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2014/08/09/inverting-the-gaze-pagan-political-philosophy/" title="Inverting the Gaze: Pagan Political Philosophy" target="_blank">an unforgiving tradition</a></u>, which I call petty power. I borrow this expression from the book called "<u><a href="http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/donjuan7.html" title="Don Juan's Teachings" target="_blank">The Fire from Within</a></u>", written by Carlos Castañeda. In His enchantingly displaced vision of the universe, Carlos writes about the importance of being impeccable. There are strategies and phenomena in life which can aid people in attaining impeccability if They know how to take advantage of them. One of these potentially assisting elements are the petty tyrants. In my short reinterpretation, these are all the people who long to dominate others. They are petty because They are nothing compared to the ultimate tyrant – existence. There is no evading the underlying properties that be, only finding a way amidst them. What good is power over others, if we can't control our very selves? So, these people who ape the sublime essence can be used as means to understand how to let go of self-importance.
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This brings us to the second type of power, which is rarely taken seriously these days. That is the mastery of the self. This requires the riddance of self-importance. Don't confuse this idea with having no respect towards one's own existence. What it means is having the ability to see beyond one's own self-serving bias. I call this type of power <i>true power</i>. Essentially, beings holding true power cannot be deterred by any outside force. Yes, They can be destroyed, theoretically. Yet, since They have no pride in individual existence anymore, but rather the devotion to a set of ideas, the feeling of being victimized is replaced by the sheer satisfaction of living in accordance to Their dreams. Any energy otherwise spent on dealing with suffering imposed by other beings can now be targeted on achieving an intent. Schemes conspired against such a calculated intent can be inspected and dealt with in a sober manner. While wondering about this, the concept of <u><a href="http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/education/006/world_politics/01/chap_4/009" title="Joseph Nye: Soft-Power Skills" target="_blank">soft power</a></u> comes to mind, which was developed a decade ago by political scientist Joseph Nye. The two are different, though. Soft power still aims to persuade others to join our cause (and thus willingly do what we would want them to, without forcing Them), while true power doesn't bother with the adoption of anyone's will. The latter exists only for the sake of its own inquiry.
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These types of power don't necessarily exclude each other. On the contrary, if someone acquires true power, They will have all the aspects of the petty power, but instead of being consumed by it, They can control it. They won't have any compulsory agendas to fulfill, thus not compromising Their intent with lapses originating from power struggles. As a direct result of living in a community, we surely have to practice influence of our will over others. The temperance of this practice is what makes all the difference.
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<a href="http://heyyeyaaeyaaaeyaeyaa.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="He-Man has the POWER!" height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/UAqzQyX.png" title="If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him... We need not wait to see what others do. ~ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi" width="700" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">This guy knows what's up.</span>
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Power can be and <i>should</i> be obtained. By lacking it, we willfully disengage from the forces that govern society. We risk becoming a puppet of what we might call fate, luck or circumstance. A <u><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_liu_why_ordinary_people_need_to_understand_power" title="Why Ordinary People Need to Understand Power" target="_blank">demotivated fatalist</a></u>. Sadly, most people nowadays are like this. This is a frustrating fact, as it strips democracy of its essence. The political ideology humanity is so proud of works only if all of its participants are equally aware. Since this is not the case, the few individuals who rise to power have all the legitimacy to compel Their vision around. You can only guess how many of these people carry true power.
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In ancient Greece, there was an expression for people who lacked competency to participate in public life. Later, this term (which I will soon reveal) was taken over by the Romans, and it meant an uneducated and ignorant person. In more recent times, psychology used it as a term for the most severe degree of mental retardation. This professional phrase is now abandoned since everybody uses it as an insult. The sad fact is that an ancient civilization would regard most of us today as <i><u><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150722015400/http://www.huginn.com/knuth/blog/2007/11/22/origin-of-the-word-idiot" title="Origin of the Word Idiot" target="_blank">idiots</a></u></i>, and rightfully so. In the old-school democracy, an idiot was anyone who was more concerned about private matters than with public affairs. Aristotle even regarded us as the <u><a href="http://minnority.com/2016/02/07/zoon-politikon/" title="Zoon Politicon" target="_blank"><i>zoon politikon</i></a></u> or the <i>political animal</i> − because according to Him, the only thing to separate us from the rest in the animal kingdom is our feature to develop societies. To put it in today's perspective, being a part of a societal group essentially means governing it to a certain degree, and an individual needs o learn the skills to operate in such a way.
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This begs the question: are politicians still idiots if They practice the law for the sake of a small group (which seems to be the case in many countries today)? This is where the petty power phrase kicks in. They are not idiots in the traditional sense, as They actively influence society and, in Their own way, care about how it revolves. Alas, They are petty tyrants in critical times. Representatives for cowardly masses who avoid the responsibility of making decisions that matter. Thank goodness for <u><a href="http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/pope-francis-pepe-mujica-why-are-modest-leaders-making-waves-9781" title="Why Are Modest Leaders Making Waves" target="_blank">the exceptions</a></u>.
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Now it might be much more apparent why the practice of true power is necessary for the future of our society. It needs to transcend the petty reign. This mission demands all of humanity. I consider each and every one of us to be a politician in Their own regard. This concept requires us to put away the conventional view on who is a politician. We all are. To explain, let's name two ends to this spectrum: active and passive politicians. The first are those who reshape society, and the latter are those who follow in acceptance. With silently abiding whatever laws are passed, passive politicians contribute to them.
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<a href="http://www.maicar.com/GML/Prometheus1.html" target="_blank"><img alt="prometheus gets his liver eaten again" height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/VzbkXSN.png" title="Christian Griepenkerl: Punishment of Prometheus" width="700" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">"Shrill!! Since You have practiced Your active politics, I'm enforcing criminal justice upon You!!"</span>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">"No, please! Not again! You can put an end to this!"</span>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">"Sorry, titan. I dig You and our little chit-chats, but I must follow orders. That's <i>why</i> I was created!"</span>
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Being an active politician with true power is not an easy task. It requires a set of competencies, with no definite list or descriptions. That is also the beauty of it. We can't just go around changing the system if we disagree with it or some of its elements. We have to believe in a vision, one with essence and purpose. We have to rearrange theoretical structures through practice. We need to invent our own laws, <u><a href="http://attempter.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/active-vs-passive-politics/" title="Active vs. Passive Politics" target="_blank">live by them</a></u>, and enforce them. I'm not advocating breaking legal rules. What I'm arguing is that we need to see clearly what kind of World we want to live in and behave the best we can to make it into reality. Nowadays, this is called <u><a href="http://changesuk.net/themes/active-citizenship/" title="An Introduction to Active Citizenship" target="_blank">active citizenship</a></u> and is taught through <u><a href="https://www.icivics.org/" title="iCivics: Educational Resources" target="_blank">civics</a></u>.
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Our current social, political, economic and ecological <u><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615" title="Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies" target="_blank">system is failing</a></u> us. We <u><a href="http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/" title="Earth Overshoot Day" target="_blank">just passed</a></u> Earth's yearly natural resource budget. We are threatening ourselves with total collapse. It has become of an utmost importance to reinvent how we live. What better ways are to doing this than to make our defiance legal? We need to reshape the World by having our heartbeat set to our own true-powered righteousness.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-6700692576795643912014-08-18T07:00:00.000+02:002016-10-11T16:00:58.903+02:00Perpetuum Mutato<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Change. A constant in our lives. We are mostly aware of the unavoidability of it, but to which level of awareness are we willing to adopt its notion? Or, to rephrase that: to what extent are we willing to endure temporal unease to achieve long-termed improvement? For years now, I keep seeking out what I dislike about myself and do my best to overcome it. It is not an easy task. Not because change is hard (it's inevitable), but because it just might be one of the bigger challenges to understand how it goes around. There are a few ideas I managed to gather that might shed at least a bit of light on how to bravely let ourselves immerse into the flow of everlasting transition.
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There is this psychotherapeutic theory of which I'm particularly fond of. It is called <u><a href="http://www.rebtnetwork.org/whatis.html" title="What is REBT? – Check out the forms for 'Self-Help' and 'Disputing of Irrational Beliefs' on the site. :)" target="_blank">Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy</a></u>. It has many aspects which might or might not be beneficial to a therapy, but what I'd like to focus on here are some of the particularly defined ideas within it: irrationality and hedonism.
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According to REBT, irrationality can be divided into three "absolute demands" through which we burden our own lives. These are the demands toward ourselves (I must satisfy people), others (people must satisfy me) and circumstances (things must go as I imagined). As You can see, "must" is the central term of irrationality. We cannot demand anything from an unpredictable life. Expecting anyone or anything to function according to an indispensable plan is ludicrous at best. It should be an imperative to understand how a moderate aspiration (which is non-absolute and accordant to wishes instead of demands) can improve our existence.
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REBT also presumes that all humans are hedonists by nature, and it distinguishes two types of philosophies in pleasure seeking: short-term and long-term hedonism. The first one emphasizes our keenness to feel fulfilled here and now. This is the over-popularized "<u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YOLO_%28motto%29" title="YOLO (motto) @ Wikipedia" target="_blank">YOLO</a></u>" approach, which is characterized by impulsiveness, a low tolerance for frustration, and leads to self-harming behavioral patterns more often than the vibrant catchphrase would favor us to admit. It is irrational even by nihilistic standards (as even if there is nothing of value and significance, our time here shouldn't be filled with self-imposed suffering).
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Long-term hedonism, however, stresses the importance of delayed achievement of desired goals. This can ensure a more lasting satisfaction of individuals in Their future. By acting in this fashion, we don't care about temporal impulses that much, but rather build up a discipline which is the main tool to get where we want to. Essentially, people who consciously engage in aimed activities to fulfill certain wishes are more prone to live a principally happy life.
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In this light, the idea of "living for the moment" becomes dangerous. People have the tendency to equalize it with "living for today". Now, living for today isn't necessarily bad. YOLO can give a courageous way to approach life. When it becomes a vicious trap is the instant it begins promoting a constantly reckless lifestyle. We have a <u><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-experience/" title="The Experience and Perception of Time" target="_blank">certain ability</a></u> by which we know that there is a tomorrow awaiting us with consequences to our decisions today.
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<img alt="the Dalai Lama is the new drummer of Slipknot" src="https://i.imgur.com/9nNVoyW.png" title="I've come so far, I'm behind again." />
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">#YOLO</span>
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We tend to reshape the meanings of ideas we encounter into such that gratify our self-perceived sense of well-being. Most of the time, people feel uncomfortable with critically examining Their dispositions, let alone trying to change them. Resistance to change is the act of opposing modifications that can alter the ego's illusion of a status quo. This is actually a healthy and natural process, which guards us against threatening influence. But when does this protective mechanism become the threat in itself? In my opinion, this fine line of realization is the hardest step to take towards change.
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We learn to follow certain patterns and feel no need to revision or question them once they are in our reactionary arsenal. I always thought that no person could be blamed for Their misfortune until They come to realize its nature. Only then They are able to conceptualize this dysfunctional state in Their life. From that moment on, it's Their choice whether They want to change or accept defeat. From then on, They <i>can</i> be blamed for Their misfortune. And that's why the first step is the hardest. You simply cannot grasp something if You have no basis off which to start.
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Nevertheless, with an open mind we can begin to see patterns. We can retrace the roots of our behavior to the past. It's not unusual to see ourselves doing the exact same thing we took an oath never to do. We become our enemies, so to speak. We haven't seen any better. We just <u><a href="http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/social-cognitive-learning-theory-definition-and-examples.html" title="Social-Cognitive Learning Theory: Definition and Examples" target="_blank">imitate and acquire knowledge</a></u>.
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Once the hardest step is taken, we are ready to pursue change and ascend to a desired goal. Both of these can be unclear at first glance. Why so? Well, the case is most usually that we don't actually want to change. We feel comfortable in our short-termed hedonism of what our <u><a href="http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/the-60-second-guide-to-bullshit-free-life/" title="A 60 Second Guide to Learning the Awful Truth About Yourself" target="_blank">habits ensure us</a></u>. We don't want to sacrifice anything from which we have now for some vague idea that seems more and more overwhelming every time we think about it.
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Here lies the root of the problem: to accept change, we let go of certain parts of who we are. This happens either we want it or refuse it. <u><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_you_are_always_changing" title="The only thing − the only thing − that can destroy us and doom us are our own decisions. If we're not here in 10,000 years, it's going to be because . . . we underestimated the odds of our future pains and overestimated the value of our present pleasures. ~ Dan Gilbert" target="_blank">We change</a></u>, no matter what. Why not do it consciously? To make a shift from what we are to what we want to be, some routines are to be transmuted. This is not easy. We like what we do – that's why we do it! Even if, in a long-termed sense, what we do is, in fact, harmful to us and the people around.
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When we really want to do something, we find ways to do it. The path doesn't matter that much. The method at hand is just a transitory tool. When we only want something, but don't want to <i>do</i> it, then we produce ingenious excuses. In such cases, we lack a reason behind our wishes. We want to be happy, but don't want to suffer through a change to get to be happy.
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<a href="https://secure.flickr.com/photos/bassclarinetist/4576439746/in/photostream/" target="_blank"><img alt="thinking cat" src="https://i.imgur.com/ecaxM83.png" title="The weight of realization is so heavy. Purr me. |click for image source|" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 13px;">So, to learn how to get filthy rich in a week, I actually need to spend twenty years getting good at getting rich?</span>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;">FML</span>
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Alright, so we realized that we have an obstacle in our lives, and we are willing to accept that we might want to put effort into making some beneficial progress done. Do we even know where we want to be by the end? That can be scary. The goal, if we can even see it at this point, can be too large to handle. The desired result might be something we have no competencies for to achieve even in small terms, not to mention that what we expect from ourselves is way bigger... Don't mind that. We can find the way, and it will lead us to our goal. The step to be taken now is to sacrifice something. Giving up a bit of what we perceive with that prescient ability of ours I mentioned before: time. We can sacrifice time from what we do every day to implement willful change. Less time reading blogs, more time reading up on our problem (unless of course the blog is relevant). In the Information Age, we have vast knowledge a few clicks or slides away. So start looking up. Ask. Learn. Practice.
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We don't have to meditate every day. We can just to meditate today. We don't have to become a programmer. We can take only a lesson from C# today. We can't transform into Eric Clapton, but we can learn to play a few accords by the next hour. We don't have to become the peacemaker of our family by the end of the week. What we can do is tracing our reactions to the tension around us. There is <u><a href="http://30sleeps.com/blog/2014/02/06/perfectionism-vs-value/" title="
Perfectionism vs. Value" target="_blank">no need to be perfect</a></u>, as we can't get anywhere near being truly good without making mistakes first.
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The following habituation period is laborious and it might even appear to be in vain. That's because we are used to wanting it all, and to want it now, without deeper or prolonged effort. We shouldn't expect huge and rapid change. The key is in the <u><a href="http://www.sparringmind.com/habits-hacks/" title="Stop Searching for Lifehacks. Focus on This Instead" target="_blank">slight variances</a></u>. Moreover, we rather remedy the symptoms of a cause than the cause itself. Apparently the latter demands more sacrifice. It requires repeated focus. The thing about conscious change is that it takes a decision to be made over and over again, refining it for a subtle bit each time. In the end, isn't it less of a sacrifice than living away a life, while accepting whatever excuses we fabricate?
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When we decide to change a certain behavior, we will see ourselves repeat it countless times before realizing what we are doing. Then, we will see it coming, but only to do it again, so many times over... An opportunity will occur when we'll eventually be able to stop ourselves, and implement the new way we want to react. But we might succumb back and redo the old pattern. We might even justify this regression. Yet over time, we will cease with the old – only for the price of great frustration. For example, I used to eat the whole pizza every time I encountered one. But the last slice usually proved to be too much for pleasant digestion, therefore I suffered. Can You guess how much time I needed to recondition my behavior so I don't eat the last slice if it would simply be more than enough?
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<div class="spoiler"><div>Two <i>years</i>.</div></div>
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Finally, the day will come when we won't even think of how we used to be, but have the new demeanor fully integrated. Only in retrospective will it become obvious how easy one of these long journeys was. Because the journey is not for the goal, as You might have already heard. It's in the steps we make along. The goal is unforeseeable and unpredictable, just as we are.
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Once we achieve our first noticeable result, we might also realize that we have to do this process all over and over again. If we wish to thrive, that is. Change is feared today as if it should be shameful to throw away obviously disadvantageous beliefs and routines. The one true constant is change, and we are part of it, whether we like it or not. Just think three or five years back, or when You were a kid... I'm sure You changed a lot since. As my dear friend once said: "if I met myself from ten years ago, we would probably end up fighting to the death." Seems to be an <u><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130517101903/http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/time-travel-meet-earlier-self" title="What would happen if you traveled through time and met your younger self?" target="_blank">odd choice</a></u>, for sure.
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Here's the ultimate catch (in case You think the contents of this post are worthy of Your further attention): to incorporate all of the described into Your lifestyle, You can to go through the very same processes. This might be change for You, which shouldn't be different than any other.
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</div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4054162629687678637.post-72882325800915423962014-08-11T07:00:00.000+02:002016-10-15T18:25:34.579+02:00Too Late Is Never: An Introduction<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Not so long ago a dear friend convinced me about making little time capsules to flow around the World, which He labeled "immortality projects". The main reason for these, He argued, is leaving a personal point of view towards the World, frozen in time. A few frames of a personality left afloat between other minds who could access them for the better or worse.
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The form of an immortality project doesn't really matter – as long it has a relatively lasting imprint in the World outside its creator. If it is to be shared with other people, the better. Upon reviewing these time capsules of thought and creativity later in life, we might feel accomplished, embarrassed, challenged even. And that's the whole point.
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So this little stream of ideas got me encouraged enough to finally start this blog which I have been contemplating for a long time. They say I can prove to be quite a complicated person at times. Not that bad opinions have a too consequential impact on me directly, but I do tend to listen to critique. I can't really say that I'm not complicated. More often than not, I fail to understand the complexity of my thoughts. I don't say this with the intention of flaunting… It just happens to be how I feel, and how probably most of us feel if we are willing to admit it.
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We, human beings, tend to label ourselves and other things for easier comparison. This is to make sense of the phenomena we encounter. To have some comfort. I don't really like labeling myself nor others because no concept is specific enough to be fairly applied onto any personality. Alas, it seems to be unavoidable. So let's just say I'm a skeptic. I believe in the potential of everything anyone can imagine and more, all while knowing that we all die stupid.* What I mean is that there are more than seven billion of us around this planet – each with Their own little subjective ways of dealing with reality. It is hardly possible that anyone of us knows what exactly is going on.<br />
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<a href="https://imgur.com/a/wapUe" target="_blank"><img alt="Thich Quang Duc" height="400" src="https://i.imgur.com/rqkEUKZ.jpg" title="Thích Quảng Đức |colourized photo - click for source|" width="700" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">* Well, perhaps not all of us.</span>
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So, what to do with all these thoughts? I can practice meditation and mind controlling techniques all I want, rogue ideas will emerge to make me question everything that I am. Usually, the bottom lines of these thoughts can be utterly unsettling. In addition, not many people like to have Their own explanations about life shaken. Thus, more often than not, I'm left alone with these thoughts.
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Therefore, I'm establishing this cyber Asylum for Thoughts, where my ideas can unfold and my conscious mind can leave them to rest for a while before I pick them up sometime in the future. Since <span style="color: maroon;">Thoughts</span> (posts) will rest here, all willing <span style="color: maroon;">Thinkers</span> (readers of this blog) are encouraged to refine them with Their own <span style="color: maroon;">Figments</span> (comments).
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I was thinking about making Terms and Conditions for this blog, but only for a mere second. I don't need that to deal with eventual trolls and spammers. Blogger and Google have Their policies already, and there are so many nonnegotiable T&Cs floating around, that I find it to be quite disturbing. I understand that having millions of users, or even just mere hundreds render a free service nonnegotiable, but this approach opens doors to so many undesired possibilities…
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Therefore, I will for the fun of it write a different kind of T&Cs. A universal contract, which could (in theory) be used towards any company that has, for whatever reason, neglected the importance of customized, mutual delight. So there. TL;DR? Too bad.
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<img alt="Terms and Conditions Background" src="https://i.imgur.com/291Bsen.png" title="Terms and Conditions" />
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<span style="color: maroon;">This document <br />
is a proposal of a reply to all the various <br />
"accept or decline" Terms and Conditions out there. <br />
It has the intention to stay as concise and reader-friendly as possible.<br />
First person pronouns ("me", "I", "my" and "myself") refer to the author of <br />
these Terms and Conditions, while second person pronouns ("You" and "Your") <br />
refer to any party reading this document and/or providing services which require <br />
accepting Their own Terms and Conditions to be legally used.</span>
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1. By coercing me to accept and/or agree to any Terms and Conditions for using (any of) <br />
Your services, You are causally and automatically accepting and agreeing to my own <br />
Terms and Conditions in return, which are the subject of this document.
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<span style="color: maroon;">2. As it is not uncommon for people to misunderstand meanings and just as You might not be aware of <br />
my Terms and Conditions, You allow me the freedom not to understand or even actually accept the <br />
meaning behind long and legally ambiguous text contained in Your Terms and Conditions, especially if <br />
they are updated without assured notice. Thereby I am free of any legal charge that may be a direct result <br />
of me being subjectively unaware of any policy included in Your Terms and Conditions. In other words: <br />
I am not responsible or liable for any unintentional error, omission, inaccuracy or abuse derived from <br />
a possible discrepancy between Your guidelines and my actions.</span>
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3. You are equally authorized to feel the same towards my Terms and Conditions. However, if You choose <br />
to intentionally pursue such a stance, You are consciously creating a potentially irresolvable legal paradox.
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<span style="color: maroon;">4. Harms that might occur as a result of applying my Terms and Conditions do not make me liable for them.</span>
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5. To avoid any apparent attempt to gain absolute legal immunity for myself, You are welcome to contact <br />
me in any eventual case of detecting a misconduct on my behalf. My full intention is to respect Your <br />
wishes and to cooperate with You. I expect nothing less in return. If You ever decide to contact me, <br />
please consider giving Your message an assertive and personal touch. Anything authoritative or <br />
unnecessarily official is automatically filtered as spam. Your information sent for such purposes <br />
will not be shared with third parties by me, unless these third parties are even worse with <br />
Their own Terms and Conditions than You and I are. In this unlikely case, You will <br />
most probably be informed of what happened.
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<input checked="" disabled="" name="inevitable" type="checkbox" value="T&Cs" /><span style="color: maroon;">You agree to these Terms and Conditions.</span></center>
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<audio autoplay="true" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20160124023535/http://soundjax.com/reddo/22484%5Eraven5.mp3"></audio></div>mozzribohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17026848193569472324noreply@blogger.com0