The Rich and the Poor
1. All people have needs, and they are quite consistent across different people. We need about 2000 calories of food, some clothes, shelter and water. We have a spectrum of medical needs.
2. I knew a person who would immensely despise anyone that would have an unfulfilled need and ask for help. She would also despise people who would have, or seem to have, little money. She would have and extensive mental list of jobs which, according to her, made a person unworthy of respect. Examples of it were being a cleaning lady, elementary school teacher, or being a representative for a company or political group. She found certain jobs – cleaning, for example, so despicable, that not only would she never take such a job, but would actually prefer to live in a filthy place and eat off dirty dishes when she couldn’t make other people do it for her. It seems she felt like doing something like that would damage her somehow.
3. When you think of it, if you acquire anything you want or need in a way that is in accordance with your own morals, everything else really shouldn’t matter.
4. The person i wrote about came to value only money. She found it worthwhile to hang out with those who had enough, and avoided anyone who she didn’t consider ‘rich’ enough.
5. Greed for money seems to be based on the belief that – if you acquire something indirectly, you are therefore a more valuable person.
6. Money has become a culturally accepted way to clean your hands of blood. Compare the following scenarios:
a) A person walks down the road, shoots a stranger, takes his money, and walks off.
b) A person, knowing the consequences of smoking, works in a cigarette factory.
Another person buys the cigarettes they make. He and his daughter die of smoke-related illness.
Except for some numbers being calculated, the scenario is the same.
7. People who are greedy for money believe that when they will acquire enough money, it will make them faultless and divine – after all, they will not have those desperate, human, carnal needs anymore.
But humans are of the same human nature from life to death.
The Challenge
1. When young, we like to prove ourselves to the world. It is nearly irrelevant who the person we prove ourselves to is.
‘Look mommy what i did.’ ‘ Wow, you are awesome indeed.’
Then we get to know our first friends, and the number of people in our social circles increases. At this point we start to evolve to thinking that hey, those guys are actually full of shit, they have no authority to judge me! These people don’t know what they are talking about, i’m not going to associate with them.
Our environment is putting us through a kind of test – are you good enough? Sometimes, we succeed, sometimes we fail; often, we dismiss the system. It is irrelevant what someone who doesn’t really know anything about a topic thinks about your knowledge of it.
There are valid reasons to consider some examinations invalid. It is reasonable, that through life more and more things turn out relative and shallow, especially when we are looking intentionally into such things. But never to expose ourselves to authority we consider valid is some kind of cowardice really. It is something that causes our knowledge and vitality to regress.
The more the trivial things we dismiss, the happier we are. At least until we stop pushing ourselves at things that actually meant something to us. At this point, instead of life becoming richer, it looses some of its vibrancy.
This is a problem common with many old people. It prevents people to look out of the box and causes them to become in a way ‘rusty at life’.
We all know people that seem old even when their age is not even that old. Even if magically they turned young-looking suddenly, they would still have that grumpy old feel to them.
We also know some people whose bodies and id’s clearly show their age , but retain this kinda youth, vitality. Often, these people work into their old age, and keep up to date – with people around them wondering – what in the world is pushing them?
This is a consequence of a lifetime of careful weighting of personal priorities against one another. Such people know why they are doing what they are, even if the reason only makes sense to them. They haven’t given up when they were afraid or obstacles arose, because they knew that whatever actually happens, they are working at things that matter to them.
This is as opposed to people who found themselves in the wrong place, and tried to get out using someone else’s dream. We all know such dreams, they are advertisements, whether they are a product of a company wanting to sell you something (e.g. having a Yacht) or are subtle pressures of society (e.g. being generous). Such people tend to give up on life – ‘It is always going to be like this, why bother’, and stay dormant in a state of semi-contentment, always with the lingering feeling of something not being enough. After they get old, society gives them this excuse, and they take it with delight – “I can’t do anything anymore, i’m too old”.
They are bored, but will not do things. They are sick of their environment, but they will not change it. They can’t.
2. This is a point where many people get thrown out of balance. It is easy to get swayed by opinions and advertisements.
People buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t like.
Clive Hamilton
There is a balance between a trivial busy life and paralysis in fear of failure. Where are you at?
“Don’t Know” is an Answer; the Root of Anxiety
Warning: Long article, get some coffee.
Nervousness comes from trying to forecast the future. The brain only has information about the ‘now’. It can make a general trajectory to the past and future based on present observations and data from our memory.
Because of us, people, having a extensive, though hidden from consciousness, memory – we have a ‘past trajectory’ that is better then the ‘future trajectory’. Our past consists of a large amount of low-quality data, since most of us don’t have a photographic memory, but still keep a respectable understanding of what has happened to us. Due to this, we sometimes expect to estimate our future better.
The best (in terms of quality) information available to us about the future is the ‘now’.
Sometimes our data is insufficient to produce a good estimate of the future. We cannot produce a good enough guess of what is to happen to us. Inside, we may feel a certain lack, emptiness, a void. Our ‘function’ is not defined in this area, we cannot get a result.
This is usually a momentary experience. Our brain will quickly start to gather more data from its environment. Maybe we can do something else, in a different way? Yeah, my boyfriend doesn’t want to see me (void experience here), but i know the shop next street will be open only for a few minutes, surely i can get a tub of ice-cream to eat tonight if i hurry enough? Quick, i need to find my keys, there’s my money – oh and i need to call a friend i told her i would show her a movie…
This void thing is all only a feeling, and is as such not dangerous to us. But it is something we, people, will go to great lengths to avoid, sometimes in silly and unreasonable ways, as in the above given example. It is on the other hand, a reaction that keeps us alive, since going the other way means death. Surely we have known someone who temporarily or permanently chose the wrong direction, and instead of running away from it, jumped into the void. I lost my car keys again, i am always loosing things, i cannot do anything right.
The other way is a that of a person who is sad, grieving, or in the worse case even a person with depression. Especially in the later case, their main problem is to get out of their cycle. This is why telling depressed people just to lighten up will not work – their brain for some reason refuses new information to avoid the issue; not getting out of something is their main problem. The issue with their car keys is real, eating ice cream will not work to solve this, as the keys will still be lost. The little silly mechanism of the mind that gives us the impression that eating ice cream makes the lack of a person in our life less relevant is broken.
But what happens when there is simply no way to get out of a situation, distract ourselves with something else, but we still want to get out of – that is, make our future known and predictable to us enough to be in control?
There are two possibilities.
As i have said before. The feeling of emptiness, by itself, is not harmful to us. We experience it, some things come up and give us more data about our world, and this is how it all ends. We go on about our lives.
But what if we keep pushing it, even though we know nothing new about it?
Yeah, i don’t know how i should tell my boss something, so what do i do? The brain replies nothing. I ask again, What do i do? No reply. What the fuck do i do? Nothing still. WHAT DO I DO, FUCK, WHAT? {}. With enough motivation, we may consciously or subconsciously do this to ourselves for hours. You may imagine, as it is quite logical, that in some time, the thing will no longer be about ‘I kindly need to do something’ to ‘AAAARrRRGGG$#3##$$!!!?!!!!!!’. That is, a feeling commonly known as anxiety.
Putting more energy into trying to forecast something will only result in overwhelm.
Swaying away from my topic, as every good SAR dog handler knows, if you push too hard on the dog to find the missing person in a place where there is actually nobody there – the dog will eventually bark or signal that the person is there even if they aren’t.
And this is exactly what the human brain will do, and it is called creativity.
When our boss told us something in a slightly annoyed way, we were concerned, but how do we come from that, to anxiety, to panic, overwhelm, fear?
This comes from a mix of void with creativity. See, the brain got pushed into a corner by its owner, it knows the owner will keep pushing it, so it just makes something up. The brain knows the topic is ‘unpleasantness’. So how do you make someone shut up on this topic? You reply with fear, panic. If they didn’t pull away before, they will now. The way your brain worked when you were playing the ‘What do you think of when i say x’ with your friends works here, and it works exactly in the same way. You feel ‘unpleasant’, the brain thinks up ‘bad’, then thinks up ‘worse’ to that, then what do you think of when i say the word ‘worse’? Well, horrible maybe? And instead of in words like the game is usually played, the brain has no issue of playing it with its owner in feelings. It is the same thing, it is fun (no one is making you do it, you are still there, you must think it to be fun or else you’d surely leave \sarcasm).
When you badly wanted to do something before, instead of acting, now you are paralyzed with fear. It was a slight feeling of insecurity that got a sweet topping of human effort and creativity. We didn’t want to feel the uneasiness, so we got panic; feelings know how to make themselves felt, if at least partly. This cannot be avoided. The funny thing is, you may not even feel that afraid, its just when you want to do that thing. Such feelings can be very strong, but by our efforts they stay in the darkness. The problem with this is, when they are not addressed, they tend to grow. They never become strong, but in a certain situation the uneasiness always pops up for some reason.
This is also why young people tend to be more active in their choices, in business or such – through our lifetimes, we accumulate and fail to ‘clean out’ (that is, experience completely) many such feelings.
Our circumstances may only hit us with a kind of pain. It may be physical, emotional.
On the other hand, feelings of anxiety and fear come from within, they are our own production. To be afraid, we need to know something about the thing we are afraid of. Naturally, we are fearless, we only have reflexes of avoidance (or attraction, or dismissal). If you don’t believe it, observe very young children. They pull away. They don’t go “shit what if this-n’-that is going to happen to me”. They cry because they are cold, not because they are afraid of becoming cold. You cover them with a blanket, and they stop crying. Fear and its relative, anxiety, are fabricated feelings, and can be undone. Firefighters respect fire, but don’t fear it. Doctors take measures to prevent infection, but they don’t wake up during nights in fear of a virus. Step-by-step those emotions about something are constructed, and they are deconstructed in the same way (and the same amount of effort is required).
To deconstruct a feeling, we will have to experience all the components we have built up. Trying to avoid feelings is basic human suffering.
If we don’t know something, writing out the ‘don’t know’ in larger letters will not change the meaning. It is the same with our experiences. What we need to do to find an answer, is acknowledge the problem, but then really do something else.
Is Wikipedia the Best We’ve Got?
1. Knowing the way we learn has become more important. We no longer live in a world where we would spend more time trying to acquire the information (we, exceedingly, no longer need to go to expensive schools, be born in or travel to a certain (social) place etc.) then we take to understand it (that is, work ourselves through the material).
2. When i went to grade school, the way people learn wasn’t discussed. The assumption was – we give you access to the information, you will deal with it. But now, with internet, we all have access to the information. So the question should be – how do we efficiently present it, making the best use of the medium (this now being a computer with ever-advancing software)
3. We tend to still think in terms of traditional media – we were thought what a pencil can do; but few know how to actually use the advanced tools a computer brings. Sometimes we use the ‘fake’ markers, brushes, animation. But few can actually present something well in an interactive form – something peculiar to the medium.
It is like we did not develop the ‘fine motor skills’ to use the computer. We fiddle with software like young kids do with pencils, we are unsure what to do with the new tools. We write text, we stuff the gadgets in things resembling pencil cases. We look at whether their cover glitters or doesn’t, or looks like it has been blessed by the latest (now geeky) celebrity. We show our friends how our tools – computers, smartphones, look on the outside, never having a real clue about what they do. It is a good thing that the tool is similar enough to our old one that we do not try to eat it, like small children would try to do! Often we never realize that the new functionality we think it has, was really possible in our old one too. We buy them, ‘sharpen’ them, lug them around in bags for awhile, and throw them away when our friends no longer seem impressed by them.
This time, there will be no grown up teacher telling us what to do, and no parent making sure we attend and listen – but still we should all take some time and learn to use the tools we got as best as we can. The computer will always be a bad pencil. We should learn to use it as its own tool, not as an emulator.
4. How do i present what i know if i don’t know how people learn? The science is getting there, but i have this impression that this issue is most often showed off as of inferior importance, mostly of the ‘grade school’ assumption that is still made by the majority of people.
5. Literacy of today is not the literacy of yesterday. A program has substituted the word. We cannot read if we cannot use software, nor can we really write if we cannot program. Today’s new illiterate are tolerated, but this is only so because they are the majority. It is something we, as people and as a society, will have to overcome. How will we teach the use of the new medium? How long will we postpone and reserve it for the ‘blessed’? I wonder, how long the majority will have to ‘work in the fields’, to gain the time (as money is no longer an issue much) for an education?
Truth
There always seems to be this ignored, small, trivial problem, that later brings down the whole system (of belief, knowledge). Whether on a personal level or on the level of society.
Sheer Lazyness
Science
The most noble work is that that you will never do again.
Art
The most noble work is that that is never finished. Even after it is finished, people who see it should add to it by their own contemplation and interpretation.
–
I think there is too much art in science today.
The Enchantment of the Fountain Pen
The elegance of the fountain pen lies chiefly in its apparent simplicity. Its point, a simple gap in metal, everything else tidily put away in its body.
It is like a drop of ink, transferred to paper by creative thought.
Ink.
It is not in a fountain pen where the writing lies, i realize, nor in the water of the ink.
It is the pigment that shows the word; and in knowing that, the means of transferring it to the page becomes irrelevant.
It does not matter if a diamond is transferred from place to place by bus or plane – its value remains the same.
Be it from fountain pen, pencil or chalk, diluted, old – it is in its nature to color the creativity of man, making it visible to the world.
Studying is Good, Studying Sucks
I.
“Boredom is excess attention with insufficient intention.”
(McLeod, 2001)
Most of today’s education is indoctrination: we need to promote languange, we need to promote literacy, we need to promote…
They’re good, mkay.
What remains unsaid is that the world’s knowledge is a reply to someone else’s problem. Mostly, we don’t even know what it was that the person was asking. If we do, we usually don’t really have that problem.
With this said, we learn about those people (since they made “important” contributions): their life, hobbies, year born and died; a rich plethora of irrelavant facts to help us join into the worship of someone else’s idol.
“My child just can’t concentrate on his studies.”
random ADHD mum
His concentration is alive and well. The problem lies in yours. Nevermind, that pill has less abuse potential than cocaine and amphetamine. As long as he gets into that School, he will be fine (i.e. in debt; enslaved). His affliction is real (i.e. like diabetes) after all.
So he can learn about important things.
“Important
1. Strongly affecting the course of events or the nature of things; significant: an important message that must get through; close friends who are important to me.”
TheFreeDictionary
How is what doesn’t affect me important to me?
This is ridiculous. When do we stop montillating the Traxoline?
“Better something then nothing”
our culture
Really, a room full of clutter is just as bad as an empty room, lets be honest.
II.
I’m sitting here, staring into space – why wont anybody hire me? But then again, if i won’t hire myself why would anybody else? 14 years of education, and i’m as unemployable as ever. I’m unemployable because i lack knowledge about how to do things. In other words, i’m uneducated.
III.
There are people out on the street fighting the police again. They want jobs and money. But the people they think can give them jobs are getting fired tomorrow themselves. They are all angry. I wonder why?
Interior Design
The way of arranging and aquiring stuff tells of a feeling we would like to re-experience. An opens space feels like freedom, a filled one feels safe. This is because there is nothing worse then experiencing – in terms of emotions – something new. If we do – are we still going back to where we are, or spin into madness?
What you know is what you know you can cope with.
Decoration is simply slavery to our own emotions. As they rule the mind, rationalizations about why we own what we do are becoming an art themselves. There no rational explanation for owning knick-knacks.
Don’t be afraid. Instead of walking around with a duster, you could be walking around with a friend.
zacione 