The Person I Saw From Afar
I have seen a person from afar. Or rather didn’t ‘see’, as it often is these days.
All these great leaders of nations you see on TV – you will never see her be.
She is in the realm of magic, but since magic went out of fashion, she exists in no realm.
I have seen a person from afar. Or was she near? It’s hard to tell these days.
All the songs that sing of beautiful things, they didn’t sing of her.
Once there were ten millionaires – inexpensively, she gave something to expensive for money to buy.
I have seen a person from afar – when people spoke of technology, science and new things – their minds were to small to gasp her into view.
A person who can’t be seen.
A person who can’t be heard.
Would you believe me when I told you I once saw a person from afar?
A Lovely Afternoon
Walking up a hill for the view is such a nuisance.
I saw a lady drive up the same hill last time. She seemed fat and sick.
We try to buy ourselves freedom and convenience, but often, what we get is just plain illness.
“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.
The Fun of Lawmaking
A nations laws and rules seem to accumulate like stuff in an old attic. Some unnecessary, stupid. The more dust they gather, the more unlikely someone will polish them, or at least get rid of them. They hinder the life of people, but nobody knows who set them in the first place (thus keep voting the same to no effect), and since they are a pain to get rid of, politicians tend to leave them, and with time just add new ones until no one really knows all the rules anymore.
I think every law should have a name of a physical person written next to it. This should be the one who put it in place, and has decided to be responsible for it. When this person dies, the law should be gone, unless a new person should choose to take up the responsibility of it. If the holder of the responsibility doesn’t want to keep it, it is gone. It could be automated, and a whole list of people associated with it. However, if the original keeper is gone, down the list it goes – and if nobody “catches” it falling down the list, it is gone for good.
This would make lawmakers think about what they do. There would be no diffusion of responsibility. Destructive laws would no longer be tolerated; and as they could be a threat to life, no longer upheld. As soon as a group does something, no one is responsible; and bad habits and actions linger forever to be corrected.
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.
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I think there is too much art in science today.
Questions, Answers, Improvement
I.
Some books contain questions, some contain answers. Reading one with answers to a person without a question will leave him disappointed. Reading one with questions to a person full of them will make no change.
They will be asking themselves “When does the author shut up already”?
The one is not better then the other. We make use of different kinds at different times in our lives.
Kinda like kids – suddenly a child is all questions; or sometimes they just keep telling and showing you stuff you don’t really care about. They intuitively know how growth, learning and improvement is done. Adults should learn from them.
To often, people push the question kind of book on others, telling them it is art or faith.
To often, people push the answer kind of book on others, telling them it is science.
But they are really not apart from each other: human experience is both art and science – first, it is great to come across a great question; then it is great to come across a great answer. Both are equally needed for us to improve.
II.
If you look at the design of most textbooks, you will see how they try to force this process (which is not bad in itself, since it makes people learn fast). They include both the question, and the answer. If the problem is not specifically posted, the titles are usually actually questions. For example, they will say: Principles of Biochemistry; meaning “What is it, that Biochemistry is based on? What concepts will i find most often in any problem in the field?”.
The many people having problems focusing on their schoolwork (or people who tend to worship “experts” too much) should try this if they don’t do this already – make the title into the question. It may often make the answer more intuitive and easier to learn.
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.
Courage
If you have a good idea which you tell the world – and there is a crowd of a million people to ridicule you for it, maybe there will be one among them that will not only understand, but be be able to make the million others understand and appreciate the idea too.
So do not be afraid to stand for what you know is true.
zacione 