Original thinkers, artists and spiritual figures often had some of their best insights in the wilderness, in periods of solitude, outside of bustling society. Distance from the current melees gives a person a better perspective of the whole picture. More generally, insiders of the throng who are unaware of their predicament are condemned to behave as they think they are supposed to, blind to anything more than the current array of behaviours, even in extreme cases where it is insane.
Tag: Philosophy
Journal 2020-10-29
All human beings are unique.
Uniqueness doesn’t have a category.
Categories confine a life to a label stamped on the head.
Categories are boxed, ordered and under control.
Categories deny humanity.
Journal 2020-10-28
Demanding how other people think is a type of violent control, asserting oneself over them; seeing the multifaceted world, with endless possibilities, through just one dimension.
Journal 2020-10-27
The whole song can be better heard by listening – rather than making and amplifying noise. The problem is the insistence on certainty, and building an identity around this, with everyone thinking they are always right. No matter how certain you think you are, even if momentarily touched with lucid insight, you are probably not completely right (yes, including this). There is no shame in not seeing everything or not understanding all the complexities and ramifications of all ends.
“Problems”
What to do when you have everything?
Want more.
Invent more problems.
Feel unsatisfied, waiting for an event in the future that never comes.
Fill the void with distractions and medications.
Become increasingly selfish, shallow and self-obsessed.
Worry about losing what you have.
Want what you have to be acknowledged as better than others.
And repeat…
(unless you can break this loop).
Journal 2020-08-11
Reading Hamlet.
It’s been done millions of times, but my instinctive interpretation of Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy is a bit different from the many performances I have seen. In fact it may be unhelpful seeing other people’s performances because the blueprints distract from my own relationship with the words.
Every single person has both uniqueness and a shared oneness with everybody else. What is interesting is finding the individuality and playing with it, rather than blandly mimicking other people or current socialised expectations.
Human Cyborg 2.0?
The implied current direction for the future is that all the functions of your phone will be migrated directly into your brain. The “screen” will be projected into your vision and options chosen by thoughts.
All vision, sound, thoughts and feelings could be recorded. You could download and replay any recording from your experiences, or indeed from any experience of anyone else. Communication by mindscapes would replace the spoken and written word.
Invented experiences could be created for you to replay or interact with.
Your perception of reality could be changed and selected thought patterns switched off.
Pleasure and pain sensations could be activated on demand.
Your thoughts could interact with an artificial intelligence that calculates the most efficient algorithm for any process you wish to undertake. You could instantly download data and skills; and have immensely augmented cognitive processing speeds.
Your mind could operate any physical body, humanoid or not. As only the brain would need to be maintained, you would potentially have ultra long life.
Of course a totalitarian regime could easily control their population by these means; and an empowered sadist would run amok in all the enslaved minds. Philosophically it makes me wonder what it is to be a human being, but in the realm of practicalities it makes me certain: humans must become worthy of the knowledge we are gaining.
Journal 2020-07-06
There is a greater chance of releasing the magic if not consumed by self-aggrandizement or conforming to other people’s expectations, especially if the current norms are harmful and wrong. Success in transcendent goals is not the same as success in negotiating positions of status in the current society, which of course will change with the relentless passage of time. It just so happens, however, that those people who were motivated mainly by intrinsic value, rather than their individual psychological desires, produced the best long-lasting examples of beauty and creative human potential.
The Colosseum
The Romans viewed the Colosseum as the zenith of civilisation, representing the natural order playing out, in tribute to the glory of the Gods. In the arena was unadulterated murder and torture for the entertainment of the baying crowds.
People two thousand years ago are us, just brought-up differently with different beliefs and living under different conditions.
Humanity has mostly now progressed to recognise the depraved evils that were socially accepted in previous times – yet a person of the time would have gone along with the accepted norm, assuming it was right because everyone else said it was right. They were wrong.
Unless you think we are currently at the zenith of civilisation, what are the great injustices of our time that are socially conditioned and accepted as normal justifiable behaviour?
Journal 2020-05-23
Like a virus, negativity will attack you in the world and attempt to feed on your energy. A thick skin is some defence, but is fragile and needs constant fierce protecting in a battle that will be eventually lost. Rather that becoming one of the infected, with it eating away at you from the inside and spreading or intensifying the infection of others, it is better to be immune.
When you don’t need validation by someone else’s good opinion, you have gained your freedom to be who you are. People have every right to have an opinion about you, but good or bad, it doesn’t make it true. You know what is true; it may be obscured under heavy ancient layers, but you are the one to know.
Enjoy and accept the positive when someone has sensed something in you that resonates in them. The truth is that you become immune when it is no longer about you.
Robert Walker 