This weekend, someone mentioned that he has been influenced a lot by Iain McGilchrist. I never heard of him. He has written some relatively famous books that are also very lengthy. YouTube to the rescue, and there you can find many lectures and interviews. I like many of his ideas; some of them are inspired by ancient wisdom and religions, and it has to do with the way people act and react in the world, but as a neuroscientist, he can look at the actual brain and see, in fact, what happens if you “turn off” the left or right part of the brain. His theory, in short, revolves around the idea that right-brain people are more thoughtful and left-brain people are more efficient without regard for the consequences. He argues that a balance is necessary and that there have been times when rulers, or the societies as a whole, were more in balance. It is interesting, and It is worth learning about it. There is an agenda for why he is pushing his ideas, and that has to do with the environment and how we destroy it and with the mindless rush for more power and money by a small elite that, in his mind, is on a trajectory to destroy the world.  

YouTube cannot be YouTube if it does not recommend other similar programs, and one of them was from another thinker and activist. His name is Daniel Schmachtenberg, and he is not only looking depressed, but his message is also depressing. Just watch the video, and you will know what I mean.

The thing is that I can understand what they say. The hard data is not lying, and though the world is always governed by people with little empathy, insight, and wisdom, the problem is now that besides the nuclear weapons that could kill us, it is now also possible to develop with the help of AI viruses that have the potential to kill us all. And climate change seems to be something that everybody tries to ignore. It might not affect us, but the story might be different in 50 to 100 years.

I don’t know what to do with this. I try to live my life as consciously as possible. I try not to pollute more than necessary and try to be thoughtful in my interactions with the people around me. I educate myself and think about ways to educate others. I like the idea of anarchism because it has the potential to take away the handful of leaders who always seem to mess it up for us. But all of this is child’s play, and the best thing it does is keeping my consciousness clean(ish). 

Friedrich Nietzsche 

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

First Part

Then the earth has become small, and on it hops the last human being, who makes everything small. His kind is ineradicable, like the flea beetle; the last human being lives longest.
‘We invented happiness’ – say the last human beings, blinking. They abandoned the regions where it was hard to live: for one needs warmth. One still loves one’s neighbor and rubs up against him: for one needs warmth.
Becoming ill and being mistrustful are considered sinful by them: one proceeds with caution. A fool who still stumbles over stones or humans!
A bit of poison once in a while; that makes for pleasant dreams. And much poison at the end, for a pleasant death.
One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one sees to it that the entertainment is not a strain.
One no longer becomes poor and rich: both are too burdensome. Who wants to rule anymore? Who wants to obey anymore? Both are too burdensome. No shepherd and one herd! Each wants the same, each is the same, and
whoever feels differently goes voluntarily into the insane asylum. ‘Formerly the whole world was insane’ – the finest ones say, blinking.
One is clever and knows everything that has happened, and so there is no end to their mockery. People still quarrel but they reconcile quickly – otherwise it is bad for the stomach. One has one’s little pleasure for the day and one’s little pleasure for the night: but one honors health.
‘We invented happiness’ say the last human beings, and they blink.”