mind

Day 3157, Hyper-ballad.

Daily picture, music

Björk


We live on a mountain right at the top
There’s a beautiful view from the top of the mountain
Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like car parts, bottles, and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying aroundIt’s become a habit
A way to start the day

I go through all this before you wake up
So I can feel happier to be safe up here with you
I go through all this before you wake up
So I can feel happier to be safe up here with you

It’s early morning, no one is awake
I’m back at my cliff, still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make on their way down
I follow with my eyes till they crash
I imagine what my body would sound like
Slamming against those rocks

And when it lands
Will my eyes be closed or open?

I go through all this before you wake up
So I can feel happier to be safe up here with you
I go through all this before you wake up
So I can feel happier to be safe up here with you
I go through all this before you wake up
So I can feel happier to be safe up here with you

Safe up here with you
Safe up here with you
Safe up here with you
Safe up here with you
Safe up here with you
Safe up here with you
Safe up here with you
Safe up here with you

Day 3156, conundrum.

Daily picture, My thoughts

I am in a conundrum. I don’t believe that we have free will. What I mean by this is that we are born into certain circumstances that determine who we are for the rest of our lives. If you are a curious toddler, you will probably be curious for the rest of your life, especially when it is encouraged. If you don’t like learning history at school because it didn’t interest you, you might never pick up a history book in your free time when you are an adult. We are all different but stay the same for most of our lives. Remember your old friend, the one you have not seen in 30 years, there’s not much changed underneath besides the clothes and 30 years of history they wear. 

So, I don’t believe in free will and that it is possible to really change another person. We are all a certain way; we have a character and a personality that is recognizable and belongs exclusively to us. We don’t change easily, like our eating habits or how to quit smoking, though that last one borders on an addictive personality that you will never get rid of; you can only replace this bad habit with another in most cases.

There is no free will, so I am doomed to try to figure out through study how we function and find a method to change the other. I am unsure if I want to change the other; many philosophers study life for the sake of studying and acquiring knowledge. I tell myself that I do it just for fun, like an addiction; I know theoretically that I can’t change others because we are determined, and I also live a life. I have a girlfriend, colleagues, and family, and am a boss. None of these people listen to what I want them to do. They just oblige me sometimes till I am around the corner again. 

I cannot tell someone to have some discipline because discipline helped me through some rough spots in life if these people I want to help have no discipline. I cannot tell a coworker to be more accurate when they have never been accurate; I can only find another job for them to do. 

The funny thing is that these kinds of awareness were already there three or four thousand years ago. People have always tried to find ways to make all of us better by offering wise tips on how to live a good life. They did this through secular means, and some religions even try to improve society here on Earth through helpful tips and tricks. And we live better together now than three thousand years ago, not by much, but we do. But I don’t think it comes because of the so-called lessons we have learned from history through actively studying it, with conclusions that we can use to teach the next generations. I think we learned like we do when we live in a new house, when we go to the toilet at night in the dark and bump our toes and knees at random corners. After a while, we avoid the corners while we sleepwalk to where we can relieve ourselves. 

Humanity learns to walk like a baby does, and what can you teach a baby? You can only encourage it with gestures and sounds because the rest has no meaning to them.  

Day 3155, hunter-gatherers.

Daily picture, My thoughts

They say that hunter-gatherers lived a pretty healthy life. They walked a lot, saw a lot, ate many different kinds of food, and, most of all, they lived in small groups. They moved from one era to the next, leaving enough animals and plants behind so they could return a few seasons later or another tribe could move in. Even among hunter-gatherers, there were centers of worship and meeting places, but no one stayed long enough to claim a throne or dictate a need. You might say that we all should live like that now, in 2024, with no large-scale politics, wars, or large companies where you are not more than a replaceable drone. 

I suspected a problem, and that is space. If I remember correctly, a group of roaming gatherers and hunters needs around 400 times more space for their food supply than an agricultural society. 

I asked the AI and this was the answer it gave: “Estimating the number of hunter-gatherers that could live on Earth involves various factors, including available resources, land use, and population density. Historically, hunter-gatherer societies typically required large territories to sustain themselves, as they relied on wild plants and animals for food.

Research suggests that a sustainable hunter-gatherer population density might range from 1 to 10 people per square mile, depending on the environment and resources available. Given the Earth’s land area of about 57 million square miles, this could imply a potential population of anywhere from approximately 57 million to over 570 million hunter-gatherers, assuming all land is equally suitable for such a lifestyle. However, it’s important to note that this is a theoretical estimate and does not account for current land use, urbanization, and agricultural practices that dominate today’s world”.

So, even if this answer is not completely accurate, it makes sense that no more than half a billion people could live as hunter-gatherers. There is no way that we can go back, even if we wanted. It would be a cool movie if we tried it. Maybe the other 7 billion go into hibernation with a VR set on, and we take turns. The movie should play a thousand years after we started this experiment. Can you imagine the overgrown cities where only the libraries are lit and airconditioned so all the knowledge we once had is still there to cherish and ignore as we do now? 

Day 3154, current.

Daily picture, My thoughts, Poetry, Quotes 
We've all been in a line
upwards 
to a horizon
counting the steps we take
as if we count for something

Infinity was, for a long time, a philosophical concept. We now live our lives as if we live forever, having a handful of genuine experiences at the end, where the rest is just meaningless time between these events, meaningless like a single drop is in a stream going down, part of it all but also not. We live as if life has no value because we still cannot believe that this is it; you don’t wash away hundreds of generations of indoctrination in the big promise of an afterlife or reincarnation.

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Day 3153, democracy.

Daily picture, My thoughts

They say that democracy is the best of all the bad ways of governing a large group of people.

It is mainly known as a quote from Churchill, but in the full quote, he admits that the source is unknown to him: “Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…” (Churchill by himself)

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Day 3152, yardstick.

Daily picture, Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

Daybreak
Book II

139 Said to be higher! – You say that the morality of pity is a higher morality than that of stoicism? Prove it! but note that ‘higher’ and ‘ lower’ in morality is not to be measured by a moral yardstick: for there is no absolute morality. So take your yardstick from elsewhere and – watch out!

Day 3148, eternity.

Daily picture, Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The Seven Seals (or the yes and amen song)

3 If ever one breath came to me of the creative breath and of that heavenly need that constrains even accidents to dance star-dances; if I ever laughed the laughter of creative lightning which is followed obediently but grumblingly by the long thunder of the deed; if I ever played dice with gods at the gods’ table, the earth, till the earth quaked and burst and snorted up floods of fire-for the earth is a table for gods and trembles with creative new words and gods’ throws: Oh, how should I not lust after eternity and after the nuptial ring of rings, the ring of recurrence? Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love: for I love you, 0 eternity. For I love you, 0 eternity!

Day 3144, many.

Daily picture, Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

Daybreak
Book II

1 25 On the ‘realm of freedom‘. – We can think many, many more things than we can do or experience – that is to say, our thinking is superficial and content with the surface; indeed, it does not notice that it is the surface. If our intellect had evolved strictly in step with our strength and the extent to which we exercise our strength, the dominant principle of our thinking would be that we can understand only that which we can do – if understanding is possible at all. A man is thirsty and cannot get water, but the pictures his thought produces bring water ceaselessly before his eyes, as though nothing were easier to procure – the superficial and easily satisfied character of the intellect cannot  grasp the actual need and distress, and yet it feels superior; it is proud of being able to do more, to run faster, to be at its goal almost in a twinkling – and thus it is that the realm of thought appears to be, in comparison with the realm of action, willing and experience, a realm of freedom: while in reality it is, as aforesaid, only a realm of surfaces and self-satisfaction.